Israel, Who Rejected God and Chose Man

Chapter 8 records two occasions on which a father was rejected. One is Samuel’s sons, who rejected him; the other is Israel, which rejected God. Rejecting one’s father in the flesh or one’s father in the spirit is a deeply unhappy thing for the one who does it. The corruption of Eli’s sons is different from the corruption of Samuel’s sons. Eli failed to set an example of faith as a father and loved his children more than God, so God rebuked Eli and held him responsible.

Samuel, however, showed a faith lived out in his life; it was his sons who did not walk in their father’s ways. That is why God did not hold Samuel responsible. Samuel named his firstborn Joel, meaning “Yahweh is God,” and his second son Abijah, meaning “Yahweh is father.” Samuel’s faith shows plainly in his sons’ names. He hoped they would grow up well, serving Yahweh.

But Joel and Abijah, against the wishes of their father Samuel, turned after worldly gain, took bribes and perverted justice, and lost the people’s trust. The people laid his sons’ wickedness at Samuel’s door. That shows that the world judges the character of parents by the conduct of their children. God’s children have been given the name of believers. If they do not live up to that name, the world goes beyond distrusting believers: it stops trusting God. Samuel had watched Eli’s sons die with his own eyes, and he would have been set on raising his own sons rightly. God knew the heart of Samuel, who had prayed with tears for their souls. So God did not rebuke Samuel for the corruption of Joel and Abijah.

There is an old saying: parents with sons should not curse a thief, and parents with daughters should not curse a prostitute. It probably means that raising children rightly is that hard. Parents must work to show their children an example of faith, and even so, the children may not grow up in faith. When that happens, we must not be so foolish as to lose heart and throw away our own faith as well. What you must keep in mind is that God never lets earnest prayer for your children be in vain. Rather than rejoicing or losing heart over only what you can see, you need to look further ahead and live with patience.

Angered by Samuel’s sons, the people demanded that, since his sons were not upright and they had no hope, he set a man over them as king, like the other nations. Samuel’s heart would have ached as he watched them reject God because of his own shortcomings. He would have felt sorry before God, as though by failing to manage his household well he had given the people a pretext for pushing almighty God aside and setting a human being on the throne. Israel’s king is God. Even though God, who is absolute, reigns as king, Israel is dragging him down because of its desire for the world.

In Genesis 12:2 God blessed Abraham, saying that he would make of him a great nation, bless him and make his name great, and that all the families would be blessed through him. God could say “I will make of you a great nation” and “all the families will be blessed through you” because he himself is the one who gives the blessing. It is God who called Abraham, and God who makes him a great nation. It is God, too, who gives blessings of spirit and body to make Abraham’s name great, and his descendants are blessed only because God blesses them. God’s promise was that he, having founded a nation through Abraham, would become their king and set them apart from other nations.

After the exodus, God destroyed many nations to lead the people of Israel into Canaan. At the threshold of death they were protected completely and kept alive; they won many wars and saw God’s greatness with their own eyes. Now those same people are using Samuel’s sons as an excuse, saying God has no power, and trying to push God off the throne.

Don’t these people look far too much like us today? God has solved even problems you never prayed about, and in a world like a battlefield with death strewn everywhere, he is guarding your life within the hedge of the Holy Spirit. When we are in need we call him our Father and praise him as great, and when things don’t go our way we cast him off easily, telling him he is powerless and has no right to be our king. But you who have received grace in a dark world have a right faith only if you keep that gratitude forever. Israel, which received such love, is refusing to serve God as king. They have forgotten what matters most and are dealing with God according to their own feelings.

Who is the king that sits in your heart now? Is it God? Or is it the world? Could it be that you have never once seated God on the throne? I hope you will look closely at whether you think of yourself as a child of God just because you go to church out of habit. Only if you examine whether you are sitting on the throne yourself with God as your attendant will you be able to recognize Christ when he comes as king on the last day.

When the people saw that Samuel, on whom they had relied, had failed to raise his sons well, they went so far as to reject God. Samuel was in anguish, seeing the people turn away because of his failing, and God comforted him, saying that though the people were blaming him, in fact it was God they had rejected. God knew the people’s true heart. He knew that all along they had sought God and cast him off according to their own needs. It is not right to blame one’s sufferings on a leader like Samuel, who had fulfilled his mission with all his strength, rather than on one’s own sin. That is why God comforted Samuel.

Samuel is only a judge who speaks for God’s word. Depending on how the people live after receiving the Word the judge delivers, they may receive God’s help or they may suffer. Anyone can hear the Word, but blessing or curse comes depending on who lives out that word of truth. Whatever their reason, human greed came first, and like the Gentiles they wanted a prosperity they could see; that is why they will not serve God as king. That very thought is sin and unbelief.

Matthew 27:29

29They braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they kneeled down before him, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

Failing to recognize fully the king who came to this earth to atone for their sins, they are shouting to kill Jesus, who had no worldly power. Pilate knew for certain that Jesus was without sin and wanted to release him, but he had no power to withstand the people’s fury. When asked whether he was the King of the Jews, Jesus confessed before Pilate and the people that he was the King of the Jews. He had to die at the Passover like a lamb to atone for his people’s sins, and that is why he confessed that he was the King of the Jews. In this way Scripture testifies that Jesus is the king of all believers who believe in Christ by faith.

Hebrews 8:1 records that the main point of what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. Because Christ has become the eternal king, a Jew is now not one who is a Jew outwardly, but one who is a Jew inwardly; circumcision is not that which is outward in the flesh, but circumcision is that of the heart. Now it is not Israel that is God’s chosen people; the true Israel, who have received Christ, become the people God has chosen. Unable to recognize such a heavenly king, they judge by the world’s standards. Jesus, our king, is now seated at the right hand of God’s throne. He is on the throne not as a high priest who dies when his life is over, but as our high priest who never dies. So the blessing of believers is eternal too.

God rescued them from more than four hundred years of slavery, split the Red Sea and the rock, and helped them conquer Canaan, and still all they could see were the Gentiles living in luxury. God answers their problems and leads them in the way of peace, yet as soon as things are hard they keep their distance from him, asking why he does not give them an easy road like those people have. That heart is exactly what we see in those people shouting for a man to be made king.

I hope you will stand where you can rebuke Israel as it shouts for a human king, asking how they could ever reject God. If you rebuke them, telling them that rejecting God is death, perhaps they will stop their ears because they do not want to hear your voice. Just as people threw stones at the apostle Paul, who brought them life, the world may persecute you and put you at a disadvantage as you preach the whole gospel. Even so, you must cry out; only then can they and you live together.

The world is now racing ahead to fulfill the prophecies of Revelation. To set up the abomination in the holy place, all religions are being bound together into one under the name of “love.” Under the name of “unity,” the world is steadily gathering strength to use the same currency, make the same laws and set up one leader. Once the world is bound into one, there will be religious persecution. You must keep your faith from now on, for that time. The world is actually moving just as John received it in the revelation, and after that will come days when Christians cannot freely live out their faith. What kind of faith will you show then?

Believers can pray freely now, read the Bible, and sing praise and worship aloud as much as they like, and yet they do not prepare for that day. The last day of judgment is not a day that exists only as words written in the Bible. Christ, the Judge, will surely bring that day to pass. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, there will be a terrible disaster in which the Babylon of the world falls. All of us who have faith must stand on the rock of the Word for that day, and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit we must lead our neighbors to faith.

When Israel repented and fasted, God drove back the Philistines for them. Then Israel forgot all that grace and turned its eyes back to the world. In doing so it failed to believe God’s promise and refused to acknowledge that God is the Creator and is absolute. Let Israel be a mirror to us: before the world proclaims a man as king, all of us must have the faith that serves God as king.

John 16:1-2

1“I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.

Jesus said that people would put Christians out and kill them because they do not rightly know God and Christ. Religions are gathering under the name of love and peace, but they have no ability to judge whom that love is for, or whether it is truly love toward Christ. Just as people of the world are desperate to exalt their own names, these bear the names of God, church and pastor, but in name only; they are no different at all from people of the world. They serve only the Word as I know it, my church, my congregation, what is mine, and me alone, and cannot break free of the world’s way of thinking.

When I see this, I am afraid. I worry whether the believers among us really know that churches are quickly abandoning God. Even now, when hardship comes, they keep away from the church and blame God. If they cannot have a faith that rises above the world when they are put out and persecuted, they will in the end have no choice but to share in the second death, and I worry whether believers know this. This is the fear of a pastor responsible for souls.

Paul killed and persecuted Christians and said he did it to serve God more zealously. He sinned because he did not rightly know God’s promise, or Jesus, who came the first time just as that promise said and will come a second time. Attending church is not the same as rightly knowing God’s promise. Only when believers hold on to the truth and live it out in the world can they believe that covenant and be sure of it. So we must do our utmost to meet Jesus all the more in the Word.

1 Samuel 8:9

9Now therefore listen to their voice. However you shall protest solemnly to them, and shall show them the way of the king who will reign over them.”

The people of Israel had come this far under God’s unreserved love and absolute protection, yet they could not let go of their greed and ended up choosing a human king. With narrow human judgment they rejected the almighty King. Without complete faith, no one can acknowledge God as king. God wants people to choose him of their own free will. To choose God as king of our own free will, we must know what sacrifice God is making for our salvation.

Samuel was working hard to stop the spiritually ignorant people, but God told him to choose a king from among men and set him up. Until then God had ruled with love and grace. But the king of the world would rule by force, regardless of the people’s will. For the sake of his power the king would conscript the people’s sons and daughters, and the people would have to give their lives for the king. Unlike God, who had always answered when they cried out in their pain, the king would ignore the people’s pain and rule with the whip. Even after being told all this, they chose a man.

The system of captains of thousands and captains of fifties, which Moses’ father-in-law Jethro devised, was a system for leading and protecting Israel safely. It was also a system made to protect Moses and for the people’s ease, but the king would use it to keep his own power. Israel, which had lived honored and glorious as God’s children, has now torn down all its peace with its own hands. They would not listen to God, and now God has let them go.

In verse 18 God said that even if they suffered at the hands of the king they had chosen for themselves, he would not answer them. Can you feel the heart of God, grieving as he says “your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves”? It is the heart of parents who guided their child in the right way, only to be rejected, and who now tell the child that if they walk out the door now, no help will ever come from home. God, who had wanted to establish Israel as a people set apart, was utterly rejected by them.

God’s word that he will not answer them when they suffer under the king of the world is itself a judgment. Rebuking and taking up the rod at every wrong is love. More fearful than rebuke is indifference. God is saying that from now on he will be indifferent to Israel’s suffering. If you are rebuked the moment you sin, be thankful: it is evidence that God cares about you. But if you abandon your faith and no rebuke comes, you must turn back in fear, for it means God has abandoned you.

We still have many chances left to receive God as king again. For the Word you have set up as the standard of your life leads you in the way of eternal blessing.

I hope you will enjoy peace in Christ. May you always serve God as king and keep your faith to the end. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 9:15-24

15Now Yahweh had revealed to Samuel a day before Saul came, saying, 16“Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man out of the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He will save my people out of the hand of the Philistines; for I have looked upon my people, because their cry has come to me.” 17When Samuel saw Saul, Yahweh said to him, “Behold, the man of whom I spoke to you! He will have authority over my people.” 18Then Saul approached Samuel in the gateway, and said, “Please tell me where the seer’s house is.” 19Samuel answered Saul, and said, “I am the seer. Go up before me to the high place, for you are to eat with me today. In the morning I will let you go, and will tell you all that is in your heart. 20As for your donkeys who were lost three days ago, don’t set your mind on them; for they have been found. For whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you, and for all your father’s house?” 21Saul answered, “Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? And my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then do you speak to me like this?” 22Samuel took Saul and his servant, and brought them into the guest room, and made them sit in the best place among those who were invited, who were about thirty persons. 23Samuel said to the cook, “Bring the portion which I gave you, of which I said to you, ‘Set it aside.’” 24The cook took up the thigh, and that which was on it, and set it before Saul. Samuel said, “Behold, that which has been reserved! Set it before yourself and eat; because for the appointed time has it been kept for you, for I said, ‘I have invited the people.’” So Saul ate with Samuel that day.