Sermon Transcript
1 Samuel 8:4-20. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for 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. And Samuel prayed to the Lord, And the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them, according to all the deeds that they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so that they are also doing to you.
Now then, obey their voice. Only you shall solemnly warn them and show them that the ways of the king who shall reign over them. So Samuel told them all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipments of his chariots.
He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the 10th of your grain and of your vineyards and give it— or he will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys and put them to his work. He will take the 10th of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves.
But the Lord will not answer you in that day. But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, no, but there shall be a king over us, that we may also be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.
One of our elders, I won’t say who because I didn’t ask if I could use this story, it’s not incriminating, don’t worry, but he made an offhand comment in one of our meetings, the best form of government, if you could pull it off somehow, the best form of government would be to have a good king. Unfortunately, of course, there’s no way to guarantee you will get a good king, And if you get a bad king, and you often do, then a monarchy is the worst form of government. And there is certainly truth in that observation. We here in the U.S., by God’s grace and by some fantastic leaders nearly 250 years ago, have never been under the rule of a king. If you’ve seen the Hamilton musical, When King George sings his song that is my favorite song in the musical, you know, You’ll Be Back, he tells the colonies like, you’ll be back, you’ll miss me, you’ll come back to my rule someday.
Well, he was wrong, right? We never did. We never went back. In fact, what our founders came up with so long ago, it worked so well that it helped to undermine and diminish the power of of England’s monarchy. And today, of course, right, democracy has spread around the world and it generally wins out over every other system of government.
So we have very little experience with kings and thrones and sovereign authority as a political system. But that does not mean that we don’t have functional kings in our lives, that we don’t serve something as if it has complete authority over us. We do. We all serve something as if it were a king. So as we look at this text today, which is about kings in the Old Testament and Israel asking for a king, it is not as far removed from our experience as we might think that it is.
In fact, as we study, we will see the desire for a king, which we all have, the problem with kings, which they all have, and then the true King. The desire for a king, the problem with kings, and then the true King. So first, the desire for a king is really a desire for peace and security. Israel cries out here, verse 4, and then verse 20, that they want a king. And specifically, they say they want a king, verse 20, who may judge us and may go out before us and fight our battles.
So the reason they say they want a king is because they want, one, a judge, and two, a competent military leader. It may sound strange that they would want a judge. You’d be like, why would anybody want to be judged? But what that means is simply that they understand they have problems as a nation. Like internal problems, disputes among the people, and they want someone who’s going to fix all that and someone who’s going to do that fairly.
They want internal peace across their nation. They don’t want their neighbor to be able to rob them and get away with it. If somebody is cheating or being greedy, they know in order to have justice, they will need a judge, and they want justice. They want an authority who will bring peace and stability. So, that’s one thing they want from a king.
And then, of course, they want someone who will fight their battles, which would include both defeating threats that come against the nation and also in that day going out and conquering other nations. So, in other words, they wanted a king who would lead them to greater and greater power and influence in the region and across the world. So, they wanted prosperity, Security, advancing the nation, securing the borders, military conquest, or just favorable trade relations, you know, that get them into a better position than everyone else around them. That’s what they wanted, which means they wanted the same things we want: security, peace, prosperity, problems solved, threats eliminated, wealth, no worries. That is what we want.
And sometimes, like Israel, we look to a human leader to provide those for us. That’s pretty much what we hear from presidential candidates every 4 years. Doesn’t matter which candidate it is, whoever it is always promises peace at home, prosperity abroad, right? Which would be a pretty good campaign slogan if you happen to be running for office. You can have it.
For free this morning. So some of us may believe if we got the right leader elected, we would get all of those things. That’s some of us. But more frequently, our desire for peace and security reaches out and trusts something other than a political leader. When we feel afraid, when we feel unstable, Maybe our job is in jeopardy, our health is in jeopardy, our family is in jeopardy.
We all reach to something to give ourselves a sense of stability. And it might be a political leader, we’ll talk more about that in a second, but often we will say something like, I’m gonna be okay because, how do you finish that sentence? Because I’m gonna work all these extra hours. I’m gonna be okay because I have the best healthcare plan in the world. I’m gonna be okay because even if this relationship doesn’t work out, I’ll find one that does.
We run to something in this world to provide us with peace and security, and whether we are Christians or not, we probably all trust in very similar things to stabilize ourselves. We have to calm ourselves down somehow. If we are anxious, and we will latch on to whatever it is that we believe is stable. That’s what Israel was doing. Give us a king so we can have internal peace and external prosperity.
Now, where would they get that idea that a king could do that for them? Where do you get the idea that a relationship or a job or a certain waistline can give you the peace that you think that you want. Where do you get those ideas? We get them by looking at everybody else. We look at our friends on social media and the cool things they’re doing, and we say, I would like that.
I need that. We get the idea by looking at our coworker who was promoted and then can buy the house, and we say, that looks pretty good. In just the same way, Israel says, verse 20, give us a king that we may be like all the other nations. Israel was looking around at how everyone else seemed to achieve security, stability, peace, and all those nations had a king, so that’s what they thought they needed too. And frankly, there’s a little bit of truth in that.
A king does provide a good deal of certainty. You know who’s in charge. If you have a problem, you know where to go. If there’s an enemy at the gate, it’s up to the king what to do about it. And if you had a good king, you probably would have victories over other nations.
So Israel says, give us a king that we may be like everyone else. The sad part is Israel was not supposed to be like everyone else. They were supposed to be different, set apart, distinct, supposed to trust God to be their king, supposed to trust God to be their peace, their stability, their safety. They should have felt okay in the world simply because they belonged to Him, period. And if they had trusted Him in that way, then they would have been able to show the greatness of God to all the other nations.
They would have been a light to the world, which is what they were supposed to be, but they didn’t want that. Instead of influencing other nations around them to hope in God, They let all these other nations influence them to hope in not God. Rather than being the leader, they became followers. They wanted to be just like everyone else. So, they reject God as their king.
Verse 7, God tells Samuel, they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Israel wanted to run to the arms of another. Now, what’s the problem with that? What’s the problem with looking for security and stability in something other than God since it kind of works? What’s the problem with kings who are not God?
The problem is they rob instead of provide. That’s the problem. Israel peers over the fence at all the other nations who have a king and they think, wow, that looks great. Let’s have that. It is very alluring to trust in something tangible for peace and security.
You know, for us, we think, I’m going to be okay because of my education, my experience. Those things are concrete. We think it’s a solid place to stand. But it’s a little bit like bait on a hook. We only see the shiny bit.
We don’t see the sharp bit. And Israel did not see what a king would cost them. Looking at all the nations, they didn’t see the problems that a king brings. So Samuel, tells them. Samuel explains to the people exactly the problem with a king, verses 11 to 18.
He says, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots to be his horsemen, and he will appoint for himself some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take a 10th of your grain, of your vineyards, and give it to his officers and his servants.
He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and of your donkeys and put them to work in his field. He will take a 10th of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
Samuel says, this king will crush you. This king will rob from you. Maybe there will be a measure of peace and security, but it is going to eat you alive. That thing you hoped in that would be your salvation, that will actually end up enslaving you. That’s what Samuel predicts.
And historically, it really happened. That’s what their kings did. Those of you in BSF right now, you’re learning about the kings. They were not fantastic sacrificial leaders. They were selfish.
They were sinful. Even Solomon, who was the king who expanded Israel’s borders to its farthest extent and created a type of prosperity and influence that Israel has really never seen since, even him, even Solomon, after he died, some of his officials came up to his successor and they said, hey, can you not push on us as hard as your dad did? Can you lay off a bit? The burden Solomon put on us was— it was too much. Can you give us a break?
Solomon’s successor says, no, I’m going to push you even harder, and then the kingdom divides. But the point is what they hoped in for salvation, for peace, security in these kings, it came at a cost. The king robbed from them as much or more than he gave to them. So, Solomon says, if you’re hoping in something other than God to be your stability, it’s going to end up being a net negative for you. A king will kind of work, but there’s a hook in that bait.
And don’t we know that? Haven’t we experienced that? If you are trusting in your career to give you a sense of security, can you ever work long enough hours that you really feel totally secure? Isn’t true peace always a little bit beyond you? Isn’t there always another loose end you need to tie up?
Isn’t there always someone who does better than you and gets what you want? Always? Isn’t there always another performance review that pushes you off balance? And if career isn’t your thing, but if you feel like you need to be in a relationship to feel secure, maybe you feel awkward when you’re not in a relationship, you feel insecure. Incomplete if you don’t have a relationship.
When that day comes that you actually are in a relationship, does it provide what you thought it would? Or are you instantly anxious that you’ll lose it, anxious that you’ll mess it up somehow? Doesn’t true peace remain just out of reach, right? If you’re trusting in your waistline, isn’t there somebody who walks by who always makes you feel bad about yourself even if you attained what you thought you needed? Isn’t that always the case?
And since this text here specifically talks about peace and security through a national leader, let’s talk about that. We are 2 years out from another presidential election, and it might take 2 years to prepare our hearts as Christians for that event. The last election, 2020, some of you may remember, There were moments I thought we were going to rip ourselves apart as a country and even a congregation in some instances. Brotherhood, sisterhood in Christ didn’t seem to count for much if the person was on the other side of the aisle, and I would prefer not to go through that again, which means we need to prepare our hearts. So let me just ask you, if you hung your hopes on the guy who won in 2020, Did you find peace?
Everything working out for you? You feel settled and stable?
And if your guy didn’t win in 2020, just go back to 4 years when the guy who you thought must win won.
Were you pretty calm from 2016 to 2020? Would you say peace reigned in your heart during those 4 years? Did you feel nice and settled while he was in office? Of course not. Of course you didn’t because there is no peace there.
You can’t hang your hope there. You can’t. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be involved. You should be involved. You should be informed.
Of course you should be part of the process. That’s your duty and your privilege. Praise God for democracy and we get to be a part of it, but listen, If you have your ear to the ground all the time listening to what’s happening on the political scene and you believe XYZ must happen or all will be lost, you know, the country will disintegrate, if XYZ is your hope, you will never find hope. It is not there. It will crush you.
It will rob from you. How does your soul feel when you’re all wrapped up in all of that? How is your heart after listening to political coverage hour after hour, night after night? How’s your heart? It’s stealing from you.
It’s making you its slave. Can’t you see that? It’s diminishing you. You are becoming less, not more.
So, that’s what Samuel tells the people. This king you want, this thing other than God where you are hanging your hopes for peace and security, it is going to end up crushing you and robbing from you. That’s what Samuel warns.
But then what do the people say? Studying this text is just devastating. Because Samuel has outlined exactly what would happen if they had a king. And then the people say, we don’t care. We want a king anyway.
Verse 19, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, no, there shall be a king over us. They doubled down. They couldn’t let go of it. They were asking God for it, essentially, by asking Samuel. Even though the king would crush them and rob from them, they demand to have one.
They plead with God, essentially, to give them the thing that will crush them. And this is why this passage is so devastating to read. It’s like they were addicts. If you go back to the thing that emptied you in hopes that it will fill you, You’re an addict.
If you know the thing is robbing from you but you still go back to it, you’re an addict. They were addicts. Have you watched someone make those kind of decisions? Maybe it was someone going back to a relationship that was hurting them, or maybe it was actually a substance addiction, and every time they use more, they run themselves further and further into the ground. Have you seen someone do that?
It’s heartbreaking to watch because it’s so obviously killing them, but they keep going back for more.
But here’s the thing, do we not see that we’re the same, that we are the same? Because what is the thing in our hearts that we believe we must have or all will be lost, that thing that we’re totally consumed trying to get? But the more that we pursue it, the more empty we become. What is that thing? Career, relationship, status, recognition, approval, promotion, comfort, sports championship, political victory.
How many times have those failed to fill us? How tired are we of pursuing them? How many compromises have we made in order to try to secure them? How many things have we done that we said we would never do in order to attain them? How many people have we hurt in service to our king?
If career is our king, we’ll be tempted to fudge our resume. We’ll cross ethical lines to get a promotion. If relationship is our king, we’ll be tempted to go along with whatever our date desires, no matter if it involves breaking promises that we made to ourselves or to God. If comfort is our king, we’ll believe that we need more and more extravagance, likely at the cost of being generous to others. If political victory is our king, we’ll burn relationships with people from the other side of the aisle.
We will do anything for our king, and yet we will never be whole.
Those kings demand more and more and more, but they never deliver.
But if it really is our king, just like an addict, we will continue to pursue it. We will continue to go back. We will act as if it is the answer that we need. It’s Proverbs 26:11, as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly. We’ll even pray for it.
We’ll ask God for the vomit. Like the Israelites, we ask God to give it to us over and over and over again. Now, here’s the question. If we continue to ask God for something that will never satisfy us, what do you think he’ll say? What would you want him to say?
If getting the thing we’re asking for will ultimately disappoint us, should he grant it? Would you want him to?
We may assume that He wouldn’t, that He would spare us that, but that is not what happens in this passage. It is a little shocking when the people say they want someone other than God to be their king, God says, okay, and gives them one. It is like, hey, God, we want to place our ultimate hope in someone other than You, so can You go ahead and give us that thing? They’re asking God if they could be idolatrous, and God says, okay. He gives them a king.
It’s terrifying God would do that. It’s terrifying God would grant our idolatry, that God would grant us that much free will. So, warning, if God gives us the deepest longing of our hearts that isn’t Him, if He does grant that request, it may not be the blessing that we think it is, that promotion, that relationship, that political leader, that good doctor’s report, that sports victory. Sure, it sparkles for a minute, but if it is our ultimate hope, that’s okay to enjoy all of those things. Great, those gifts, enjoy them.
But if it is our ultimate hope where we are really hanging our peace and security, and without it we can’t have peace and security, if it is our ultimate hope, there is death in that cup. It won’t deliver. It will disappoint. A much better prayer would be, God, please only give me this thing if it’ll give me more of you. And if getting this thing will diminish my hope in you, or if it will diminish my ability to show you to others, to be a light for you, then I don’t want it.
Don’t give it to me. That would be a better prayer. But that is not what Israel prayed. Instead, they wanted the thing that would erode their peace and security. That’s the problem with a king.
It’s hurting us. We believe it’ll be liberation, but really, we only become further enslaved. Which is why we need the true King.
There is a King who gives instead of takes, who frees instead of enslaves, who comes for us and liberates us even though we have rejected Him. And more than that, there is a King who will break the attachment we have for our false kings, who will change the very thing that we hope in, That’s really the biggest battle that we need Him to fight for us because we love and we continue to serve these false kings even after they have hurt us. We have deep attachments to them. It’s hard to get free. We need help, all of us, Christian or not.
Even if we know it’s a dead end to look for peace and security in a relationship or a career or someone’s approval, even if we know that, it’s hard to stop hoping in it. If the promotion we pined over for months ends up going to someone else and we feel worthless, it’s hard to stop feeling worthless. It’s hard. Even if we tell ourselves, I shouldn’t have been so wrapped up in getting this thing, it’s hard not to be wrapped up in it. If the pathology report is terrifying, it’s hard to find peace.
It’s hard. Our hearts really do cling to anything other than God for peace and security, even though we know we shouldn’t hope in them. It is hard to stop hoping in them. It is hard to let go. We are trapped in a sense.
The king that we have chosen to serve has captured us and we can’t get free. We are addicts who can’t get out of the cycle, so we need a king who can change what we hope in. We need a King who will overpower our hearts so that we are no longer bound to these false hopes that have enslaved us. We need a King who, even though we have asked Him to provide us with a different king, we need Him not to listen to our prayer and come be our King anyway.
Like Israel, they weren’t asking for God, they were specifically asking for not God. They had rejected God, which blew up in their face, of course. So, now what did they need? They needed a king who would liberate even though He had been rejected by the ones He came to save. They needed a king who, though they didn’t seek Him, He would seek them.
That is what we need too. God promises to be such a king. Isaiah 60:61, God says, there will come a time when I will break all the chains. I will set up a good and majestic rule, really kind of in spite of you. I’m going to do it anyway.
And then when Jesus shows up, He says He is that liberator. The true King is Jesus, of course. Jesus publicly reads Scripture in Luke 4. He quotes Isaiah and says He is the one who is going to bring liberty to the captives. He is going to set free those who are oppressed.
He is going to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. He is going to proclaim favor really to those who didn’t earn it. He is going to set those free who were bound by their own choices. Jesus is the one who will break our cycles of addiction. He will liberate our hearts from our voluntary oppression.
He is the King that the more you return to Him, the more you will have.
His yoke is easy, His burden is light. Everything that we think is a restriction with Him is really salvation, and I pray you can see Him for who He is. I pray He will work in your heart today in such a way that you will place your ultimate hope in Him. I pray you’ll have peace and security simply because you belong to Him. Period.
If He was willing to pay your debt on the cross, then you can trust Him with whatever else He brings into your life, whether it’s pleasant or painful. He’s always only for you. Every other king will take. Every other king will take. Jesus gives.
Every other king says, give your life to advance mine. Jesus says, I will give my life to advance yours. Every other king makes you a slave, but Jesus becomes a slave for you on the cross, paying what you owe to set you free. Jesus is the only one who liberates. Jesus is the one to whom all the other kings and even all the other leaders of the world point, because where they fall short, Jesus doesn’t.
Where they empty, Jesus fills.
He can do that for you. You’re going to place your hope in something anyway. You are going to serve something no matter what. So you may as well serve the only one who first served you. By giving His entire life to save yours.
Look to Him and trust in Him. Let’s pray. Father, thank You for Jesus. Thank You for the good King. Thank You that You come and save us even though many times we have rejected You in our lives, Lord.
We pray that we would all look at You today as sweet and salvation That you would bind our wandering hearts to you, Lord, that you would bring us up out of the oppressions that we have chosen for ourselves and that you would set us free. Lord, thank you for never giving up on us. Thank you for never leaving us, for never forsaking us, even though we often forsake you.
Please continue to do so, Lord. We need it, every single one of us. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

