The Manner of the King

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 9
Listen from:
• BibleTruthPublishers.com
Why did it not occur to the elders of Israel that as Samuel's sons had proved a disappointment to them, the king might be no better? Is a change of government, whether in times ancient or modern, a necessary cure for every ill? Why turn from flesh in one form to flesh in another? Are we not sometimes as foolish as they when difficulties arise? “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes” (Psalm 118:8-98It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. 9It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. (Psalm 118:8‑9)). Have both reader and writer learned this simple lesson?
In answer to Samuel's prayer, the Lord laid before him the true nature of the people's demand. It was not so much the rejection of Samuel and his sons as the rejection of the Lord Himself. The people had grown weary of the theocracy. The wonderful privilege of being in direct relationship with God, and of being under His direct rule was nothing in their eyes, and they were willing to have done with it and to copy the practice of the nations. In like manner has the church long lost the sense of the exceeding blessedness of union with the invisible Head in heaven and of the guidance and control of the invisible Spirit in God's house on earth. Hence the insistence of many on the necessity for a clergy, chairmen, and others to take visible control amongst God's people.
“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, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken Me and served other gods, so do they also unto thee” (1 Sam. 8:7-87And 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, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. 8According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. (1 Samuel 8:7‑8)). The Lord thus shows that the demand for a king was but the climax of centuries of discontent with the position in which His grace had set them. They appear to have been confronted at the time with the threat of an Ammonite invasion (1 Sam. 12:1212And when ye saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us: when the Lord your God was your king. (1 Samuel 12:12)). Forgetting altogether the lesson of Ebenezer (1 Sam. 7:1212Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. (1 Samuel 7:12)), they turn, not to God, but to the arm of flesh. We observe something similar in Judges 11. There also the Ammonites were assailing them, and in their distress they turned to Jephthah for aid. When will men—when will we—learn to turn to God alone in the difficulties and perils of life?