Clamor for a King

November 6, 2016 (rev111112)  NOTES NOT EDITED
Election Day  “Clamor for a King”
1Samuel 8, et. al.

SIS – Our hope is not in a king, but in the King of Kings.

The word I hear most often describing this year’s presidential election is “crazy.”  It is also sometimes referred to as “unconventional.”  Some of us might call it “torturous.”  What this year’s election most certainly should be referred to as “pivotal.”  This is a pivotal time in our nation’s history and which way we pivot may spell better days, or bitter days

I don’t know presume to know what the future holds.  I am more concerned about who holds the nation’s future.  God does wait to see who gets elected to decide on His course of actions.  The Psalmist declares, “The king’s heat (president’s heart) is in the Lord’s hands.  Yahweh directs it like a watercourse wherever He wishes.”    I am concerned about the future, but not in despair.  I am absolutely certain that God is in control.

But knowing that God is in control will not relieve the United States of the consequences for the choices we make as a nation.  Elections have consequences – they can be dire consequences.  As I said I have “zero” hope that our government is ever going to pull us out of the moral and fiscal nosedive we are in.

America’s collapse, in my humble, Bible informed opinion, is not a matter of “if,” but a matter of when.  When a nation clamors for a leader that they put their collective hope in instead of God Almighty, that nation is in trouble.  God’s Word teaches this clearly.  Please read the Word along with me this morning:

READ 1SAMUEL 8:1-21

I had not intended to preach on this text, and in fact I had already begun my study for “The Poorest Man in the World” from Mark 10.  In the shower Wednesday morning, God spoke clearly to me.  The words, “Clamor for a King” popped into my head.  God flashed 1Samuel 8 across my mind like a sky-writing plane writes a message across the sky.

The text clearly outlines three issues in regard to a nation’s choice of a political leader.  Israel had to this time been led by priests and judges who were in direct contact with God Almighty.  They were a “theocracy” and God was their political leader as well as spiritual inspiration.  But, all the other nations had a king.  Israel wanted to be like everybody else.  They wanted to do things the “world’s way” and not God’s Way.  The consequences were disastrous. 

The three issues made clear in this passage are:  1) God will not SHARE His glory with anyone, 2) Man cannot SOLVE his own problems, and 3) Politics cannot STOP the Mission of God.

1.  God will not SHARE His glory with anyone

Look at verse 3 to get the context for why Israel was clamoring for a king:

When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel.  ² His firstborn son’s name was Joel and his second was Abijah. They were judges in Beer-sheba.  ³ However, his sons did not walk in his ways—they turned toward dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.

Dishonesty, bribery, and perverted justice.  Sound very much like the situation we find ourselves in today.  The political climate was as stagnant as a cattle pond in a pasture field.  The situation in Israel was really bad and the people were crying for a leader they could put their hope in.  The sad reality is:  they were rejecting God as the source of their hope.  Look at verses 4-8:

⁴ So all the elders of Israel gathered together and went to Samuel at Ramah.  ⁵ They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not follow your example. Therefore, appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have.”

⁶ When they said, “Give us a king to judge us,” Samuel considered their demand sinful, so he prayed to the Lord. ⁷ But the Lord told him, “Listen to the people and everything they say to you. They have not rejected you; they have rejected Me as their king.  ⁸ They are doing the same thing to you that they have done to Me,  since the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, abandoning Me and worshiping other gods.

Notice especially verse 7:  But the Lord told him, “Listen to the people and everything they say to you. They have not rejected you; they have rejected Me as their king

I’m afraid this is an exact parallel to what transpired last Tuesday.  It has nothing to do with who won or who lost.  It would be the same had Romney won.  The problem is:  America has lost her way and it is not longer “In God We Trust,” but “in government we trust.” 

I want to speak as clearly as I can what I believe the Holy Spirit is speaking to my heart, even though it goes against my desire to speak hope and peace and prosperity for our nation.  But, God is not speaking to us as His people a word of “peace and prosperity,” but a warning.  Look at verse 9:

⁹ Listen to them, but you must solemnly warn them and tell them about the rights of the king who will rule over them.”

I remember when I was small and I’d say something like, “I wish this or that.”  Mom and Dad would often say, “Be careful what you wish for, it just might come true.”  In other words, not everything we want will be good for us if we get it.

That can apply to choosing kings and presidents.

The Bible tells us that “God is a jealous God.”(Deu. 6:15).  The prophet Isaiah said,

^{Isaiah 42:  8} I am Yahweh, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another or My praise to idols.

When we put our trust in man, any man, we are “rejecting Almighty God.”  That will bring only calamity and only loss as we will see.

I’m afraid we have neglected the national motto, “In God We Trust” and have supplanted it with “In Government We Trust.”  This amounts to an official, national rejection of God and comes with a dire warning.  The warning really amounts to what we see in the next section of our texts:

2.  Man cannot solve our problems

I want to read verses 7-18 and I want you to see if you can pick up a phrase that describes what we can expect from kings and politicians:

Listen to them, but you must solemnly warn them  and tell them about the rights of the king who will rule over them.”

¹⁰ Samuel told all the Lord’s words to the people who were asking him for a king. ¹¹ He said, “These are the rights of the king who will rule over you: He will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. ¹² He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands or commanders of fifties,  to plow his ground or reap his harvest, or to make his weapons of war or the equipment for his chariots. ¹³ He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks, and bakers. ¹⁴ He can take your best fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his servants.  ¹⁵ He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and servants. ¹⁶ He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men,  and your donkeys and use them for his work. ¹⁷ He can take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves can become his servants.

Did you pick up on the phrase repeated five times?  “He can take.”

Governments do not GIVE, they take.  Kings do not give, they take.  Politicians do not GIVE they take.

Little Billy wanted $100 badly and prayed for two weeks but nothing happened.  Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the $100. When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to God, USA, they decided to send it to President Obama. The President was so impressed, touched, and amused that he instructed his secretary to send Billy a $5.00 bill.  Being mailed from the White House it was on official government stationary. President Obama thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy. Billy was delighted with the $5.00 and sat down to write a thank you note to God, which read:
Dear God,  Thank you very much for sending the money, however, I noticed that for some reason you had to send it through Washington D.C. and, as usual, those crooks deducted $95.00. Thanks, Billy

This has been the fundament issue with governments for as long as there have been kings, potentates, or politicians.  Governments “take” they don’t “give.”

The Founding Fathers of this country understood this Biblical truth:  government has a limited value and should have a limited power.  The Founding Fathers gave up their lives and their wealth in order to form a more perfect union in which there would be a very limited government.

The smaller the government, the less it takes.  The larger the government the more it takes.  This is a fundamental truth.

Somewhere around 48 percent of our fellow Americans did not pay one dime in taxes (not counting sales tax).  In other words, the government “gave” almost half the nation a “free lunch.”  But, we all know there is “no free lunch.”  Governments—kings, princes, and presidents—do not give, they take.  That’s an altruism. 

Governments don’t fund anything.  Governments don’t build anything.  People do.  Governments don’t help people, people do.  Governments only “take.”  If they appear to “give” it is only and illusion—a magician’s trick, a sleight of hand. 

Heed the clear warning in our text.  Five times God warns (note carefully the word, “warn”) Israel that the king will “take” their stuff.

A reckoning day is coming for America. Those who mistakenly think the government is about “giving” will soon learn they have been “taken.”  The problem with ever growing government is that they need ever growing cash supplies, but create ever shrinking production bases. 

In other words, sooner or later, “when the outgo exceeds the income there will be a downfall.”  America’s reckoning day is coming.

Notice the conclusion of God’s warning for Israel as they were “clamoring for a king”:

Look at verse 18:   When that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you’ve chosen for yourselves,  but the Lord won’t answer you on that day.”

Disaster befalls any nation that puts its trust in kings, instead of the King of Kings.

As we think of the political process we all watched unfold we see that it parallels Israel’s “clamoring for a king.”  I is crystal clear we, as a nation, have rejected God and are looking for hope in a President.  That is a recipe for disaster.  The disaster is upon us and God may not listen to us—as a nation—even if we do call upon Him.

The Bible clearly teaches that God will “give us what we want,” if we insist.  He will allow us to experience the “red hot” branding from the consequences of our bad choices. in order to perfect us, purify us and get us focused on His purposes. Sometimes, often times really, God will allow us to reap the terrible consequences of our choices in order to “bring us into our right mind” about what is truly important.

I think of the Prodigal Son.  He insisted on getting his inheritance.  He blew it on “riotous living” and ended up working on a hog farm and eating the same hog slop the pigs ate.  But, the Word says this about the Prodigal’s experience:

^{Luke 15   17} When he came to his senses,  he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger!  ¹⁸ I’ll get up, go to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned

I hope this past election season has caused us to “come to our senses” so that we can repent of placing our hope in government instead of God.  I hope this has shocked us into understanding that:

God will not SHARE His glory and man cannot SOLVE our problems. But, regardless of who is charge at the White House God’s Word clearly teaches:­­­­

3.  Politics will not STOP our Mission

God allowed the nation to choose Saul as king, but that was never God’s plan for the ages.  God had a plan that included another king, one the Bible says is a “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22).

²² After removing him [Saul],  He raised up David as their king and testified about him: ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man loyal to Me,  ^d who will carry out all My will.’

God plays chess with kings and potentates, and yes, American presidents.  The Word says as we learned last week: “The kings heart is like streams of water in the Lord’s hands and He directs it like a watercourse wherever He wishes” (Prv. 21:1)

God’s mission is not to make us wealthy.  God’s mission is not to make us comfortable and safe.  God’s mission is to reach the lost souls of His dear elect.  We don’t need government help to do that.

We don’t need government help to feed the poor, clothe the naked and reach out to the lonely and imprisoned.  We don’t need government to fulfill our mission as God’s people.  All we need is faith.

Look at 1Sam. 16:1:  The Lord said to Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul,  since I have rejected him as king over Israel?  Fill your horn with oil  and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem  because I have selected a king from his sons.”

Now look at Jer. 23:5  ⁵ “The days are coming” —this is the Lord’s declaration— “when I will raise up a Righteous Branch of David. He will reign wisely as king and administer justice and righteousness in the land.

Since Jeremiah is writing over 400 years after the reign of David, this verse is obviously talking about the Messiah, or Jesus, who was the King after the lineage of David the king.

We read in Luke 1:69 that Jesus was in fact the fulfillment of this prophecy in Jeremiah that was made possible by God’s rejection of Saul and selection of David, the son of Jesse.  Luke says,

He has raised up a horn of salvation  for us

in the house of His servant David,

It is important for us to realize that God had a mission.  Saul could not and did not fulfill that mission.  Israel confused their mission of being a “light to the gentiles” and spreading the truth of Yahweh to the world, with being a “geo-political nation” enjoying the fruits of their land like every nation around them.

God’s mission is the “the salvation of souls.”  Jesus said, and I repeat it often:  “I came, that is My mission is, to seek and to save that which is lost” (Lk. 19:10).

Salvation of the lost is the heartbeat of God and the mission of the church.  We don’t need the government’s help to accomplish that mission.  In fact, we don’t want the government’s help—and in reality the government, especially this present President, is more of a hindrance.

It was a wonderful thing to be established as a “Christian nation,” but that identity has been thoroughly erased from the collective consciousness of the nation and it is not coming back.  Let me say this clearly:  we live in a post-Christian America and we better get used to accomplishing our mission as the church while operating in a hostile environment.  But, we must also keep in mind that “politics, potentates, and even presidents” cannot STOP the mission of God through His Church.

We must redouble our efforts to focus on our mission—sharing the gospel with the lost world.  We can, and should, continue to participate in the political process, but we must not—I REPEAT WE MUST NOT—put our trust in any king but the KING OF KINGS.

Israel clamored for a king like all the other nations.  They wanted to be like the world around them.  This turned out to be a disaster for Israel, even to this day.

America’s journey parallels Israel’s in this regard.  We have always looked to our President to give us a sense of hope for the future.  I do not think it wise to continue to do this.  I do not think it wise for the Church to expect, or even desire, any assistance from the government to fulfill our mission.

In reading about Israel’s “clamoring for a king” God impressed upon me three important ideas to help us navigate through these dark times at the end of this age:  1) God will not SHARE his glory with anyone; 2) Man cannot SOLVE our problems; and 3) Politics, and nothing or no one else can STOP our mission.

Our hope is not in an earthly king, but our hope is in the King of Kings.