Hi all--here is the sermon from this past Sunday. The text is 1 Samuel 8, where the people demand a king like all the other nations, rather than to be ruled by God alone as in the judge system.In the days before Israel had a king, Israel was ruled by a series of judges. A judge was very different from a king and indeed very different from any kind of government that we might practice or recognize today. The book of Judges gives us some insight into who judges were and what they did.
One of the themes of the Old Testament was the wickedness of Israel. Certainly, they were God’s chosen people, but that didn’t mean they were any less wicked than anyone else. In fact, we often get a picture of Israel as being very forgetful of God; and when they would forget what was right and what was wrong, they would start doing evil, and then their evil would lead them into the hand of a foreign nation. Then, when they were oppressed, God would raise up a person who would lead them out of their oppression. That deliverer would then be given the right to judge the people of Israel; that is, when they had disputes, they would be responsible for handling the disputes between people. But their primary role was not to decide disputes; their primary role was to be this kind of God-anointed figure who delivered Israel.
In a way, judges were very much in the pattern of Moses. When the people of Israel were in slavery for four hundred ninety years in Egypt, Moses was anointed by God to rise up and defeat the Egyptians. And after that, Moses became the de facto leader of Israel. People came to him to ask for God’s word in the dispute what they were having. In fact, so many people kept coming to him for solutions to the disputes that Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro, advised Moses to create a new system where there were a number of levels that people had to go through; you went to the lowest court first, then a higher one, then a higher one, and eventually if your case still was undecided you still could get to Moses. So Moses technically did do some actual judging of disputes, but Moses’ most important role was serving as a deliverer, and a leader who was anointed by God to lead over a very loose system of governance.
And so the judges kind of followed the pattern set down by Moses. Their time of ruling was started when they threw off the foreign oppression, and then they would serve kind of as the voice of God for the nation, helping to seek God’s will in disputes, etc. And yet, they did not function primarily as actual judges, but as anointed figures over the very loose federation of tribes and families that made up the people of Israel. In the judge system, it was very important that the people take responsibility for seeking God and living life on their own. There was no king to set a national religion and there was no state leader to make people worship in a certain way. There was no national system of governance that laid down rules for everybody. So it fell to people to really take it seriously and take responsibility for their religious practice and their way of life.
Now, like I say, it’s a very foreign system to us, very different than anything we know. But there is something beautiful and noble about this system. It’s kind of wild west, kind of vigilante, but still life under the judge system is unique and different and beautiful. In the judge system, the only true king is God; and each of the twelve tribes, and ultimately, each family within those tribes, had their own responsibility for interpreting and applying God’s law. In this system, people have to take responsibility for their own actions; if people want to screw it up, they can screw it up. If they want to make it work, they can make it work in a beautiful way because they are not taking orders from an earthly king, but directly from God. That’s what’s so beautiful about it–it gives the individual a chance to follow God directly; if they do, it works; if they don’t, and pursue what they want to do, it breaks down. In 12-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, each group meeting closes with the group saying, “Keep coming back. It works if you work it.” In other words, the program works if you commit to it and commit to making it work. The judge system is very much like that; it works if the people work it. If people want to be sleazy and misguided, and seek their own way instead of the Lord’s, it’s not going to work. If people, however, want to seek after God, in the judge system they can do this and live a better life than they ever could with God as their king.
Now flash forward a few hundred years and we’re looking at Samuel. Samuel was the last judge of Israel; and they were seeking another judge. But Samuel’s sons, his logical successors, were not godly men. We read in verse 3 that they “turned aside after gain,” having abandoned God to pursue something more lucrative. Specifically, they had accepted bribes and they perverted justice. This was not a trait Israel wanted in their new judge.
So they cry out to Samuel for a different system. They say, “We want a king to lead us.” Now please note: this was not something well thought out. This was a gut reaction. This was not, “After careful thought and prayerful reflection, we think a king is the best choice for our nation.” No, they say “We want a king to lead us, like other nations.” Israel here is not much different than the kid who has to have something because everybody else has it; everyone else has a king, and we’re tired of having all this responsibility in the judge system. Can’t we just have a king like everyone else?
Now Samuel doesn’t really like the idea. And it’s quite natural he doesn’t like the idea. Because for Israel to become like all the other nations, for Israel to have a king, means that they’d be surrendering the beauty of the judge system, which is that the people really have to take responsibility for themselves. This beautiful way of living with God as the direct king, without having to support a monarchy, etc., would simply die out if they had a king. Now, if they have a king, the king will just set the religion, for better or for worse, and people will lose their responsibility in the matter. So Samuel doesn’t like it, and he prays and he tells God as much.
But we read that God said to Samuel, “Listen to the people; because they are not rejecting you, Samuel; they are rejecting me.” God said that this is what the people have always done to him; they have forsaken him to follow other gods. And actually having a king is just kind of a way of making official what has been going on in their hearts for years. In their hearts, Samuel, they’ve taken me off the throne long ago; now they’re just going to make it official by putting a human king on the throne. But before you anoint a king, Samuel, you need to solemnly warn them about what they’re getting themselves into in the name of being like everyone else. You need to tell them exactly what’s going to happen if they give away this unique way of living that I have given them just to be like everyone else around them.
And so Samuel does. He says, “I will anoint your king if you want. But this is what will happen if I do that: the king will take your sons and put them into wars where they will die. He will take other sons and make them plow his fields and harvest his crops. He will take other sons and make them make swords and chariots for war. He will take your daughters and force them to make perfume, force them to cook and bake for the castle. He will take the best of your produce, the grapes and the olives, and give them to those in his castle. He will take your slaves from you, and he will take your cattle and donkeys and use them himself. He will take 1/10 of your flocks, and some of you will even have to serve as his slaves. And there will come a day where you will regret having a king over you, but the Lord will not bail you out then.”
And we read that the people will not listen to Samuel. They say, “No! We are determined to have a king over us, because we want to be like other nations. We want him to govern us rather than having God govern us; we want him to fight our battles rather than having God fight our battles.” Finally, the Lord says to Samuel, “Give them what they want; give them their king.”
In this story, the people of Israel find themselves in a pretty difficult spot. I’m not saying that all of their decisions were easy at all. The judge system worked well at times, but I can just imagine some people of good will arguing that they needed bigger government, that they were becoming a bigger nation now and so they needed a bigger government. The issue was complex, it had many facets; I’m sure it was a difficult decision.
Yet they needed to decide between two systems and compromise was impossible. There was either the judge system, that was rather an adventure, that depended on the people working together and following God, and there were pros and cons to that. When it worked, it worked well, but people are people and they fail and sometimes the people fell into oppression. And then there was the kingship system, and there were pros and cons to that: there was added security, added respectability, but also a huge added cost to the people in supporting a king in terms of people who would just have to be devoted to him. It was a complex, difficult decision for the people.
But it is clear that while it was a difficult decision, there was a right choice and a wrong choice.
For the people to choose an earthly king meant that they did not trust God to fight their battles as much as they trusted a human king to fight their battles. In the old days, the people trusted that God would deliver them in battle; like God delivered them from Egypt, like God delivered them at the battle of Jericho. God would always provide someone to come forward, to save the day and to deliver them. But to choose a human king meant that they didn’t want to live this way anymore, didn’t want to live in this attitude of trust. Instead, they wanted a military they could see, a professional military, a respectable military, like all the other nations had. Then they would be really respected. Of course, to choose that way of life was to choose against the way God had for them. It is a difficult decision, to be sure, but one with a right choice and a wrong choice. That is kind of Samuel’s point: you think that you’ll be so much freer and more respected and happier with a king, but you don’t know what it’s going to cost you.
It is something similar to the difficult decision we all face as followers of Christ every day. Upon rising in the morning, you and I have a decision to make: will I live today as a follower of Christ? Will I live in this unique and beautiful way that God has given his children to live? Or will I be like everybody else?
It might sound like a simple decision; why would anyone sacrifice the beauty of the God-centered life to be like everybody else? And yet people do. And not just any people; people like you and me, every day, foolishly sacrifice the beautiful gift that God gives us in order to be like the rest of the world. In essence, we have this stubborn capability to be like the people of Israel–to put God off the throne of our lives because the desire to be like others is so strong.
Let me give you an example: I love to watch TV preachers. Not because I always like them–often I really disagree with them. In fact, sometimes I watch TV preachers because I think what they say is so silly that I like to think that I’m a better preacher than them. And sometimes, I’ll be doing this, watching a TV preacher, and thinking, “Boy, am I glad I’m better than that guy–more respectable, too; I wouldn’t be resorting to cheap emotional ploys like he is;” or whatever. And then, out of left field, he’ll say something so profound and so on the money and so right that I say, “Wow, that’s really great. I should try to work that into a sermon sometime.” But then I think, “No, I couldn’t do that. Because I don’t want to tell people I had to steal it from a TV preacher, because I want to be more respectable than that.”
Do you see how insidious this is, this desire to be like others? I couldn’t help but think of my dad this Father’s Day. As a kid, I was the worst athlete ever and I’d always decide to sign up for these sports and then I would be terrible at them and I’d want to quit. And he would say, “We don’t quit things. Other kids might, but you don’t because you’re different.” That sense of being different is one of the greatest gifts my dad gave me. In fact, in 9th grade, I played basketball and I was having a truly miserable time, even worse than all the other sports. My dad finally cracked and told me I could quit—but I decided not to. I stuck it out. Guess I was learning to like being different than all the other kids.
We talk about it with kids, how kids do foolish things with alcohol and drugs because of peer pressure. But anyone who thinks it ends when you grow up is either blind or fooling themselves. It also is a mistake to think it has nothing to do with religion. It does. Many decisions in our life, many more than we often think about, are moral decisions: the homes we live in, the cars we drive reflect our priorities with the financial resources God has given us. The food we eat and the food we don’t eat reflects our attitude toward the body God has given us to care for the world. The amount of time we spend working, the amount of time we spend playing, and the amount of time we spend worshiping all reflect our attitude toward the limited time God has given us and how we should spend that time. Our money, our time, our food are all moral decisions; and sometimes we make good moral decisions and sometimes we make bad ones. But we cannot miss the fact that there is an advertising industry telling you that certain ways of spending your money are respectable; you don’t want people to look at you and think you’re some cheapskate. Certain ways of spending your time are respectable; you can belong to a church, but not one of those wacko churches where the pastor might say something embarrassing and the choir might hit a wrong note. I’ll be honest–when I hear about a wacko church, I don’t want to belong to it even before I know if what it teaches is true. I don’t even care if they teach the truth, I’m just afraid of belonging to the wrong group. Even certain ways of eating are respectable; don’t you want to drink the cola that won a national taste test? Don’t you want to eat America’s #1 fast-food hamburger?
It was difficult for the nation of Israel to see that by wanting to be like everybody else so much, they ended up taking God off the throne and putting respectability there. What God was doing, what God had done, had become less important than fitting in with what other people were doing. Now this was 3100 years ago. 3100 years ago, news traveled slowly. There wasn’t a way to know always what was going on in the surrounding nations. Still, even as isolated as they were, it was important to Israel to be like other nations. If that was true 3100 years ago, how much more difficult is it now when there are so many ways to find out what other people are doing so we can copy them? Keeping God on the throne, being willing to be ruled by God alone, is not an easy task. In our culture, we must take active steps to guard our hearts. We must commit to corporate worship and private prayer. We must make time for Christian education–maybe by joining a Sunday School class when they get going again, or a Bible study. We must be increasingly aware of the moral decisions we make everyday.
God has given us this beautiful way of living, a way of living that is echoed in the judges. Living each day with God’s presence as a reality, taking our cues from him. But, like the nation of Israel, we can live this beautiful life fully only if we are willing to worship him first rather than trying to be like everyone else.
