Rejecting Divine Guidance: The Cry for a King

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

All right, let's go ahead and start our Bible study here this evening.

We're in First Samuel, chapter eight.

First Samuel, chapter eight.

And if you were with us last week, you'll remember, hopefully.

And if you weren't, I'll recap with you the best that I can, that Israel had a battle, that they were fighting against the Philistines.

And because of God's power and because ultimately God's protection and provision, they were able to win that battle.

And there was great celebration and there was a great turn to the truth there.

And.

And one might think that that's where they would stay.

And.

And actually verses 15, 16 and 17 of chapter 7 give us good news that Samuel was judging Israel all the days of his life, and it seemed like everything was running well, and they built an altar unto the Lord, and all's well that ends well.

But the truth is, is that it didn't end well there at that point in time, because the very next chapter, we see that Samuel makes a decision.

And though Samuel is a very godly man throughout the Scriptures, he does make a poor decision by allowing his sons to judge.

His sons were not qualified to be judges.

And there's going to be some issues with that which is going to lead to the people of Israel being discontented with the situation that they're in, which is going to lead the people to seek after their will and not God's will.

So let's look at that here.

First Samuel, chapter eight says, and it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel.

And so at this point in time, Samuel had been judging Israel for a very long time.

And remember, with a judge, it's not the same as a king.

A king holds leadership when it comes to political things, or in this case, a judge was just there to help them with certain things, rule over some spiritual matters.

And so at this point in time, Samuel is trusting his sons with that same role, that same leadership over Israel.

But verse two tells us the name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second, Abaya, and they were judges in Beersheba.

Verse 3, though, tells us, okay, they were there.

They were doing the work of a judge, but they were doing it in a corrupt way.

Verse 3.

And his sons walk not in his way.

So they didn't follow the path of Samuel.

And I've heard a lot of sermons preached about how maybe Samuel was a bad father.

We don't know for sure.

Ultimately we don't have all of that.

Fill in the blanks there throughout the.

The Scriptures.

But all we do know is that they weren't following the way of their father.

They didn't follow God, they didn't seek God's counsel, they weren't walking in the truth.

And it says that specifically what they fell into.

And this is often what spiritual leaders do fall into.

And it's these things that we see over and over again plaguing individuals in Scripture.

And he says, his son's not walked in his ways, but turned aside after lucre.

And so remember we talked about the New Testament principle, for the love of money is the root of all evil.

And so they, they're desiring this money.

They love the money, and therefore they were corrupted with the money.

And it says, and they took bribes and perverted judgment.

And so the Bible tells us very clearly here where their heart was.

It wasn't like they had good hearts and they just weren't good leaders.

Their hearts were turned over to sin.

And so he was wrong for appointing his sons.

Why?

Because they.

Maybe Samuel wasn't objectively looking at his sons or he excused their sin, but nonetheless they were not qualified.

And so what's happened here in their sin has allowed the people of Israel to be discontented with the leadership.

And where there's discontent, comes opportunities to clamor, comes opportunities to complain, comes opportunities to fall into discontentment.

So let's see what happens in verse number four.

Says, then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel unto Ramah.

And so all the elders, all the leaders of Israel, all the different folks that have been there for a long time come together and they say, you know what?

These guys are not fit to lead.

Verse 5.

And said unto him, behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways.

So they basically say this to Samuel, you're not capable of leading and your sons are not capable of leading.

And then they say this, now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.

Now, there's a lot to be said here, because while it might have been wise for the elders to reject Samuel's sons as leaders, it was wrong for them to say in this motivation because essentially it's not this.

We want godly men leading us.

They say, we want to have a king like all the other nations.

And so essentially what the Israelites are doing is they're wanting to assimilate to be like all the other nations that are around them.

They say we want to be like them.

We see them having success, we see them having victories, even though they just came off of a huge victory.

And we want what they have.

And so ultimately we see that God does have a plan to bring a king into the nation of Israel.

But they want to get ahead of the game.

They want to do it their way.

And so the reason Israel wanted a king was wrong.

It wasn't that they wanted the king, it was the reason they wanted the king.

And so obviously if they sought after God's king, it would have been fine, it would have been great.

But instead of saying, God, we want you to bring us a king that you want for us, they said, we want our king.

And so it's the motivation behind it.

And so we, we often get in trouble in our lives when we want to be like the world, when we want to have the same things that the world has.

And it basically assimilate them into our culture, into our thought process, into our actions, into our lifestyles.

And so essentially what we see is the nation of Israel wants to be like the world.

And we see over and over again in scripture the call to be away from the world.

Romans chapter 12 tells us to.

To be transformed, not conformed to the image of this world.

And so the Bible tells us clearly that they are wrong because they want to be like everybody else.

Now it would be one thing of all the nations around them were honoring the true God.

But all the nations around them were living in materialistic ways.

They were living in pagan society.

They were living with violence.

They were living for themselves.

And so they wanted to be just like the world.

And so they said, we want a king.

And they wanted more than a judge.

They wanted more than what God was giving them.

They wanted something different.

They become distaste, distasteful in their desires.

And I think that that's sometimes what we do with our.

With our Christian walk.

We think, lord, you've given us this, but I'm discontent.

I want this.

I want something better, I want something more.

I want something different.

And the Bible speaks of how we should be content, even in Philippians chapter four, Paul, that speaks of the blessing of being content in all things that God gives us.

But nonetheless, the Israelites are not content with what God had given them.

And so we move a little bit further here, Verse six.

But the thing displeased Samuel.

So obviously Samuel recognizes that this is a bad decision.

Samuel is still spiritually focused enough to see that these people wanting this type of king with this type of motivation is a completely wrong decision.

And they're going to fall into a trap of pride, they're going to fall into a trap of destruction.

So he says they're this.

It displeased Samuel when they say, give us a king to judge us.

And Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and so Samuel does the right thing.

So when the people come to Samuel and say, samuel, we want a king.

We want to be like everybody else.

Instead of Samuel just telling them no, or instead of Samuel just doing it for them, he goes and he prays to the Lord.

And so he does the right thing.

Anytime someone else is displeased, or this is actually a lesson for all of us, even when we're displeased, the first place that we should go is to the place of prayer.

And that's what he does there in verse number six.

He's displeased.

Instead of complaining, instead of losing his control, instead of doing anything, he goes to the Lord.

And I think that that's an important lesson for all of us to learn in our life.

Because for me, when I'm displeased, I often don't go to the Lord.

When I'm displeased, I often go to my feelings.

I go to my circumstances.

I might want to complain to someone around me so that they'll complain with me.

But the idea would be here is that when someone displeases me by their actions, I should turn to the Lord and ask the Lord to give me wisdom on how to deal with this.

This discomfort that they're bringing me or this anger that they're bringing me.

Or just in general, maybe, maybe I'm the wrong one.

Maybe I'm the one that's in sin and maybe I need to get this right.

So coming to the Lord is really the best answer here.

And so he says here, I'm going to come to the Lord.

I'm going to ask the Lord to give me strength and give me wisdom on what to do next.

Verse number seven.

And the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee.

So, so remember, Samuel's upset that basically they rejected him and his decisions.

Like, we don't want you to judge us anymore.

We don't want your sons to judge us.

We want a king.

So Samuel's upset.

He.

He's taking this personal, right?

If, if we were going to put it in our words today, he's taking this personal.

And then verse number seven, God tells him, hey, let them have what they're asking for.

Why?

Because they're not rejecting you.

But they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

And so God told Samuel to let the people have what they want.

And this was not because their request was a good thing or part of the, the good, obedient path that God had intended them to follow, but essentially it's to teach them a lesson.

And that's what God does.

Sometimes we insist to have something against God's will, and as the Bible teaches us in the Old and the New Testament, that God will eventually turn us over to the things that we desire.

And that's what's happening here.

God does have a plan for a king in the right way at the right time.

But they want something now.

They're not patient.

They're not wanting God's timing.

They're not wanting God's way.

They're wanting their way.

So God says to Samuel, don't take it personal.

They're coming against me.

They're not coming against you.

They're rejecting me.

They're not rejecting you.

And then that reminds me of one of the teachings that Jesus gives in the New Testament when he says, hey, don't worry about when they hate you, because really they're not hating you.

They're hating me.

And you're just with me.

And that's really the idea here, is that God is giving comfort to Samuel, saying, Samuel, don't take this personally.

Don't take this in a way that they hate you.

They.

They are against me.

They're rejecting me.

And so God tells them, hey, you can have that.

You.

If you want a king, you can have a king.

And so it's to teach them a lesson.

It's to allow them to see the fleshly path and what that brings for them.

And so in many ways, this is a matter of, of timing.

God knew Israel would have a king, but he wanted to give them a king in his own way.

But because Israel demanded a king out of fleshly reasons, God allows them to have a bad king.

And we're going to see that the, the first king is a bad king.

Saul is not a king that seeks after the will of God.

And so Israel will get what they want and it will hurt them.

And that's what happens with us in our own life, when we desire our own way, we're going to eventually find that that way is not going to be satisfying.

That way is not going to bring us the type of contentment that we think that it's going to bring.

And so the Bible very clearly teaches here that they had went astray and God had allowed them to turn over to that path.

It's not that God's limited.

It's not like God's limited by any of our decisions.

Ultimately, God can do whatever he wants to do.

And, and we, we are limited.

He's not limited.

But there are times when God does allow for an individual to fall into a place of sin because that's where their heart is going after.

That's what they're desiring.

And so God had a purpose in not giving a king at that point.

But again, it's God's timing.

God's timing is the best.

And sometimes I will even in my life struggle to certain capacities because I say, lord, I know that you want me to do this, but I don't want to wait.

I want it now.

I want it to come my way.

I want it to come with my framework of thinking.

And the Bible says that sometimes God does have a good plan for us, but it might mean that we have to wait, that we have to be patient, that we have to wait upon the Lord.

And so he.

He says, samuel, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me.

And so Israel forgot about God by asking for a king.

They turned their backs against the Lord and said, we want something that you're not giving us.

Verse 8, according to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt unto this day.

And so he says here, they've rejected me, they've rejected me that verse seven, and that I should not reign over them.

And then what he's basically saying in verse 8 is this, after all that I've done for them, after everything that I've done, time after time being faithful, time after time with delivering them, they still don't want me to reign over them because they think they have a better plan.

You see that there in verse eight, he says, according to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt unto this day.

And so he reminds Samuel, this very thing, I brought them out of Egypt.

But again, that's not enough for them, wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods.

So do they also unto Thee.

So he says this.

Don't be surprised when they turn their backs against you and go to somebody else, because that's what they've done against me.

Basically, Israel time and time again had been unfaithful to the Lord.

They, they had committed spiritual adultery.

The whole book of Hosea talks about that, about how God is the faithful bridegroom, and the bride, who at that time was Israel, was unfaithful to her husband and therefore turned their backs and turned to the ways of the world.

And that's what they do.

They turn to the pagan gods.

They serve other gods instead of serving the Lord.

And so there, there is this sense of how they reject the Lord and the Lord does what he does to them by allowing them to have their wants.

And we'll see how that goes.

Verse 9.

Now, therefore, hearken unto their voice.

Howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.

So here is the again, an amazing truth about who God is is that even in his condemnation against the nation of Israel, he's allowing them to have a place of repentance.

He says, okay, they want a king.

Tell them what that king will be like.

Give them a chance to turn away from it.

God is merciful and he's gracious and he's patient.

And time after time he should be giving the judgment to Israel.

But yet he says there, protest solemnly unto them and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.

He says, give them a chance to turn away from this.

Give them a chance to repent.

And, and we know that they don't.

But obviously the information that Samuel is going to give to the people doesn't change their heart.

It doesn't change what they want.

They want what they want.

And they're going to give, and they're going to give, and they're going to give everything, every reason why they think they should have this.

But ultimately God is going to give them what they deserve.

And so if Israel chose this course, God says, hey there, you need to be informed with this.

You.

You need to know what you're going to get into.

And they are forewarned.

And so he says, warn them.

Protest solemnly unto them.

And so God always warns us about the dangers of our decisions.

God always warns us about what the fruit will be when we turn to the fleshly desires and be assimilated to the world and conform to the world and really compromise ourselves to the ways of the world.

And I. I could pause there and, and I Want to think about it for a minute?

What does that look like today?

Because obviously sometimes we look at the nation of Israel and we think, well, that was them.

We would never do that.

We don't struggle with this.

But what we see is that sometimes as Christians within the church, we want the things that the world has.

And so we're willing to compromise our Christian values.

We're willing to compromise the word of God so that we can have the things that everyone else has, so that we can seem to be as successful as everybody else.

And the truth is, is that many times we do the very same thing that Israel does.

We say, lord, we know that you have a plan for us, but we have a better plan.

We.

We think that we can handle it this way.

And instead of searching after God's will, we basically do this.

This is what we want.

God bless it.

So some.

Some of us have done that, maybe in our own life.

We've just said, I know that this is the right decision.

I haven't sought the Lord's Prayer in prayer with this.

I haven't sought God's will in this.

But I believe that God will bless me in this decision.

But God has no right to.

And really, he has no way to bless us when we're walking in our sin, when we're walking in rebellion to Him.

Now, he could bless us in that, but that's not the principle that he works on.

Even though sometimes in our unfaithful lives, he is faithful to us.

And really all the time he's faithful to us on our salvation.

But there are also decisions that we make in our life that God is gracious and he doesn't allow us to have harm and evil in it.

But ultimately what he's saying here is what you're sowing is what you're going to reap.

If you're wanting to sow this fleshly way of the world, you're going to reap the things of the world.

And that's exactly what we see when they select a king.

So verse 10, and Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.

So he turns around faithfully and basically relays the message to the nation of Israel.

And verse 11, he said, this will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you.

He will take your sons and appoint them for himself, and for his chariots to be his horsemen.

And some shall run before his chariots.

And he will appoint unto him captains over thousands and captains over 50s, and will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his instruments of war and the instruments of chariots.

So what is he saying here?

He's basically saying, if you get this type of king that you're wanting, like all the other world has, he's going to take from you.

He's gonna.

He's giving them a fair warning.

He says, most kings are takers.

They're not going to give to you anything.

He's just going to want your resources.

He's going to steal from you.

If Israel wanted a king, they.

They had to realize that he was going to take things from them.

And that's the reality of it.

And he says that's what's going to happen here if you do that.

Verse 13.

He will take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers.

And he says he's not only going to take your sons and your land, but he's also going to take your daughters.

And.

And so this is a big decision that they have to make.

Are they willing to give that up?

Are they willing to sacrifice what God has blessed them?

And so essentially what we see here is that they're sacrificing the gifts that God has given them so that they can give what they want.

And it would be like today, God blessing us with so much, and we say, lord, we don't want those gifts.

We want something else.

And God says, well, if you go that way with those.

Those fleshly decisions, those other gifts that I've given you, you're not going to be able to experience to the.

To the fullest.

And.

And that's what they decide.

They decide to go the way of the world.

So verse number 19.

Let's go to verse number 14.

And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive yards and the best of them and give them to his servants.

And he will take the 10th of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants.

And he will take your men, servants, and your maid servants, and your good, goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his work.

He will take a tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants.

And ye shall cry out in the day because of your king, which ye shall have chosen you.

And the Lord will not hear you in that day.

So what does he essentially say here?

He says, here's a prophecy.

When, after he does all this, when he does all these things, you will cry out.

You.

You will be upset about your decision.

But at that point God is giving you what you've wanted and so God has warning you about this.

And so if Israel wanted to have a king, they should have done it the way of the Lord.

They should have waited on God's king and they would not have to cry out and feel the pain and suffering of this fleshly decision.

But they do go the way of the fleshly decision.

So they're going to find this coming to pass through the life of Saul.

Verse 19.

Nevertheless, the people, now they could have responded in a lot of ways.

One of the ways they could have responded is, is a heart of repentance.

They could have responded with saying, well, maybe we should ask the Lord, maybe we should, you know, go to the Lord in our prayer.

It says here.

No, the nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel.

And at that time, as Samuel was the man that he was, when they disobeyed the voice of Samuel, they disobeyed the voice of God.

And so we see that this decision is not a decision of, well, this is just a better way.

No, this is a decision that they willingly are knowing that they're refusing to obey the voice of God.

And anytime we're in a place where willing to disobey the voice of God, that's a dangerous place to be.

Because clearly here they're knowingly getting to a place in their life where they decide to make their decision over God's decision.

And they said, nay, but we will have a king over us.

And so you see their obstinate, you see their rebellion, you see their hard heartedness.

Here nothing will satisfy.

And again there's verse after verse about how we as humans in our flesh will never be satisfied.

And so God will give Israel their king that they wanted.

They want it, God gives it to them.

But we know that later Saul fails as their king.

God does eventually give them his king, which is David, which we'll get to later on.

But we know that God ultimately wanted Israel to be under a leader that he selected.

But again they get ahead of themselves.

And so they, they repeat again their heart, they repeat again their motivation.

Verse 21, or excuse me, verse 20, that we also may be like all the nations and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.

And so they reiterate their motivation.

We want to be like everybody else.

You know, any of you that have had kids know that that's a struggle.

Sometimes when you know you, you see them doing something and you say no, like we don't want you doing that, and they go yeah, but everybody, everybody's doing that.

That's what everyone else has.

And so I don't want to miss out.

We had that opportunity recently.

I don't want to say who it was or how it went about, but let's just say it this way.

It was like, hey, everyone's doing it this way.

Everyone's going to do that.

You got to let me do that.

And I said no, no, I, I'm have to think about that.

We'll have to ask the Lord for prayer on that.

All my friends, parents will say yes.

I guarantee you they're all going to say yes.

So okay, but I'm not everyone else's parent.

And, and then, you know, next day had a conversation and it was like, hey, you know what?

Everyone else's parents also wasn't good with that.

I say exactly, that's right.

That's exactly what happened.

Because the reality is, is that sometimes children will think that they know what's best for them and discredit their parents decision.

They'll discredit their parents wisdom or, or guidance.

But at the end of the day, we as, as, as Christians sometimes do that.

Sometimes we look to our heavenly Father and we think, well, you know, we have a better plan.

We want to be like everybody else.

Everyone else is doing something and we know how terrible of an excuse that is, but that's exactly what Israel's doing here.

They said we want to be like all the nations and that our king may judge us.

They're like, we don't want God to judge us.

We want this king to judge us.

We want him to go before us, not God.

Now if you remember just in the chapter before, it was God who went before them and gave that loud noise and gave them that victory.

So God has just finished proving that he goes before them in battle.

But no, they want, they're king to go before them in battle.

They said we, we want him to judge us, we want him to go before us, we want him to fight our battles.

Instead of saying I want God to fight my battle.

I, I want this, I want this material thing, I want this fleshly thing to fight my battle for me.

And that looks like, for, for us as humans today, as Christians today, it looks like, well, you know, I'll trust God when everything lines up for me when it comes to my finances or my health or my life.

And like we all find things that we find comfort in as you know, humanity.

But at the same time it's really God who's fighting the battle for us.

You know, I. I think a lot of times we feel the vulnerability when we're going through the struggle.

So, for example.

So all of you know that maybe you're going through a place of pain, or maybe you're going through a place of loss, or maybe you're just going through a place of just brokenness.

And, you know, you say, you know what?

I just.

I feel out of control.

I feel.

I feel as if I can't do this.

I feel like I'm overwhelmed.

But, you know, what happens sometimes is us as.

As humans, we think in times where we seemingly are having everything in order, that we've got it under control.

But let me give you a little hint.

We're never completely in control.

We think we're in control.

When everything's going well with our health, we think, hey, you know, everything's great.

You know, it's only when we're feeling the pain that we call out to God saying, God, I can't do this.

But the reality is, is even when we're feeling good, we can't do it.

It's ultimately on the Lord, and life is but a vapor.

Life is so fragile, it can be taken away from us so quickly.

Our health can be taken away.

Our finances can be taken away.

Really, our.

Our security can be taken away.

And often we link those things to God's favor in our life.

But what we see is that ultimately God allows certain things to happen so that we can be reminded that no matter what might be the case around us, he's ultimately in control, and we want him to fight our battles.

I don't want to fight my battles on my own.

I can tell you that.

I learned that a long time ago.

I cannot fight those battles on my own.

My own strength.

I will fail.

I remember times in my life crying out to the Lord, saying, I can't do this anymore.

And that's, I think, when we start to realize that we were never able to do it, it's ultimately God who is fighting all of our battles for us.

And sometimes we feel like we're.

We're winning.

Like, you know, like when I sat on my dad's lap and I was driving the truck when I was a little kid, I thought I was driving the truck.

I thought I was in control.

I thought I was.

But my dad was the one pushing the gas.

My dad was the one turning the wheel.

I just thought that I was in control.

And that's essentially what's happening with us in the Lord.

So they say we don't want God to fight our battles.

We want.

We want our new king to fight our battle.

Verse 21.

And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord.

And the Lord said to Samuel, hearken unto their voice and make them a king.

And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, go ye every man unto his city.

So he essentially says, okay, they've doubled down.

They want what they want.

And God says, okay, give.

Give that to them.

And so this was not God's plan.

This was not part of what God intended for the nation of Israel at this time.

They had just won a spectacular battle there in Samuel, 1st Samuel 7.

So Israel had a king, but the king was the Lord.

They, they.

They had a judge, and the judge was the Lord.

They.

They had someone that would fight their battles, and that was the Lord.

But they wanted.

It wasn't what they wanted.

It wasn't what they thought a king should look like.

And for us in our life, who are we following?

They wanted to follow someone that fit their story, their narrative, that could fit into their box.

But it's.

It's almost to the place where God says, okay, if Israel wants this, this is what they can have.

And some of you that know the story know that Saul comes in and, and Saul is to.

We're going to talk more about this next week.

But visually, Saul is the one that you would pick.

I mean, he's head and shoulders above all the others.

He's strong, he's attractive.

Everyone saw, saw, saw, and they were like, he's the man, he's the king.

But in reality, that's not God's king.

Remember who God's king was?

He was the young shepherd boy out on the field that his own parents forgot.

And that's how God selects people.

It's not always about the outward appearance.

It's not always about what public opinion is, because God's going to choose individuals that might be inadequate, that will be inadequate.

And then when we try to fight our battles in a way that makes sense to us, God is always going to remind us that that is a wrong path.

And so, you know, Saul, eventually Saul is.

He has moments, glimpses of following God.

But ultimately, Saul has a lot of pitfalls when it comes to his flesh.

And we're going to talk more about that.

But I do believe that that's an indication of the heart of Israel.

The heart of Israel was to find the ways of the world.

And eventually that's what they're going to do.

By finding a king of their own choosing.

So there's a lot of things that we could apply from this passage of scripture, but I would want to just maybe highlight a few.

One, obviously, would be this, starting from the very beginning, that Samuel's poor decision by selecting his sons that were bought over to sin, and as I said, their lucre and took bribes and perverted judgment, allowed the people to lose sight of the eyes of God.

So it shows you that bad decisions within the camp, within the family of God, can lead other people to be dissatisfied with the truth of God because they misrepresent the truth of God.

So that would look like this someone going to a church, and there was a leader at the church who acted in sin.

And then therefore, that person said, well, you know what?

Because of that leader being a sinful person, I'm no longer going to church.

You see the disconnect there?

It's.

It's not strong logic.

But what happens is, is that oftentimes people associate a person with the presence of God.

And what the people of Israel should have done was this.

Samuel, sons are in sin.

We need to call that sin.

We need to deal with that sin, and we need to turn to the Lord.

We need to pull them up in front of the Lord and allow the Lord to deal with them.

Instead, they said, you know what?

They're sinning.

Obviously, God's failing.

So we want our own king.

And so we see, we don't associate ourselves as believers to.

To other people who are living in rebellion and sin.

We don't.

We don't look at someone else's failures and equate them to our failures.

We can live independently with the Lord and walk with him and fellowship and do the right thing, even when other people around us are doing the wrong thing.

But then secondly, I want you to see that in this case, they.

They desired the.

What the world had.

There was a.

There was a worldly desire.

They wanted their king, their way and their timing.

And so the caution would be for us as Christians is, are we seeking God's plan for our life?

And when we seek God's plan, are we okay with waiting on it?

Are we okay with it being different than the world?

Or are we desiring the things of God but our way?

And I think that's often what happens is that we look to the things we say, okay, yeah, I want to go to church, I want to serve in ministry.

I want to see fruit in my life.

I want to see people come to Christ, but I want to do it My way.

And the way that adds up for me, like how the world's doing it.

You know, I've often heard people say we just got to run a church like a business.

Like, how are these businesses bringing people in?

Well, that's what we have to do here.

But the truth is, is that we're doing something different.

We're not doing the business of the world.

We're doing God's work.

And God's work has specific marching orders to be different than the world, to not treat people the same way that the world treats people.

And so that was their major issue, is that they wanted their king, their way and their timing and in their avenue of their type of fleshly worldliness, essentially is what we see there.

And then we see God condemning their faithlessness.

Even after all, verse eight, even after all that God had done for them, they still wanted their own way.

So I think that that's a reminder for us that when we're falling into the trap of wanting the things of the world, what should we do?

Well, we shouldn't stay in our discontentment.

We should go back and rehearse the faithfulness of who God is and what he has done for us throughout our life.

You know, if we're tempted to think that God's not going to be faithful tomorrow, we need to go back to yesterday to make sure we recognize and realize that God has been faithful to us, to recount those blessings, to be thankful in everything.

Because that thankfulness, that gratitude will stem and show more faith and gratitude in the future.

But what happened here is they forgot that God had brought them out of Egypt.

That.

That.

That God had delivered them.

They.

They thought that God had forgotten about them.

But yet we have to be reminded that God has not forgotten about us.

Even if we feel like he has.

We have to go back and we have to recount.

God brought us out of Egypt.

Now, he didn't bring.

I don't think he brought any of you literally out of Egypt.

Maybe some of you have been there and you've left Egypt.

That's not what I'm talking about.

Talking about Egypt for, for.

We talked about this on Sunday morning.

Egypt is a picture of sin e. Egypt is a picture of the world.

And God has taken all of you.

If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, he has taken you out of Egypt and he's delivered you into the promised land.

And so it's that thankfulness that's.

It's really salvation.

Because if I look at my life and I say, okay, Lord, I You didn't give me everything I wanted this year.

Well, yeah, there, there were some things, I, I'll be honest, there are some things that I prayed for.

There were some things that I wanted in my, in my own personal desires that God didn't answer in the affirmative.

I don't think all of us could understand that Sometimes God answers us no.

And instead of getting mad at God's nose, we say, okay, Lord, I'm not going to base my faithfulness to you off of the things that I have received.

When it comes to my desires, my faithfulness should always stem back to the truth of what God has done for me and salvation.

Because I've said this before and this is a hard statement to say, but even if God took away everything, we still have our salvation.

And if God would have just saved us, that would have been enough for us to worship him for eternity.

But at the same time, he does give us gift after gift after gift if we're honest with ourselves, even though sometimes it doesn't happen in the timing or the way that we expect it to be.

So I would encourage you to think about that and I would encourage you not to get into the place that Israel got into.

I would encourage myself not to fall into that hard heartedness and saying, okay Lord, you clearly laid out for me all the problems that this will bring, but I still want it.

And so let's be aware of the teaching and the conviction of the Lord in our life.

And God gives us all these warnings for a purpose.

He gives us the story of Samuel and Saul and all the rest of the folks there in the Old Testament and those people in the New Testament not so that just we can have Bible knowledge, but that we can learn lessons from them and that we can apply them to our lives and so that we can see that God was faithful to these people.

But the blessing is really truly this too, I think, is that even in verse number nine, even in the midst of their hard heartedness, God gives them a chance to turn back.

And if you know the rest of the story, God does bring David and God does bring his king.

And so even people that are unfaithful, God still can work with the unfaithful because he is ultimately faithful.

And so it's not a death sentence, so to speak, when we do make a mistake, God has grace and he has mercy and he's allowing us to turn back to Him.

Someone told me, when is it too late?

I think I'm too far gone.

I said, are you drawing air?

Yeah, I'M breathing today.

It's not too late to turn back to him.

That's, that's the idea is if I've had some people say to me, you know, I haven't been faithful for a very long time, I've really turned my back against him for a long time.

The truth is, is that if you're here, God still has a purpose for you.

If you're alive, God still has a plan for you.

So turn your hearts back to him.

I think that that's something that all of us need to remind ourselves about, is like, lord, what do you want from me today?

Not what you wanted me to do 20 years ago, because a lot of times we get stuck in the past.

But what, what do you want me to do today, Lord, for you and, and be patient and wait upon the Lord.

Be still and know that he is God.

I think that's one of the hardest things for me.

We live in a smartphone microwave society, right?

It's all about having it now.

But oftentimes you'll see in scripture that God makes people wait a long time.

I mean, example after example.

You guys could think of some of these examples.

I mean, God allows people to hear the promise, and he promises his presence and provisions in the midst of the promise.

But he doesn't always promise that it's going to happen right away.

And I mean, you guys got got like, Abraham, remember Abraham, you're going to have the child of promise.

Well, doesn't seem like it's adding up.

Lord, I'm getting old, My wife's getting old.

And then he says, well, you know what, maybe he meant this.

And so he goes the route of Ishmael and going that route, right?

And that was obviously not the right path for him to take.

And God, just when we think that God can't do what he's going to do, God does what he does.

And so that's the promise of God.

And so you see that over and over again.

Think about Noah, Noah, the rain's going to come.

You better build an ark.

Okay?

Centuries later, then it comes, right?

So I'm not saying that you're going to have to wait a century.

But what I am saying is that it's in God's timing.

And the best blessing that we can find is finding our Lord and Savior and satisfaction in him and him alone.

So God does bring a king named David, but even in a better and greater way, he brings a king named Jesus Christ, our Messiah.

And no longer do we have to look to the things of this world, we can look to our King, we can follow him.

And that's really where the heart of a believer should be, that, hey, look, I've got people around me I have to deal with.

I've got a place that I'm living.

I got a job that I got to do.

But ultimately, Jesus is my king.

Ultimately, I follow his orders.

He's the one fighting the battle before me.

He's the one preparing the way.

He's the one judging me.

He's the one guiding me.

And I think when we think about it from that perspective, it changes the way that we deal with everything in our lives.

And so we'll come back next week and we'll look at the selection of Saul.

And Saul is a pretty impressive individual.

And he gets selected by the people and Saul then is anointed.

And obviously you are aware of that story.

If you're not aware of that story, you're in for a treat because it's first and second Samuel are pretty, pretty.

What's the word for it?

Pretty active.

Okay, thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

You would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.