we have this tendency in our lives to hold on to things that are temporary. When we experience a period of blessing in our lives, we treat that period, however short it ought to be, as though it were permanent. But we need to remember, it's a thing we often forget, we need to remember that the temporary things in our lives are just that, they're temporary. Every revival, like what we saw in 1 Samuel 7, every revival is followed by a lull. That's simply the nature of things. Sometimes it comes right afterward, as in the Welsh Revival, and sometimes it lingers for years before receding, like the First Great Awakening. Those are historical events that you can and would do well, actually, to read about, the Welsh Revival and the First Great Awakening. Israel's revival at Ebenezer was this incredible time of experiencing God's goodness, God's glorious presence, after decades of spiritual dryness and drought. And the fruit of that revival was felt for decades to come, as the newly revived nation dedicated itself to the Lord, and the Lord showed His blessing to His people, as He does whenever His people turn back to Him. But while the best things in this world, in this life, lead to greater things in heaven, they are not heaven themselves. Often when we experience spiritual oases in our lives, like Israel experiencing Elim or Rephidim in the wilderness, when we encounter these spiritual oases, we think we've arrived. That the rest of our life is just gonna be a series of upward steps from strength to strength, from glory to glory, ever onward, ever upward. But that's rarely the case. The ordinary Christian life, the ordinary Christian life has peaks. And man, they're glorious. They are glorious. We catch this glimpse of God's shining glory, of his kindness, of his goodness, like we've never seen it before. But the ordinary Christian life also has valleys, places of darkness and depression and drought. And in the valleys, as you'll remember from Psalm 63, in the valleys, we remember the peaks. We remember what we saw with clear eyes. Eyes unclouded by tears. We remember with clearer eyes the plan and the purpose of God. Israel had seen God at the mountaintop, as it were, in 1 Samuel chapter 7. When they cried out to Him, He answered with thunder. The earth shook because their God, their King was on the move and He was fighting their enemies for them. He smashed their enemies and He brought His people peace. He was this divine King, this divine warrior, this divine champion or hero to go before them, to fight their battles. And throughout the ministry of Samuel, I'm sure the prophet Samuel reminded them of this. That God was their King, their King who would fight for them whenever they needed Him to, whenever they were imperiled. But the question now is, will they remember when things get tough? Will they remember when things get hard? Will they remember that the Lord of hosts is with them, their fortress, their deliverer, or will they revert back to their old ways, forgetting that they are not a nation like the other nations, but they are to be a holy nation as God himself is holy? And the spiritual difficulty comes to us already in verses one, two, and three. Samuel sets up these judges, and it was not an ungodly thing to set up judges. We shouldn't be too harsh with Samuel for desiring justice in the land of Israel. It was not an ungodly thing to set up judges. Deuteronomy 16, 18, you shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. It was a command of God, set up judges. And who better to set up a judge than Samuel, the person with the most authority in Israel at this time? So does he have the authority to set up judges? Yes, he does. Yes, he does. But the judges that he sets up set both him and Israel up for failure. And the author is kind of poking us in the ribs here saying, hey, this looks familiar, doesn't it? A man ordained by God, A righteous man, probably, setting up his two sons to be judges. Two ungodly sons, though, whose ungodliness needs to be reported back to their father. You recognize the pattern, surely, from 1 Samuel 2, where the same sort of language is used about the two sons of Eli. These are like the sons of Eli, these are worthless men. They had everything going for them, a pastor father, a wise father who wasn't scared to call out sinners from their ways. They had these beautiful names that reminded them of the Lord, Joel, which means the Lord is God, Abijah, which means Yahweh is my father. They grew up presumably during a time of revival, and yet Samuel's sons don't walk in Samuel's ways, but they turn aside after gain. They resemble more and more the sons of Eli. They take bribes. They pervert justice. They use the office that God has given them as a way to fatten themselves. Deuteronomy 16, verse 18, gave Israel the authority to set up judges. You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns. The very next verse followed that up with this. Deuteronomy 16, 19, you shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. So the elders of Israel, I'm sure they read Deuteronomy 16 verses 18 and 19, and they think, well, this is not right. Samuel's sons should not be judges. But hold on, someone else says. Samuel's getting up there, you know. His hair's not as black as it used to be, it's actually gone quite gray. Samuel's only got so much longer in this world, and when he dies, are we gonna be left with these worthless sons of his? No, we need a more permanent solution. You know what, we've been taking a look at Deuteronomy chapter 16, but take a look at Deuteronomy chapter 17. There God tells us that we actually have the right to ask for a king. And so they come to Samuel, They said to Samuel, behold, you are old. Just stating a fact. Behold, you are old, and your sons don't walk in your ways. Two indisputable facts. Indisputable. So they make this request, now appoint for us, Samuel, appoint for us a king, just like you appointed your sons, you have the authority, now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the other nations. Their complaint is true. He is, in fact, old. His sons don't walk in his ways. But the author of 1 Samuel invites us to try, if we might, to try to judge their request. Is their request a righteous request, or is it not? They ask Samuel, Samuel, appoint a king, give us a king to judge us. Give us a king in place of you, in place of your sons. And on the face of things, this is actually not a bad request. In Deuteronomy 18, it's actually assumed that at some point in their history, the people of Israel would want a king like the nations. That's the actual language that Deuteronomy chapter 17, rather, uses. A king like the other nations have. In Deuteronomy, it's stated quite neutrally, neither as a positive nor as a negative. It's assumed that just as the people will need judges, so also at some point they'll need kings. So, What they're asking here might not be a bad request. But then again, the goodness or the badness of most requests like these usually lies within the heart of the person making the request. And Samuel, quite famously, Samuel can't see hearts. But the Lord can. But the Lord can. So what we see in the next few verses is first Samuel making his judgment, this is what I perceive to be the problem here. Then we hear from the Lord. We find out what the actual issue here is. See, Samuel is quite upset. The people say, give us a king to judge us, and Samuel is displeased. It is evil in his sight. They're replacing me? They're replacing me and my boys? Samuel takes offense, it seems. But Samuel knows better than to trust his own judgment. He knows that there's more than meets the eye. See, even the godliest of men, you see it here in 1 Samuel 8 with Samuel. You see it in 2 Samuel 7 with Nathan as well. Even the godliest of men have lapses in judgment. They know that all they can do is look at the outward appearance. The Lord alone looked at the heart. And so Samuel prays and he waits for the Lord's response. And the Lord's response might be quite surprising to us. Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you. So basically, yes, Samuel, you are indeed old, as they have said, and your sons, as you well know, are not walking in your steps. And so I do indeed want you to appoint a king for them. But Samuel, there's more here than you can see. You're offended because they're asking for a new judge. They're asking for a permanent judge. You feel like you're the one being replaced, but their hearts, Samuel, their hearts are worse off than you think they are. If they were rejecting you, that'd be one thing. To reject the Lord's anointed servant is a serious thing. There's more going on here. They're rejecting me. What you heard, Samuel, what you heard was we want a judge to replace you, but what you should have heard was we want a king to replace the Lord. I think most of us understand what Samuel is doing here because we often do it ourselves. We take offense because people have offended us, because they rejected us, because they have said unkind things about us, but we fail to realize, we fail to notice even, offenses against God. We fail to notice or even to care when God's name is desecrated. We fail to notice or even care when our brothers and sisters around the world are killed for the sake of the gospel. Just an everyday example of this, parents and their children. Often as parents, we are more upset when our children disobey us. We're more upset because we have been inconvenienced or we have been embarrassed than because they've sinned against God. We're more upset because they have offended us than we are upset that they have offended the Lord. It's the Lord's commandment after all, the fifth commandment, the Lord's commandment that makes us parents with authority and makes them children under authority. From the perspective of our children, when they do something wrong, when they disobey their parents and their parents get upset with them, what do they see? Do they see a mom or a dad who is cranky or a control freak? Or do they see a mom or a dad who wants them to serve God by obeying them. When we discipline our children, is it us saying, you have offended me, I don't like it when you do that. Or is it us saying, you have disobeyed your father or you have disobeyed your mother, you have sinned against God. It is often a weightier thing than we ourselves are prone to realize. We understand where Samuel's coming from. God says to Samuel, Samuel, you're looking at things from the wrong perspective. They haven't just rejected their judge, they have rejected their king. The same thing they've been doing since the day I brought them up out of Egypt, they're doing now, forsaking me and serving other gods. They're just going back to their default settings. The problem here is their heart. Now they're not going after Baals or Ashtoreths, idol gods, the gods that were a problem a chapter ago, but they're looking for a human substitute for God. But they're looking for a substitute for God nonetheless. And so it might puzzle us that the Lord now says, obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you. It might puzzle us. But of course, you've gotta read on. Verse nine, now then obey their voice. Only, only, first, you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them. Show them where this line of action will bring them. But before we actually get to Samuel's description of the king, I want you to notice a slight difference in the Lord's language and the people's language. The people say, Samuel, give us a king who will judge us. Yes, a king who will judge us. But the Lord says, show them the ways of the king who will reign over them. A subtle difference, perhaps, but a difference all the same. The Lord is making a point here. through Samuel's reprimand and through their refusal to listen to that reprimand, the Lord is going to show the people of Israel and he's going to show Samuel what he himself already knows. The people of Israel are coming to Samuel and they're saying, Samuel, we want to replace you, a judge, with someone else who will be a judge. And perhaps they actually believe that to be the case. All they want is a man to replace a man. But though their mouths say one thing, their hearts The depths of their hearts know another thing altogether, and God is going to expose for them their true desire, the true nature of their hearts. And so Samuel is sent with this reprimand, with this warning. And the warning serves a few purposes, as God's prophecies usually do. First, as has been said, it's going to show the Israelites the real state of their hearts and their desires. They want a judge, sorry, they want a king who will be to them like a judge. But the nature of the office of judge in Israel was that their time in office was temporary, their power was very limited. Judges came from among the people, and they went back to the people. They operated among the people. They weren't raised above the people like kings were. The people followed them completely voluntarily. They raised volunteer armies, but they didn't raise taxes, or build themselves palaces, or buy chariots, or take their brothers into their service to work their fields, as the kings of other nations did. But what Samuel's gonna tell them is, the king that you'll get, you think he'll be like the judges that you're used to, but he's gonna take and take and take. And as king, it's gonna be his right to do so. And there's gonna be nothing you can do about it. So they say they want a king who'll be like a judge, but Samuel is sent to warn them that their kings will be nothing like the judges. And how the Israelites then respond to that news will let them know the real state of their hearts. And second, though, is warning serves as a real warning about the kings themselves. God doesn't want his people to be unaware of the very real threat that the king they want so badly will pose to their personal liberty. See, God wants his people to live in liberty, in freedom. He saved a people for Himself. The Lord, your God, the Ten Commandments say, brought you out of Egypt to be your God so you could be His people. And Israel's kings were supposed to, and again you can read about this in Deuteronomy chapter 17, they were supposed to lead the people in their free service of God. They were supposed to show the people an example of humble service. They were supposed to rely on God as Israel's true King. They were supposed to write out a copy of at least the entire book of Deuteronomy. And maybe even the first five books of the Bible. copied out by them, by hand, absolutely perfectly, the priests would check their work, so that they would know God's good law and would be perfectly submissive to God's good law. They were supposed to be men who led the people of God in holiness, in righteousness, in the pursuit of justice. But we know, don't we, that unregenerate men's hearts don't tend in that direction. They don't tend or trend toward holiness, righteousness, and justice. Our hearts, even our regenerate hearts, to a point, our hearts are greedy things. By nature, our hearts are idol factories. And the history of Israel has shown this up to this point. And it's showing this in this very instance. Israel is a nation of stubborn idolaters. They don't want kings who had different, more godly priorities than their own priorities. They wanted kings who were like them, who would wink at their idolatry, who would excuse their rebellion against God because they were doing the very same sorts of things in the comfort of their own palaces. We want people who won't challenge us in our sin. We don't want leaders who are more godly and more holy than we are. But this is not the same thing that God wants. We need leaders. who are godly, who are holy. It's for this reason that the Scottish pastor Robert Murray McShane said, my people's greatest need is my personal holiness. And it's true of all Christian leaders, for elders, pastors, deacons, for mothers and fathers, the people under our care, they need nothing quite as much as they need us to be holy, godly people. See, the world tells us that this is the kind of leader we need, someone who is effective, someone who is charismatic, someone who is dynamic and popular. But God says to us, to those who are leaders, be like me. Have a heart like mine. Your greatest task is not to be efficient and effective. Your greatest task, your most important task, the task that you must put above all other tasks is to show my people what I myself am, by your words certainly, but also by your deeds. And quite practically, this is something that we ought to consider when we are suggesting men to be office bearers in the church. They ought not to be men who are simply popular, who are well-spoken. who are dynamic and charismatic, who can command a room with their presence, but they ought to be men that we know to be godly. They ought to be men that we know to be godly. And this, of course, is the priority that Paul sets for us as well in his letters. His descriptions of elders and deacons are not so much men who are efficient executives, but men who are godly. It's more character. than anything else. But coming back to Israel and Judah, God commanded Israel to select for themselves godly kings. God commanded his kings to be godly men. These were supposed to be the marching orders of Israel's kings. But as Samuel warns Israel, it's not gonna be like that, not for Israel's first kings and not for the clear majority of kings to follow. What's the word that Samuel uses again and again and again and again in his warnings? Verse 11, he will take your sons. Verse 13, he will take your daughters. Verse 14, he will take your fields. Verse 15, he will take your vineyards and olive orchards. He will take a 10th of your grain. He will take your male servants and female servants. He will take the best of your young men. He will take your donkeys. He will take a 10th of your flocks and you'll all be his slaves. And this is borne out in the history of Israel. Saul takes for himself, we'll read about this in a few weeks. Saul takes for himself the sons and the daughters of Israel, the best, the brightest, the most beautiful. David, David takes for himself a wife of a man in Israel. He sees what he wants and he takes it. Solomon, you'll know from From the book of 1 Kings, Solomon raises Israel's taxes to unbearable amounts. He puts Israel's workers and their animals to work on his own massive building projects. Saul takes the fields and the vineyards of Israelite farmers and he gives them to his courtiers. Solomon takes Israelite men and makes them charioteers. He takes Israelite taxes and makes his palaces and temples to foreign gods, and so on and so on and so on, through the dynasties of both Israel and Judah, their kings take and take and take and take. See, rebellion against God, which will be the hallmark of Israel's kings, Rebellion against God is always accompanied by a lack of mercy, grace, and justice toward people. If you hate God, you will hate those made in His image. If you rebel against God, you will be unjust toward those made in His image. As Romans 1 bears out, rebellion against God always comes alongside hatred for other people and a callous disregard for their well-being. And so thirdly, Samuel's warning here is also a warning about what the end of this king thing will be. Israel's kings will go from bad to worse. They will make the lives of everyday ordinary Israelites absolutely miserable. And as the centuries go on, the people of Israel will cry out in their misery, but the Lord will not answer them in that day. And you might think this strange, you might think this unjust. But remember, what Samuel is giving here is not a condemnation, first of all, it's a warning. It's a warning. This is what will happen if you choose this course of action. God is telling them before it happens, so that they will have a choice. He wants them to enter into the monarchy with both eyes open. And you know, even if this was simply a prophecy, look into your Bibles and look at the exact words that Samuel uses. In verse 18, in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves. Israel is in the process of making her own bed, of forging her own future as she so desperately wants to do. Israel wants to be freed from the shackles of divine rule. They don't want God to be the one they cry out to when they're in distress. Remember, they want a king for that. They want a king who will answer their cries of distress. And if they don't want God, then God will give them what they want. God will leave them alone. It is a terrifying thing to be a sinner in the hands of an angry God. It is all the more frightening to be a sinner who's fallen out of the hands of an angry God. Now, you'd think that once the fine print had been read to them, they'd change their minds and say, whoa, that's what it's gonna be like? Forget about it, forget about it. But they do no such thing. In fact, they double down, and then they even triple down, actually. You remember that when they made their request, it was just, oh, we want a king to judge us. And God knew there was something behind their request, and so when Samuel talks to them on God's behalf, he doesn't use the language of judging, but the language of ruling over. He says, hey, I know what's behind this request of yours. I know what you really want. You want a king to replace the Lord. And now look at what Israel says. Look at what Israel says. The people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, no, but there shall be a king to rule over us, that we may be like all the other nations, and that our king may judge us, and third, that our king may go out before us and fight our battles. Fine, they say. You caught us. We want a king to rule over us. Are you happy now, Samuel? We want a king to rule over us because we want to be like the other nations. We are sick of this whole holy nation serving a holy God shtick. Or if you prefer more ordinary language, we're sick of being a different sort of nation serving a different sort of God. It's not really worked out for us. We're not getting everything we want from the arrangement. We find it grating. So let us be like the other nations. And I'm sure a lot of parents here know this kind of language, this kind of attitude. Why can't I be like them? Their parents gave them a phone. Why can't I have one? Their parents let them watch whatever they want. Their parents let them go out for as long as they want to whatever party they want. Why can't I? But as parents, we know the need to hold the line. We know that it is better even if they can't see it. It is better to be holy than to be like the other teenagers. It is better to be pure than to be popular. But Israel, like a rebellious teenager, insists, no, there shall be a king to rule over us, like all the other nations, oh yeah, and to judge us. But then the hammer drops and their hearts are exposed, and to go out before us and fight our battles. You understand, don't you? Asking for a king was not a problem in and of itself. Asking for a king who would judge them and rule over them, that was not a problem in itself. The only qualifier for that kind of king was that the king needed to be godly and holy and pure. But asking for a king to go out before us and fight our battles, this betrays what's really at the heart of Israel's request. See, we know now. that there's something rotten going on in the state of Israel's hearts. We know it, first of all, because God has told us, but here we get it right from the horse's mouth. We want a king who will go before us and fight our battles. We want a champion, we want a hero who will fight for us. But you might be asking, hold on, what exactly is wrong with that? What's wrong with asking for a king that he might go before us and fight our battles? Isn't that exactly what kings are supposed to do? What's unexpected about that? It wasn't wrong for the people to expect someone else to judge them after Samuel's death. Their judge, Samuel, was a passing person. He would die before too long. So it's sensible to ask for a replacement, especially if Samuel's current plan, his sons, is not showing any signs of working out. But again, like God says, they're not just replacing Samuel, they're replacing him, they're replacing God. When they ask for a king to go before them to fight their battles, they are telling their current champion, their current hero, the one who is currently employed in fighting their battles, that he's also gotten old and out of touch. And so the people confirm with their own mouths, with their own words, they confirm what God has already told Samuel. They are not moving on from Samuel, they are moving on from God. And so Samuel brings this report to God. And the Lord replies, it's as though he says, yes, Samuel, I know. I've known this all along. I've seen their hearts. I know what's living there. Samuel, obey their voice and make them a king. Israel has chosen their destiny. And so Samuel, like a director, he goes back to the elders of Israel and he tells them to clear the stage. Go back to your homes, go back to your city, and the stage is empty, and the curtains close on Samuel's judge ship, and we wait, almost trembling in anticipation, looking at where the spotlight is pointing us to, right there at the crack between the curtains, waiting to see just what kind of king Samuel will make for the people of Israel. But we'll have to wait a few weeks for that. But regardless of what he looks like, regardless of how his kingship will start, we know, don't we? We know how it's going to end. Even if we haven't read the rest of 1 Samuel for ourselves yet, God has told us through his servant Samuel, here in 1 Samuel 8, what Israel's king is going to be like. He's gonna be a king like the kings of the nation. So he's gonna be personally impressive. That's the kind of king they want. That's the kind of king they want. One who will stand head and shoulders above all the rest. He's gonna be a rich man before too long. That's the kind of king they want. One who will take from them perhaps, but yes, but then build a palace and build a dynasty and build an army. That's the kind of king they want. And really, in their pursuit of a king like the kings of the nations, they're going to be willing to make shortcuts when it comes to godliness. They're going to be willing to cut corners on holiness, as long as he's this impressive warrior who will go up before their armies. That's the kind of king they want. And that's the kind of king God will give them. That's the kind of king God will give them until they are sick of it. And sometimes, you know, that's what God allows us to fall into, a pattern of sin. Going after things that we feel so deeply that we want and need, but things that will make us sick and miserable, and God lets us fall into those patterns of sin, and even addiction, so that we might learn the bitterness of sin, and the horribleness of sin, and the sweetness of Him by comparison. And if you know your Bibles, you'll know that centuries of oppressive kings in Israel will be followed by centuries of foreign rule. About 400 years of independent rule under kings, followed by about 600 years of foreign rule under the empires of the nations. And God's people will cry out to him at that time. He will not cry out to them when they cry out because of their kings, but when they cry out because of the foreign kings, he will listen. And in the fullness of time, that is in his time, in his good time, God will send another king. Not an impressive man by our standards, not much to look at, rather plain, not majestic in any way, certainly not wealthy, but a king who is so committed to holiness that he is hated and despised even by the gatekeepers of legalistic obedience. God will send a king, a king so committed to godliness that he'll be unfazed by the spitting hatred of his most impressive opponents. Not the king we want. Not the king Israel will want. Not the king we'd ask for. But the king we need. King Jesus. And King Jesus, he will not take. like the kings of the nations do, but he will give. And he will not enslave and force obedience and subservience, but he will call us to follow, not so much because of the chains he binds us with, but because of the sweetness and the loveliness that is his. And he will come to conquer, yes. He will come to conquer and to put our enemies to flight, but he will do so in ways that we never expect. by apparently being conquered by death itself. Israel wanted a king to fight the Philistines. Israel needed a king. Israel needed a king to fight Satan, to put him to flight, to kill death itself. And that's the kind of king that God will give them in time. That's the kind of king God has given us. But none of us, you understand, and this is because of the blindness of the true state of our hearts, as much as it is because of anything else, none of us would have had the sense to ask for this kind of good King. But when the Spirit comes and removes the blinders from our eyes and softens the hardness of our hearts, this King, this good King Jesus, he becomes to us. He becomes to us, and this is all of grace, He becomes to us the most wonderful and lovely and beautiful King in or over all of creation. Now the question remains, what kind of King do you want? What kind of King do you want? Do you want the kind of King who will, who you think will make you happy? Or do you want the kind of King who you know will make you holy? Let me suggest to you, that one of those kings is not like the others. One of those kings is better far and worthy of all your submission, worthy of all your obedience. Let's pray.