The Israelites had moved into the Promised Land, but had not fully taken possession of it, rather punching a hole into the heart of it. This meant they were surrounded by enemies, which caused problems throughout the book of Judges.
The last judge was Samuel, a prophet who communicated directly with God. But Samuel was getting old, and could no longer travel as a “circuit judge” as he had in the past. He passed his responsibilities to his sons, but they turned out to be dishonest and oppressive.
It was a time of instability, with the Philistines taking tribute and the looming death of Samuel threatening to upend the current rickety peace.
Instead of turning to God in this time of instability, the Israelites demanded a king. This offended Samuel, but why? The concept of a king had been predicted as far back as Abraham, with the specific indication that a king would be set up when Israel came into the land.
But it wasn’t the “what” they asked for, but the “why.” They looked at Samuel as a secular leader rather than as the conduit for the will of God. Humans have a tendency to elevate people too highly when they succeed, and chop them off at the knees when things aren’t going well. We do this are the expense of following God. Israel could have asked Samuel what God’s plan was for leadership, but instead they came up with their own panicky plan.
They asked for a king “as the other nations have.” They wanted to fit in rather than stand out as God’s chosen people. It was not too different from the constant temptation of the idols of the surrounding peoples. They wanted the easy life of sight rather than the difficult life of faith.
So Samuel takes the request to the Lord, who tells him not to reject the request outright, but instead to outline the trouble with Kings. Humans are self serving by default, and combining that with the power of a king, then you get a nation focused on the whims of a narcissist.
Short term, they will be able to point to a monarch who represents the nation rather than an invisible deity. Long term, though, it will mean only trouble.
The king described by Samuel is very different than the one described in Deuteronomy 17, where it is made clear that the kingship is not about wealth and pleasure, but about serving God and the people.
But after all these predictions, the people still demanded a king. They wanted earthly stability over heavenly faith. And so God does the most terrifying thing we can imagine: He gave the people what they wanted.
The book of Samuel was compiled in its final form around the time of the exile. There was a clear view of the tragedy of kingship from that time. Saul was a failure, David a (very) qualified success, Solomon somewhere in between, and after that it was largely chaos and tragedy the rest of the way.
God gave the people what they wanted in part in order to contrast earthly kingship more starkly with the ultimate plan and ultimate kingship in the person of Christ. And yet, when He came, the people again chose stability over faith.
Jesus was popular when he was giving things to the people (bread, fish, healing), to the extent that at one point they tried to make him king by force. But when he explained that he himself was the bread of life, that he came to rule a spiritual kingdom rather than an earthly one, the people turned on him just as they did in 1 Samuel.
We are surrounded by leaders who fail us constantly. No human can fill that innate need that we have, no more than it could for the Israelites. Do we spend more time fretting about earthly leadership, or seeking the will of our heavenly king? Our desire for stability drives us to seek the answers in the world around us, but in the end, faith in Christ is the only stable rock upon which we can ground our life.
-Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, September 10, 2017
1 Samuel 8:1-22
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