Pastoral Letter 68

Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,

Grace and peace to you all.

Thank God we don’t have new restrictions, so we are not wearing masks, and we will be singing and serving COVID-safe morning tea after the service, which will include Communion.

If you are not planning to come to our Sunday’s face-to-face worship, please join us following the Order of Service that you have received, light a candle, have a piece of bread and a small cup of wine/juice, worship, and pray with us.

Please contact me if you need any kind of support or hear about a development with any member of the congregation.

Krikor

MESSAGE

They Have Rejected Me!

1 Samuel 8:1-8:22

The Book of First Samuel is really an exciting book. It’s a book that’s packed with action. There’s not a whole lot of “Law” but a bunch of stories of how God’s people repeatedly ruined God’s plan to prosper, to bless them, to protect them, and to lead them to peace and to victory. And here, they do it again.

For over 300 years, God had been Israel’s king. It was God who had led them out of Egypt and through the wilderness. It was God who had brought them through the Red Sea, the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and given them victory over all the other nations who lived there. Yes, God had been a faithful and mighty king for the people of Israel.

Yet, the people of Israel weren’t satisfied. Why? Because they wanted a king they could look at. Till then they took their orders from the Ark of the Covenant, a box made out of acacia wood and covered with gold. Once a year, the high priest went inside this room that was covered with a curtain and he sprinkled blood all over this box and asked this box to forgive them. But this was a strange practice, and they just wanted to be normal, like everybody else.

It was never God’s intention for His people to be normal. Because God knew that normal wasn’t all that good. So, right from the very beginning, God told His people that He didn’t want them to be “normal.” He told them that He wanted them to be different. Look at Leviticus 18:3. God tells them: “You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices.”

Here we see the Israelites again, rejecting God’s desire for them to be different, and in so doing, rejecting God Himself. And in verse 7, God says to Samuel, it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.

The Israelites didn’t realize that they were rejecting God. Even though Samuel told them they were, they didn’t see it because they had been blinded by their own selfish desires. They wanted what they wanted, when they wanted it, and they weren’t going to take “No” for an answer.

Today our culture teaches us to get what we want, the way we want it, and to get it immediately. But we are called to be different. And yet, often we forget about being different, forget about God’s call, and just, live like a normal human being. That’s dangerous when we start to reject God. We’re not rejecting a church or rejecting a preacher. We’re rejecting God. And the scary thing is that we don’t realize that’s what we’re doing. But we are making bad decisions.

The elders of Israel presented their request to Samuel and backed it up with several arguments or excuses. Anytime we want to justify a course of action we wish to take, we come up with a list of what we think are logical arguments which are often really nothing but excuses to do things the way we want to do them.

Now let’s examine Israel’s explanations for wanting a king.

A. Samuel was not fit to lead

They tell Samuel that he is too old to lead them; in verse five they say, “look you are old.” So, you are not fit for the job or the position. At this point Samuel is probably 65 to 70 years of age. They seem to be suggesting that Samuel is “as good as dead” and that his leadership is over.

B. Samuel’s sons were not fit to lead.

They tell Samuel: “your sons do not walk in your ways” in other words your sons are not fit to lead. That must have hurt. This must have been true for it is never denied. But it seems to be more of a convenient excuse than the elder’s real motives to overthrow the theocratic system in favour of a human king.

C. The 12 tribes of Israel could not work together because each tribe had its own leader and territory.

The people hoped a king would unite the tribes into one nation and one army. Up until this point, the history of Israel has been characterized by disunity, each tribe did its own thing. There seems to be no real pattern for the selection of judges. Viewed this way the desire for a king probably seemed very logical, except that it left God completely out of the picture.

D. The people wanted to be like the neighbouring nations.

They said to Samuel we want to be “like all the nations.” But Israel was never designed to be just like the other nations; they were to be unlike them and superior to them in every way. Just like the Christians of today are not to be just like the world but according to 1 John 2:15, we are “not to love the world or the things in the world.” Unfortunately, too many Christians are still trying to follow the world’s example, to look like, sound like and act like unbelievers.

Samuel left the scene convinced that he had been rejected by the people he had spent a lifetime faithfully serving. As any godly leader would, Samuel probably distressed over whether what is happening is due to some failure on his part. The Lord answers Samuel’s prayer. He always has and he always will.

Prayer did several things for Samuel. First, it provided God’s guidance on how to respond to the Elder’s request. Secondly, it gave encouragement to Samuel in his service. God reminds Samuel it is not he, that is Samuel, whom they are rejecting.

Their rejection was really a very bad decision.

And so, there are 4 ways that we can tell that they were making a bad decision.

1. Assuming that there’s a better way than God’s Way

Again, God had been Israel’s king. And as long as Israel followed God’s commands, they were blessed. In fact, they never lost one battle when they followed what God told them to do. Not one. God told them to walk around the walls of Jericho for seven days. They did and the walls fell on that seventh day. Military strength couldn’t accomplish that. But God did. And God did countless other miracles on behalf of the Israelites as well. And as long as they followed God’s orders, they won. They were undefeated. And yet, even though Israel knew that they wanted to be normal. And so, they asked for a “normal” king. And God gave it to them. Look at 1 Samuel 12:12-13.

1 Samuel 12:12-13 “…you said to me, ’No, we want a king to rule over us’– even though the Lord your God was your king. Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the Lord has set a king over you.”

And they thought things would be better their way than God’s way.

2. Making excuses justifying their sin

Notice what the Israelites said in verse 5.

1 Samuel 8:5 “…You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

But then, look what they say in 1 Samuel 8:19-20.

1 Samuel 8:19-20 “…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.”

And so, another sign that you’re rejecting God is when you begin to make excuses to justify your own sinfulness.

There was a problem with Samuel’s sons. They were corrupt. And Samuel was getting old. God was not denying that. But that wasn’t the real reason they wanted a king. That was just their excuse to justify their own sinful actions.

3. Disregarding the consequences of their actions

Samuel spent 8 verses warning the Israelites of the consequences of their actions. He told them all the downfalls of having a king. He told them the king would use them and be a burden to them. He also told them that they would end up being the king’s slaves. And he says, in verse 18…

1 Samuel 8:18 “When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you on that day.”

There are consequences to our actions. And so, if you’re sowing sin into your life, don’t be surprised when you begin to endure the consequences for such actions.

4. They worry more about how they look than how they’re doing

The Israelites weren’t concerned about the spiritual state of their country. They were just concerned with how they looked to other people. They said: “Then we will be like all the other nations… “1 Sam 8:20

Again, they were tired of being looked at as fools. They were tired of having an invisible god who wouldn’t let them make images of Him in order to worship Him. And they were tired of not having somebody to point to as their leader.

They were tired of being different. And so, their concern was not: “How do we get better?” It was: “How can we make ourselves look better.”

This was really rejecting God.

In the gospel of Mark chapter 3, the evangelist describes a challenge coming from some teachers of the law who we would expect to oppose Jesus’ authority at every opportunity. It is evident that they accept without question His ability to heal and to drive out Demons. They made no attempt to challenge His ability because they would be recognised as fools by the crowd if they did so. They were faced then with a dilemma because they must find a way to prevent the crowd from continuing to follow and be disciples of Jesus.

So, they accuse Him openly of being possessed by Satan.

As so often was the case when Jesus was challenged by lawyers; those lawyers imagined that they had either trapped Him or caught him out in a way that will discredit Him when he replied. They were wrong! In a few words and a short parable Jesus let them know that any involvement He has with Satan is in the war against him. The absurdity of their accusation is quickly identified.

The truth of His words in verses 24 to 26 is overwhelming. The kingdom divided against itself cannot stand; a house divided against itself cannot stand and Satan, if he opposes himself, is doomed. These are simple truths that would have been obviously correct then, exactly as they would be throughout history. So many empires and organisations have fallen as a result of disunity rather than defeat by an external power.

Jesus tells them the parable: “In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house”.

Satan’s strength is undeniable, but the authority of Jesus over everything that exists is absolute.

And that should be enough for them not to reject His authority and accept Him to be the One who was promised to be sent by God.

Let us not reject God and His Son, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.   Amen!