Let's pray together, please. Father, we thank you for giving us the light of your Holy Word. May we receive its truths with faith and love, lay them up in our hearts and practice them in our lives. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Please take your Bibles and turn to 1 Samuel chapter 8. 1 Samuel chapter 8 is our scripture reading and sermon text for this morning. 1 Samuel 8. beginning at verse one. 1 Samuel 8, verse one, this is God's Word. And it came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judging in Beersheba. His sons, however, did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice. But all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, And they said to him, behold, you have grown old, and 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 to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, 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 that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day, and that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. Now then, listen to their voice. However, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them. So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king. He said, This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you. 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 appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvests and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your seed 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. 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. 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. The Lord said to Samuel, listen to their voice and appoint them a king. So Samuel said to the men of Israel, go every man to his city. And God bless the reading of his holy word. After Joshua and the armies of Israel subjugated the promised land after they came out of Egypt and the people settled there as recorded in the book of Joshua, the next book of the Bible, as you know from the Old Testament is the book of Judges. And Israel as yet had no king, but the generation of Israel that settled in the promised land forgot to tell the rising generation about the Lord and what he had done for Israel. Pretty amazing oversight on their part. Judges 2.10, I've read this passage to you before, but it's an iconic moment in Israel's history. Judges 2.10, all that generation were also gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them, who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work he had done for Israel. And then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods. The entire book of Judges goes on after that and it's cyclical. It's the same story over and over again. God raises up enemies against Israel to punish them for their idolatry. And then Israel cries out for deliverance. Lord, we're sorry, help us. And God gives them a judge. And there were 12 of them. Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Beric, Gideon, Tola, Jer, Jephthah, Ibzon, Elon, Abdon, and Samson. And eventually there were two more, Eli, and then the last one before the monarchy starts, Samuel. Samuel is the final judge in that long list. In the previous chapter of 1 Samuel, remember from last Sunday morning, 1 Samuel 7, Israel does something amazing. Israel has finally had enough of idol worship, had enough of being subjugated by the Philistines and being ruled over by the Philistines, and they finally repent. They lament after the Lord and they repent. They put away the Baals and they put away the Asheroth, deities of Canaan, Turn to the Lord and serve Him alone. And then God miraculously delivers Israel from a large Philistine army. And even gives Israel back the cities that the Philistines had conquered and taken from them. You would think that Israel has learned that there's peace and there's safety in having God as our King and serving the Lord alone. And we can trust in his power and his protection. Look at what he did for us. He delivered us from the Philistines and without even so much as a battle and no battle deaths. And he's given us back all the cities that the Philistines took. But what happens in 1 Samuel 8 is pretty surprising. The people go right back to rebelling again. There's a crisis of leadership here. Samuel is old and there's no one to succeed him. And the people panic, they panic. And as I was reviewing the first seven chapters of 1 Samuel here before 1 Samuel 8 that I just read to you, what stood out to me about chapter eight was simply this, of all the times for Israel to reject the Lord and demand a king for the reasons they did, why now? Why would they do this now? True revival just happened. Israel finally returned to the Lord and quit serving Baal and quit serving the Asheroth and they were serving the Lord alone and God miraculously delivered them from a huge Philistine army and gave them back all their cities. He showed them he can be trusted. God restored all their losses. Why rebel now? As a wise older ruling elder told me once, sheep are dumb. Look at verses 1 and 2. And it came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of the second, Abijah. They were judging in Beersheba. Okay, stop there. Samuel's son's name suggests that he had high hopes for both of them. Joel is Hebrew for Yahweh is God. And Abijah means Yahweh is our Father. What great names for sons. And although Samuel, contrary to Eli, he did correct and he did raise his sons well, they were not like their father. They were not like their father. Look at verse three. His sons, however, did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice. You know, family succession to office very often is not a good idea. And there were four Israelite judges in that long list that I read to you who were succeeded by their sons, Gideon, Jer, Eli, and Samuel. And three of the four turned out to be really negative experiences. The same qualification for elders and leaders in 1 Timothy 3, 1-7 and Titus 1, 7-9 applies here to the judges and to the kings of Israel. Samuel's sons, Joel and Abijah, were not moral men. They were not godly men. They took bribes. They perverted justice, it says. There's a great lesson for the American church here that we desperately need to learn. So often the things that pastoral search committees are looking for have nothing to do with biblical qualifications. People want a charismatic personality. They want a good manager, a CEO, and other worldly characteristics. We want celebrity pastors and cool elders. Ain't gonna happen. We're a culture that is in so many ways defined by its celebrities and big personalities. Have you ever wondered, why does anybody care what some actor says about anything? But for some reason we do. But the church has followed suit in that way, in a lot of ways. We have our own celebrities, our own big personalities. But what God looks at is always the same. He looks at the heart of a man. What makes someone a good leader? A biblically qualified leader? Listen to scripture. Listen to the Holy Spirit. An overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, honorable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious. That means they don't want to get in a fistfight and they don't want to throw down and draw pistols over everything, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil? And he must have a good reputation with those who are outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. For elders, judges, and kings, such men might be their sons, but there's no guarantee of that. Samuel was a great man of God, one of the greatest men, according to God himself, who ever lived. Remember that passage in Jeremiah 15, where God is saying through the prophet Jeremiah to Israel that, I'm so angry at you, you guys have sinned so badly that even if Moses and Samuel were to be here, I'm still gonna judge you. Jeremiah 15 verse one, Moses and Samuel, those are two of God's favorite people. Even if they stood, God's still gonna judge Israel for their sin and send them away. Remember why God judged and killed the house of Eli? Eli did not correct his sons. Eli did not raise them right. Eli honored his wicked sons more than God himself. Samuel was not like this. In God's providence, sadly for Samuel, his two sons were not men of character as he was. They did not live up to the names that they were given. They did not have integrity. They didn't have a love of the truth. They didn't love righteousness and justice. They perverted it. How sad it must have been for Samuel, their dad, to have the conversation that follows in our passage. Look at verses four and five, you see it? Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. And they said to him, behold, you have grown old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations. That must have been a dagger to his heart. Your sons aren't like you, Samuel. Notice what the elders of Israel do here. They don't ask Samuel, pray to the Lord about what we should do. Why don't we consult God and pray? They don't wait for a word from God. They come to Samuel and dictate their plan. We want a king. And notice also the way they put this to Samuel, they don't say, we want a king who does walk in your ways. We want a king who is honest and godly. We want a king that'll keep us focused on Yahweh alone, the way you did. No, they say, appoint us a king to judge us like all the nations. That was always Israel's problem. And you know what? It's always the church's problem too. wanting to be like everyone else. Dear congregation, that's what worldliness means. When the apostle John said in 1 John 2.15, do not love the world, nor the things in the world, what he is talking about really is this, don't desire to be like the nations. Don't desire to be like everybody else. We're supposed to be peculiar. We're supposed to not fit in. We're not friends with the world. James said that. He who makes himself a friend of the world is an enemy of God. We are sojourners, aliens, foreigners in this world ultimately. We're called upon by God to set trends, not follow them. And yet so often that's what Christians do. We follow instead of lead. to our everlasting shame. We're supposed to be made fun of. We're supposed to not fit in. We're supposed to be taunted and reproached and insulted for the sake of righteousness. Isaiah 51.7, listen to this passage. Isaiah 51.7, listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people in whose heart is my law. Do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults, for the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool. But my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation. God told his people, the few that they were there in Israel, don't be afraid when people make fun of you, when they insult you because you're godly, because you won't run in the same flood of dissipation with them, because you won't go along with the dirty jokes, because you stand your ground the way a pillar should. Jesus said, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile you, when they insult you, and make fun of you, and taunt you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. If the church would truly follow the Lord and serve him alone, we will be insulted. We will be reproached, taunted, persecuted, reviled, have all kinds of evil set against you falsely for God's sake and for His law's sake. Israel did not want this in much the same way that the church in our time in our country doesn't want it either. We don't want reproach for the name of Christ. That terrible phrase at the end of verse five, you see it there? Like all the nations, Give us a king to judge us like all the nations. God told Israel, just as he tells us over and over again, don't be like the people around you. I want you to be different from the nations. Be different, be holy, be godly. Rejoice when people make fun of you, when they taunt you, when they insult you, when they question your manhood. Don't desire to be with them. Paul said to the Corinthian church, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. 2 Corinthians 6, 14. What fellowship is righteousness with lawlessness? That's what he's saying to Israel. What fellowship do you have with the nations around you? You serve their gods. Don't you see what happened? When you serve me, I protect you. I fight your battles. There's peace for you. And what communion has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? You are the temple of the living God. And as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from among them and be separate. Jeremiah 10.2, do not learn the way of the Gentiles, God told his people. Deuteronomy 12, listen to this, Deuteronomy 12, 29. When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them. after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. For every abomination to the Lord which he hates they have done to their gods. For they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it nor take away from it. Do you see the significance of them saying, Give us a king to judge us like all the nations? We wanna be like them. What a sad day it was. They had this desire to be like the nations. God says, I want you to be different from the nations. No, we wanna be like them. I've called you to be separate from them. No, we wanna join them. Is the church all that different? Look at verse six. The thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. Samuel knows where this is going. He knows this is not a good development. This is not a good sign. But Samuel, being the great man of God that he always was, he did what the elders of Israel failed to do. He prays. He goes and seeks God's face about this. Lord, they're asking me for a king. What should I do? And they'd come to me in haste saying, this is what we want. We want it now. We want a king now. Appoint us a king to judge us and to fight our battles. They were hasty. You know, there's a lot of foolishness in being hasty. Proverbs 21 five, the plans of a diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty. Do you see a man hasty in his words? There's more hope for a fool than him. Israel's hasty demand and decision and desire for a king, it would prove to be foolish and would lead them to poverty, spiritual and financial poverty. Their demand really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Samuel's sons were functioning as judges, but they were bad men. It doesn't follow from this that Israel now needs a king, but that's what they wanted. The next verse, verse seven, illustrates a lot of things about the way God often interacts with humanity. Listen carefully to verse seven. And the Lord said to Samuel, 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." Okay, stop there. One of the most terrifying aspects of God's character and how he often interacts with his sinful creatures, he'll let us have what we want. Sometimes he says, okay, if that's where you guys wanna go, go ahead, let them go. When wicked desires rule humanity, humanity dies. The wisdom of God personified in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 8, 36. He who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death. And we just recited it from Psalm 34 in our responsive reading. Psalm 34, 21, evil shall slay the wicked. When God gives nations over to what they want, they commit national suicide. That's what America has been doing for a long time now. We are collectively as a nation killing ourselves. Everything life-affirming is hated in this country. Evil is slaying us. All who despise God's wisdom love death. Isn't that an ominous phrase from God's Word? Proverbs 8, 36. Wisdom says, if you hate me, you love death. What's our culture all about? What's our culture all about? It's a death culture. We love death, lust for death, long for death. We affirm everything that destroys everything true, good, and beautiful, and alive. The L-G-B-T-Q-I-A-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z agenda plus destroys everything alive. It leaves nothing alive in its wake. It kills everything. And only death follows it. What will be the legacy of that demonic agenda in this country? Here's the legacy. Crickets chirping over a sea of headstones and cemeteries. Death. The anti-child feministic agenda that has given us abortion on demand for 50 plus years now. What's the end result of that? Death, misery, suffering, loneliness, heartache, guilt. Look at verse seven again. You see how iconic this moment is. The Lord said to Samuel, listen to the voice of the people. That is a terrifying judgment on God's part. Sometimes it's not gonna be a foreign country or a foreign army invading us. Sometimes God's judgment is simply, you guys want it, you got it. If this is what you want, you can have it. Listen to the people, give them what they want. Let us pray every single day that God will not listen to the voice of this nation. but listen to the voice of its creator in scripture, in the gospel. Lord, replace the voice of the people with your life-affirming word. God will often just give people what they really want. And very often that's an act of judgment. Remember Romans 1, 28, at the end of Paul's indictment of the human race, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. You guys wanna be filthy and perverted and vile? Go ahead, see how it goes. And I would ask, how about a progress report? How's it going in this country? Look at verses eight and nine. Like all the deeds, God's still answering Samuel's prayer. Like all the deeds which they have done since the day I brought them up from Egypt, even to this day, and that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. Now then, listen to their voice. However, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them. So God's telling Samuel in his prayer, I'm used to it. This has been their pattern from day one. From the time I brought them out of Egypt, they've been bellyaching, grumbling, complaining, dissatisfied with me, unhappy, wanting to be worldly, wanting to be idolaters. They struggled constantly with loyalty to God. They just didn't want God. They rejected God. Isn't that word such a terrible word, a hard word? Rejection. We all know what that feels like, to be rejected by somebody. Have you ever tried to befriend someone and it was just real clear? They don't want to be friends with you. They reject you or you've loved someone that is not interested in you. Rejection is a hard thing to take, isn't it? Or if you try out for a sports team and you get cut and all your friends made the team. That hurts, doesn't it? Rejection hurts or you're the last person to get picked for the teams or nobody picks you at all. You can be the ref. Being unloved, unliked, rejected, it hurts. And God decrees his own grief over his people's rejection. Israel rejected God despite his perfect track record of faithfulness to them, despite how much he had loved them. We want to be like the nations around us. Dear congregation, please don't underestimate how powerful, how intoxicating, and how blinding the pull towards ungodly worldliness can really be in us. Very often we don't even notice it. This latest rejection here was just one more iteration of the pattern of rejection that Israel had directed towards God from the beginning. God allows Israel to have a king. But God has a special message he's gonna give to the people of Israel through Samuel. Here's what your king is gonna be like. Here is what's gonna characterize what you're asking for. And what's amazing about this description of the king that the people have is the use of the verb take. In verse 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. He will take, take, take, take, take, take, take, and then you will cry. And the people are like, that sounds awesome, let's do it. Okay, look at verse 10 and 11. So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked him for a king and said, this will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen, and they will run before his chariots. Okay, stop there. The king is gonna take your sons and make them fight and die for him. The kings will take and you will serve. Okay, verse 12. He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. Stop there. When your sons are not fighting and dying and getting maimed in the king's battles, they're going to be busy plowing the king's fields and making weapons and equipment for the king and for all his servants and for the bureaucracy. The king is gonna be enriched and live in luxury upon the backs of the sweat of your sons. And they will be taken and they will serve as slaves. But at least our daughters will get to stay home and keep house and do their thing, right? Look at verse 13. He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. They get to work for the government too. They're gonna be in the employ of the government too. They're gonna be perfumers and cooks and bakers in the service of the state. Verse 14, he will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. I'll never forget the very first paycheck I ever got from a company in my life. I was working at Lee's Famous Recipe Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was a minimum wage job. I worked after school because I could drive. I finally had a car and could drive. And I remember going home with that paycheck and I asked my dad, who in the world is FICA? Because whoever that is just took 35% of the little bit that I just made. And he said, stinks, doesn't it? Why don't you write your congressman a letter? The government takes and takes and takes and taxes and taxes the best of our stuff. They take our money and spend it on foolishness. The taxes that Israel paid before they had kings would have been way less than this. But the bigger the government, the more they got to take. And this is why America, this great experiment in liberty that we're still living in today, it was founded with the idea that we really wanted the government to, you know, leave us alone. We don't need the government to hold our hand from cradle to casket. We'll take care of ourselves. We'll provide for ourselves and our families. We'll do our own education. We'll do our own healthcare. We'll do our own charity. Such an arrangement only works well, though, for the regenerate, for Christians, for mature believers who self-govern well. If people are unregenerate, if they're selfish, they need the government to take care of them. In a sense, since Israel didn't want to be governed by God, a bureaucracy led by a king that would kill them with wars and tax them into poverty, it was somewhat fitting for them. Even a godless heathen like Benjamin Franklin understood that concept. He famously said, either be governed by God, meaning either obey the commandments that God gives, or by God you'll be governed. Meaning what? You don't listen to God, you don't listen to his law, you're gonna have bureaucrats coming out your nose. Either be governed by God or by God you'll be governed. If we're not self-governing, we gotta have this huge bureaucracy with its tentacles and everything. The government takes and takes and takes. The more government there is, the more taking they do. They take our lives, take our children, take our wealth, the best of our stuff, our time. I think it'd be great for America to return to its roots. Limited government with the attitude of the people being, leave us alone, we don't need you. But that's not gonna happen as long as our nation is in rebellion. as long as it's living in gross, unrepentant sin against God. And so I would encourage you, pray. I know we all have so many, we have so many sick people and so many things we need to pray for. Make sure that you pray for the Holy Spirit to humble and convict this nation of its sins and bring them to Christ and that God would bring reformation and revival to this land. Pray that the gospel justification by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone will be preached again. In the midst of all the causes that are out there, you just don't hear that anymore. And revival ain't gonna happen until we hear that message again. Notice there in verse 14, the king will take all your best stuff and give it to his servants who will live in luxury on your backs. Those who want big national governments need to be ready to sign away their rights and freedoms. This is the way of things. Look at verse 15. He will take a 10th of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. A 10th of our produce is gonna go to the king's officers and servants? So those people are not gonna have to work the way that we work. They live off of the hard work of others. Many people don't realize this, but the government cannot actually produce wealth. You realize that? No matter how hard you crank the money machine, it doesn't actually make anything. They can only take the real work and wealth and produce of those that actually do work. The government cannot just make up money. They can only take it from citizens who actually work and make and produce real things, goods and services. Government can only take and they can only give what they take to others. Verse 16. 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. So on top of a tenth of everything, on top of your best vineyards, on top of all this other stuff, He's going to take your male and female servants and your best young men and your animals and they're going to work for the King. Here again, the government, the king takes male and female servants, your best young men and your donkeys to do his work. And where does the king get all these people, these materials, this wealth, these servants, men, women, cooks, perfumers, bakers, fighters, blacksmiths and money. How does he fund all of this? He takes it from the people who work for all of it. But the king is not done taking. Look at verse 17. He will take a 10th of your flocks and you yourselves will become his servants, his slaves. Not only is he gonna take a huge chunk of all your wealth and a huge amount of all your people, your children, your stuff, he's also gonna take you. You will become his slaves, his servants. You know what this is reminiscent of? This is reminiscent of, let's go back to Egypt. Let's go back to Egypt. Remember why the people of Israel cried out to God in that slavery to Egypt? It was oppressive. It was terrible. It was unjust the way they were treated there. They were slaves to the Egyptians, but here Israel wants to go back to Egypt in a sense. We want to be slaves to a king that we can see instead of being free men who serve and worship our sovereign God that we can't see. We want to be slaves like the other nations around us to their kings. We want a king to be slaves to ourselves. We don't wanna be free. We want to be oppressed. We want to be enslaved. And I would just ask, isn't that weird? But dear congregation, that's what we do when we're tempted to go back to our besetting sins, isn't it? Let's go back to Egypt. Let's go back there. Why would we go back to Egypt? What was left in Egypt when the people first suggested, let's go back, let's go back to Egypt. Appoint a leader and take us back to Egypt. What was left in Egypt? Everything there was dead. The crops were obliterated by hail and then locusts. The cattle were all dead and rotting in the fields. The place stunk. and they had left Egypt with all of Egypt's gold in their hands. There's no money there either. Why go back to that? Why are we tempted to go back to slavery? Why are we tempted to go back to our sin from which we've been delivered? What is so appealing about a destroyed country where there's nothing to eat or drink, where the smell of death is everywhere, and the only government that exists is oppressive, unjust, and tyrannical? You know, the Scriptures use this image of those that profess to know Christ, but go back to sin, 2 Peter 2.22. But it has happened to them, according to the true proverb, a dog returns to his own vomit. And if you're a dog lover, you know what that looks like. You know, my father said, there's a reason God calls, or a man calls dogs, man's best friend. Because we're just like them, aren't we? A sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire. We're so often drawn to that which ought to repel us. Israel's doing it here. What Samuel is describing is the very kind of bondage their ancient forefathers cried out to God for deliverance from in Egypt. God tells the people through Samuel what their king will be like. He's gonna take and take and take. He's gonna impoverish you and enslave you and kill you and kill your children. In verse 18, you see it? 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. God's telling him, I'm not gonna deliver you this time. Kings are gonna rule in Israel for the rest of Israel's history in the world. And when the people cry out for deliverance from their kings, God lets them know ahead of time, when you cry out to me because of how oppressive this is, I'm not gonna answer you this time. He warned them about what they wanted. He does the same thing with us. Sometimes as an act of judgment, God gives us what we want. That's terrifying. That's terrifying. In Thomas Brooks' book, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, he says, the most terrifying condition that a person can be in is in a position where God will no longer spend a rod on them, disciplining them. And he quotes from a passage in Hosea where the prophet Hosea said, Israel is joined to idols, leave them alone. When God stops disciplining, when God stops chastening and says, okay, That's what you really want? Go ahead. That's terrifying. Our only hope is that God would turn our nation back to him, supernaturally changing our hearts. If God doesn't do that, we ought to fear that he may very well give our nation what it wants most. And what does our nation seem to want more than anything? What does our nation want more than anything these days? To die and go to hell. and to bring as much of hell to earth as possible first. May God have mercy on us. Look at verses 19 to 22, last block of a passage here. 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 also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. Verse 21, now after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the Lord's hearing. The Lord said to Samuel, listen to their voice and appoint them a king. So Samuel said to the men of Israel, go every man to his city. The rather ominous and frightening portrait of the oppression of kings that God gives them has no effect on them at all. He says, they're gonna do this and this and this and this. And then you're gonna really regret it. And you're gonna cry out and I'm not gonna answer. And they say, no, we still wanna do it. They're worldly and wanna be more worldly. Worldliness is a powerful drug. They wanna be like all the nations. All the nations had kings who judged them and fought their battles. We want a king that'll go out and fight our battles. Surely it was not a revelation to them, hey, you guys are gonna go out and fight your own battles and die in them. Your king's not going. You know, God anticipated Israel's eventual rejection of him. God anticipated this, and he gives them clear directions in the book of Deuteronomy. Once you reject me and you ask for a king, here's what I want your kings to do. Okay, listen to this little passage, Deuteronomy 17, 14 to 20. Listen carefully to this. 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. Isn't that amazing? That's exactly what they said. 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. You may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countrymen. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself. Well, why is that there? He's not supposed to have a humongous standing army. Nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the Lord has said to you, you shall never again return that way. Verse 17, he shall not multiply wives for himself. How'd the Israelite kings do on that one? Or else his heart will 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, listen to this, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests." When you have a king, he's supposed to sit down with a scroll and write out his own copy of the Old Testament law with his own hand. And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life. that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes." A handwritten copy of the law. Every king is supposed to have one in his own hand and he's supposed to read it every day. It's interesting, I just did some studying on the so-called spiritual formation movement. and spiritual disciplines movement, where a whole slew of sometimes mystical medieval practices are pushed as the keys to growing in Christian maturity. Authors like Donald Whitney and Dallas Woodward and Richard Foster. promote things like, as a means of Christian discipline and growing, service, stewardship, fasting, silence, solitude, journaling, confession, accountability, simplicity, submission, spiritual direction, celebration, affirmation, sacrifice, and watching as the keys to really growing in Christ's likeness. But biblically speaking, the means of grace are the word of God and the sacraments and prayer. That's it. I love how simple God's inspires directions are for these kings. Make a copy of the law and read it every day. Make a handwritten copy of the Bible. And folks, that would have been a massive undertaking. to write out in Hebrew, in the presence of Levitical priests, the entire Old Testament law? And verse 19 says, and he shall read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statues. Isn't that so simple? Evidently the sovereign God of the universe, he didn't realize that service and stewardship, fasting, silence, solitude, journaling, simplicity, spiritual direction, affirmation, sacrifice, and watching as means of growth and godliness were a thing back then. It was make a copy of the law and read it constantly. Make sure you know the text of the Bible. to learn to fear the Lord our God, to learn to walk in His ways and to become more godly. Our knowledge of this library of 66 God-breathed books that we call the Bible, it is indispensable and it is essential to us. To know the mind of God and what we are to believe concerning God and what our duties are, our knowledge of the Bible must increase. That's the ultimate spiritual discipline. Kings make a copy of it and read it every day. That's the key. Now, not many of them did that. In conclusion, the demand for a king here has prophetic significance in God's plan of redemption too. Jesus, as our Redeemer, would execute the office of prophet, priest, and king. And when the angel Gabriel was sent to the virgin Mary, he said to her about the child that was in her womb with no human father, he will be great and will be called the son of the most high. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. But unlike all Israelite kings, Jesus would not take, take, take, take, take, take and take. Jesus would only give. He would make the ultimate sacrifice to redeem and save his people from their sins. Jesus would give his life, give his body and blood. No Israelite king ever did that or could do that. Jesus would give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus gave himself to redeem us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. No Israelite king ever did or could do that. Israelite kings, like our own rulers, would always be on the take. They were takers. But Jesus' government would be non-oppressive and giving. Jesus takes only one thing, our sin. and he takes it upon himself and is punished and crushed by the father for it to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God so he can give us eternal life as a fully purchased, fully free gift. Let us remember that. That's the only king that we should ever need and certainly should ever want. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we bless your name for the king of the universe, King Jesus, the one before whom all kings of the world and lords of the world must bow and do homage. Father, we pray you would help us to be self-governing, to take care of ourselves in this world, because we have you as our lawgiver. You're the one who guides and directs us. Help us to love your law as you commanded those Israelite kings to love your law, to read it every day. What a treasure to have your words in the Bible. Help us to value them and to treasure them in our hearts, that we would walk in your ways, believe your gospel, and trust only in the finished work of our Savior, in whose name we pray, amen.