1 Samuel 8: Israel Demands a King Like the Other Nations

Introduction

"Who will be king?" For several weeks, this question has been at the heart of the series on the first book of Samuel at St Jude's, in Carlton. Until now, the question was a strange one: there was no king in Israel. In chapters 8 and 10, everything changes. Israel asks for a king, and Israel gets a king.

Josh Elkin, one of the pastors at St Jude's, follows the thread of chapter 8: the problem, the elders' proposal, God's warning, and then the outcome in chapters 10 and 11. He makes clear from the start that when he speaks of Israel, he means God's people 3,000 years ago, not the modern state. He offers no political solution for the Middle East today.

Behind this story about kingship lies a question that concerns you directly: who do you trust to lead your life? A king "like everyone else's," or the God who saved you?

Message Outline

1. The Problem: Samuel Grows Old and His Sons Turn Away

The setting is peaceful. The ark had been captured, then God showed his power against Dagon, the god of the Philistines, and brought it back. In chapter 7, verse 13, the Philistines are humbled and the hand of the Lord is against them all the days of Samuel. "Everything's fine. What could possibly go wrong?"
The first problem, common to every leader: Samuel is getting old. "The problem with all good leaders is that they won't be leaders forever." When they leave, worry and questions follow: who will replace them, and where does that leave us?
Samuel appoints his two sons, Joel and Abijah, as judges in Beersheba, far to the south, out of his sight. He follows "Eli's playbook": the priest Eli had also handed the office to his two corrupt sons. The same strategy brings the same result.
Samuel's sons chase after profit, accept bribes and pervert justice. They see their office as a way to get rich at the people's expense. They have turned away from God to the idol of money.
The pastor pauses on a pain that many Christian parents know: having children who do not follow in their footsteps and who turn away from the Lord Jesus. The text assigns no blame to Samuel. "Don't judge yourself more harshly than God does." Keep praying, keep hoping, keep showing the love of Jesus. "Their story and your story are not over yet."

2. The Proposal: A King Like All the Nations

The elders of Israel gather at Ramah. That should set off an alarm: the last time they had a great idea, they sent the ark of the covenant into battle. The result: 30,000 dead, the ark captured and distress throughout the land.
Their request, in verse 5, sounds reasonable: you are old, your sons do not walk in your ways, so appoint a king to lead us, like all the other nations have.
The elders are tired of waiting for God to raise up a leader. They are tired of priests and prophets who bring a message from God calling for change. They want things to be simple, and they no longer want to stand out.
Josh Elkin admits that he has thought about the Christian life in this way: getting up to pray and read the Bible when mornings are already hard, giving to the church and supporting missionaries when he would rather buy a house like his friends, loving a coworker whom everyone finds unbearable when it would be easier to do as others do and talk about him behind his back.
"The Christian life is a life that makes us stand out from the crowd." It calls us to be radically loving, radically generous, and to trust not in ourselves but in God. "How often do we think we know better than the Creator of the universe? How often are we like the elders of Israel?"

3. An Absurd Request That Rejects God

On closer inspection, the proposal is absurd, almost comical. To fix the problem of a leader's corrupt sons, they demand a hereditary monarchy in which the sons of rulers will reign forever. "It's like trying to stop a flood with a garden hose."
More serious still, Samuel is displeased and prays. God answers him: it is not you they have rejected, it is me they have rejected (verse 7). Just as when the ark was captured, the elders show that they do not trust God to take care of them.
In verse 8, God reminds Samuel that they have been doing this since the day he brought them out of Egypt. They are turning away from the God who called an old, childless man to become the father of a multitude of nations, the God who delivered them from their Egyptian masters, the God who led them through the wilderness and gave them a good land.
We reject God too when we do not entrust our time and energy to him, when we do not trust him with our finances, when we refuse to love others, when we blend into the world instead of being salt and light.
"In every generation, in every place, at every moment," we have to choose between welcoming God's will for our lives and blending into the world. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.

4. The Warning: A King Who Will Take

Even in this rejection, God does not turn away from his people. Like a good parent trying to reason with his children, he warns them through Samuel.
The pastor invites us to count how many times the verb "take" appears from verse 11 on: the king will take your sons, your daughters, the best of your fields, your vineyards and your olive groves, a tenth of your grain and your vineyards, your servants, your oxen, your donkeys, a tenth of your flocks. "And you yourselves will be his slaves."
"What is a king? Someone who will take. Someone who will enslave." It is, he says with humor, "the worst business deal in the history of business deals." It will not solve the problem and will only make the situation worse.
Asking for a king means asking to go back to Egypt, to the state before redemption: the pain, the bitterness, the poverty and the misery of slavery. And it is worse still because of verse 18: on that day you will cry out against the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you.
This warning, which may seem harsh, is actually God's mercy. What the elders are asking for is a betrayal, a direct violation of the covenant. God shows them exactly what they are asking for, so that they cannot tell themselves they were innocent or deceived.
Like every warning, it aims at a change of behavior. The parent who tells a child not to touch the hot pan, the sign at the top of the cliff: "This is not God being coercive or controlling. It is merciful and full of love."

5. The Judgment: God Gives Them What They Want

The people refuse to listen: "No! There will be a king over us, so that we also may be like all the nations." Samuel reports these words to God, who answers: listen to their voice and appoint a king for them.
Josh Elkin connects this passage with Romans 1: God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts, those who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.
When we think of God's judgment, we picture fire and brimstone, little red devils with pitchforks or angels with flaming swords. But very often, "God's judgment is to let people make decisions that take them away from him."
God gives Israel what it wants, not because it will be good for them, but as a judgment on their rebellion, their impatience and their rejection. And yet, in this judgment there is also mercy.

6. Saul, a King Hiding Among the Baggage

Between chapters 8 and 10, God arranges the meeting between Saul and Samuel. Saul is anointed in secret, goes home and tells no one. In chapter 10, starting at verse 17, Samuel gathers Israel at Mizpah and repeats his warning one last time: you are rejecting the God who delivered you from all your calamities.
The people present themselves by tribes and by families. This scene recalls Joshua 7, the last time Israel was gathered like this: Achan was singled out as the one who had disobeyed God and caused Israel's defeat, and he was stoned. "The memory of death and judgment hangs in the air."
Yet this is God's grace: staying with his people in their disobedience and raising up a king for them from among them. The tribe of Benjamin is chosen. Benjamin, the youngest brother, the tribe all the others had gone to war against a few decades earlier, the tribe set apart. A Benjamite to rule over the twelve tribes is shocking.
Then the lot falls on the family of Matri and on Saul, son of Kish. But Saul cannot be found. God cuts the game of hide-and-seek short: he is hiding among the baggage. The pastor points out the comedy of the scene: the man who stands head and shoulders above all the people, hiding among the bags.
"How often do we shrink back from the great responsibilities God calls us to?" The hard conversation you know you need to have with a friend, the compassionate response to a problem at work, the small daily acts of love that inconvenience you. "How often are we among the baggage instead of in front of the people?"
The welcome is mixed: "Long live the king!" say some. Others wonder how this man could possibly save them. He is a Benjamite, he comes from Gibeah. In chapter 11, his reign gets off to a bad start: the Ammonites besiege a city, and Saul responds by threatening all Israel to force them to fight. The battle is won, but a new era begins: Israel's leader is no longer merely corrupt, he is a tyrant who rules by force and terror.

7. Jesus, the King of a Different Kingdom

A little over a thousand years later, another man comes, from the tribe of Judah and not Benjamin. He announces a new kind of kingdom, different from those of the nations: a kingdom governed by love and not by terror, whose king lives forever, always faithful to God, with no wicked sons to succeed him.
"The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the good news." How did humanity receive this king? With the most brutal torture and death ever devised. Powerful enough to escape it, he submitted to the cross and the tomb, and he rose again on the third day.
He bore God's judgment and wrath in our place so that we could be right with God. He did not turn aside to corruption or bribes. He walked straight to the cross. He now sits at the right hand of God, where he intercedes for us. By believing in him, we can be forgiven for our rebellion and our betrayal, and receive a new citizenship.
Josh Elkin confesses that he was convicted this week. New Zealand, his home country, is preparing for a general election. Every time an article on the subject appears in his news feed, he clicks and loses an hour or more. Every debate captivates him. "I'm like the Israelites. I want a better human leader to solve all the problems of this world."
That search is hollow and empty. We need to look to Jesus for our satisfaction and our hope, and trust his plan and his timing. Yes, we should work and vote to improve the world, but we have a deeper need: to draw near to Jesus. "The God of the universe wants to speak to me. I need to turn off my phone, turn off the TV and draw near to him."
"He doesn't want our votes. He wants our hearts, our minds, our souls and our strength."

Key Takeaways

Wanting to be "like all the nations" amounts to rejecting God as king. The Christian life calls us to live differently, and it shows.
The solution the elders proposed reproduces exactly the problem it claims to solve. Our solutions without God often do the same.
God's warning is a mercy: it shows where our choice leads in order to bring us to repentance.
God's judgment often takes the form of our own desires granted. Yet even then, God stays with his people.
Jesus is the king no human leader can match: he reigns by love, he lives forever and he wants your heart rather than your vote.

Personal Application

In which area of your life (your time, your money, your relationships at work) are you tempted to do "what everyone else does" rather than follow God?
Is there a solution you are waiting for from a leader, a job or financial security, when it can only come from God?
What warning from God have you heard recently without heeding it?
What responsibility, hard conversation or act of love are you avoiding by hiding "among the baggage"?
What captures your attention to the point of drawing you away from Jesus, and what can you turn off this week to draw near to him?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Israel ask for a king in 1 Samuel 8?

Samuel has grown old and his sons, Joel and Abijah, are corrupt: they seek profit, accept bribes and pervert justice. The elders of Israel then ask for a king "like all the nations have." Josh Elkin points out that they want an easier life and no longer want to stand apart from the surrounding peoples.

How does asking for a king amount to rejecting God?

God himself tells Samuel that the people have not rejected him, but have rejected God from being king over them (1 Samuel 8:7). For Josh Elkin, the elders show once again that they do not trust God to take care of them, the God who brought them out of Egypt and gave them a land.

Why does God give Israel a king anyway?

God first warns his people strongly: the king will take their sons, their daughters and their fields, and make them his slaves. The people refuse to listen. God then gives them what they want, as a judgment on their rebellion. But Josh Elkin also sees grace in it: God stays with his people and raises up a king for them from among them.