1 Samuel 8:19-22 Resist God!

 ”But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.” Then Samuel said to the Israelites, “Everyone go back to your own town.”“

‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭8‬:‭19‬-‭22‬ ‭NIV‬‬

a. No, but we will have a king over us: God will give Israel “their king” – Saul. Later, after “their king” fails, God will give Israel “His king” – David. Because we suppose that God ultimately wanted Israel to become a monarchy (based on Deuteronomy 17:14-20), we might even guess that if Israel did not forsake the LORD here, God would have made David the first human king of Israel.

b. That we also may be like all the nations: This was never God’s goal for Israel. God wanted to make them a special treasure to Me above all people…. a kingdom of priests and a holy nation(Exodus 19:5-6). God wanted to make Israel something special, and they wanted to be just like everyone else.

i. And that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles: God just won a spectacular battle for Israel in 1 Samuel 7. Israel did not lack a king – they had a king in the LORD God. What they wanted was the image of a king. Their desire for a king was really the desire for someone who looked like what they thought a king should look like.

c. So the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed their voice, and make them a king”: This was almost funny. Israel rejected the rule of God, yet they could not escape it, because God appointed their king. God will never step off His throne, even if man asks Him to. Yet if we resist the rule of God, we will find that we do not benefit from it in the way that we expect. When we resist God, we only hurt ourselves. (Guzik)

Resist God!

Unfortunately our nation has resisted God just like the Israelites! We have removed Him from our government, from our schools and the majority of the people don’t even know Him and teach their children about Him. Throughout the Bible we can see the hard lessons that the Israelites endured when they resisted and rejected God. Our nation needs a revival, we need the Lord to raise up another Charles Spurgeon, a Billy Graham, a prophet like Elijah!

Can you pray daily for a revival and that our nation stops resisting God?

Blessings