Warning signs

This morning we're taking a look at 1st Samuel chapter 8. 1st Samuel chapter 8. Been working through our series on the book of 1 Samuel. And I'm once again going to pick up and read the whole story. Book of 1 Samuel is a fantastic book and there's so many great rich stories that that come forth from this book. And so I really love to just sort of draw these out and draw us into the text. 1st Samuel 8:1. When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah. They were judges in Beerseba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Rama and said, "Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations." But this thing displeased Samuel. And they said, "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, "Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you. They have rejected me from being king over them." According to all the deeds that they have done from the day I brought them up from Egypt, even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, obey their voice. only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them. So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. And he said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of 50s and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumemers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys and put them to his work. And he will take the tenth of your flocks and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves. But the Lord will not answer you in that day. But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, "No, but we shall there shall be a king over us. we also may be like the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles." And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, "Obey their voice and make them a king." Samuel then said to the men of Israel, "Go every man to One of the the things that really stood out to me as I as I'm reading this text is is ultimately this story begins with a good desire. They want justice in the land. They want to see uh you know the righties and sandal sons are not doing that. So there's the right intentions, but what we find as we look at the text, there are clues and warning signs that begin to tell us that this is not this is not a good decision and that there are there are red flags. And so the way that I sort of frame this is I wanted to to look at this story this morning and pull out some of these warning signs because it's really about intentions. And when the intentions of life, we can start with good intentions, but they can lead to destruction. that can go wrong in our life. So this is a story about where warning signs in life and where good intentions go wrong. Um as as we do today look and we can see several of these that that come to the surface. Um we all have very intentions in life. Uh I was recently uh listening to a story among a group of men about one of the the guys in the group and he was a follower and he was asking for prayer and he was talking about how um and this is not related to church any of the setting or anything like that. Um but the the gentleman in this group was saying you I need prayer and wisdom because every so often every few months I have this daughter she lives out in California. She's in her 30s and she will call me just out of the blue and she'll say she needs money and and he's like this is sort of become a cycle where every few months I'll just hear from her. I'm not even sure exactly where she's at in California. I'm not sure why she needs the money. She usually says she has an emergency. Something's come up and so she needs it. And he was praying for wisdom. But what's been happening over the course of years is he said, "I just I feel like I was always kind giving money. I'm not really sure what it's being used for or where it's going." And and a lot of us in the group are sitting thinking like,  you know, the intentions of this gentleman are good, right? We want to help our kids and and and we don't know all the circumstances and he doesn't either. He's praying for wisdom in this moment. But sometimes in those good intentions, he may also be giving unknowingly and enabling a way of life that's that's that his daughter could be using this in all sorts of different ways. She's in her 30s at this point in life and seemingly having every few months these like emergencies that are coming up. And so there's these warning signs, these warning flags that maybe he should read and think about, are there better or wiser ways for me to go about this? Maybe she needs to come and live with us for a season. She's having some emergency for something might need to change in her life. But in the midst of that, he has these good intentions, but some of it can lead to tragedy and it could lead to her tragedy because it might be a neighbor in the way of life for her. It could be destroyed. Now I don't know all the things about it but in that same way we see the elders today starting good intentions but going a ride along the way. And so what are these? So the first one I want to call out for us is when you make a big decision without God. And the way that this begins to first come to the surface. We're going to look at the text today and I'm going to just draw out things because some things that the Hebrew narratives communicate are overt. They're direct to us. They want to explain something, but sometimes there's these illusions or there's these repetition of phrases or words. And you notice sometimes when you're studying your Bibles that these things come to the surface and they're communicating something soy to us about the text, what the the author is trying to share for us. And so we actually see right here in the very first part of chapter, it says, "Sand became old and he made his sons over Israel judges. And the name of the first woman was Joel. The name of the second of Egypt were judges in your the sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took took bribes and perverted justice. So you have two sons and immediately when you think about that that should earlier in this text they were two sons. There were two sons of the high priest Elvi and these sons were not good sons. And all of a sudden what what the writer here is doing is making an illusion back to something earlier in the story. And we should all of a sudden sort of go back and say what was happening there and what happened in the midst of and this and in the same time this created problems. God's presence was leaving. These sons were wicked. They lost the battle right tragedy. and the elders got together and they decided on a solution and in that case in Elast time they decided let's carry the ark of God into battle and that did not go and one of the keys if we looked down if we looked at that story they did not inquire of God they they didn't say God what is your will here why did we lose this battle what's going on what's happening they didn't you know have this great repentance moment or anything like that they just said there's a problem we're going to come up with our own solution to this problem and it goes really bad. And right now we see once again two sons and there's a problem and there's evil amongst these two sons and we should be starting to think and the judges here right the judges have a what solution we got solution to this and they have not inquired of the Lord they've not inquired to God they've not come to him they've just decided like here's a great solution for our problem we just need a king that's what we're going to do and think about that for just a second this is a major decision I mean, it's like you're going from a completely different government structure. You're going from a sort of a loose confederation of tribes and a judge to a monarchy. I mean, if we as a mayor Paula all of a sudden want to become a monarchy, it's a huge thing. It's a huge shift. And and in life when we're making big decisions, when things are coming up, do we inquire of God for wisdom? Do we call out to him? Because these are warning signs. If we're not if we're approaching crossroads in life and we are not committing our way to the Lord, then there's danger. Scripture reminds us committing the way of the Lord and no plan shut us. Because what what can happen often times is as we as we pause, as we pray and as we listen and even in the midst of our prayers, God meets us and he directs us. And there's always a there's not some voice from heaven that just says go this way or walk that way. But the inclinations of our heart through prayer through inviting God into our life and into the the goies and comingings of our life into the decisions of life and it begins to strike. We invite the Lord's presence and his wisdom, his guidance into our life. And we need that. We shouldn't try to live this life and say, "What's going to work for me? What's the proper solution for this lover? But inviting the Lord into these things. But we see right here a clear indicator that this is a bad path that they're on. And they are already giving us a clear warning sign of faith. And they're not inquiring of God. They're doing the same thing the two sons of Eli did. They're just going to come up with a solution. And they're coming and they're not asking for the Lord's guidance in any of this. And ultimately, this request itself, it's really a guise. It's a guise for a deeper issue that's going on in their own hearts. See, when you aren't honest with yourself about what drives your decisions, this is already a bad sign going on. When you're not honest with God, especially about what's going on in your heart. And when you're not honest with yourself, you'll just kind of run through life and not pause, not pray, not reflect. That's what the elders right here are doing. It says that we see in verse uh five then Samuel said gather all Israel. Oh sorry in chapter 7 there uh verse five and he said to him behold you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. And what they're doing right here is they are using a phrase that's from Deuteronomy. And we see right here in Deuteronomy chapter 17 uh that it's a it's a direct call that you when you come into the land of Israel that the Lord your God is given you and you will possess it and dwell in it and they shall say I will set the king holy like all the nations that are around you. Now so there is in essence coming to Samuel and saying that time has come. We can have a king. It's in the Bible. It's in our scriptures for us to have a king. So, this is a good solution. It's time for this. And so, they're using scripture and saying, "There's a problem. We don't need to inquire of the Lord. We found a verse in the Bible to prove our point." And right here, we even see this is just something that the Lord is saying like, "You're going to say this." And what he's going to say after this verse in 14 is God begins through Moses to give all the ways that the king should operate and be different in the kings of the nation to round. And so he kind of gives all of these different pieces. God is not telling them you can have a king. He's mostly just saying to them like when you do this just be sure. And he gives them some guidelines for what how that king should and it's ultimately some guidelines that curb the power of the king so that he's not like the kings of the nations. What's this really about then? like why all of a sudden the key and why using the scriptures here to sort of forward and give credibility to their request because they had a judge. They had judges in the past. The judges and a prophet like Samuel proclaim the judgment of God. They bring justice into the land. They ultimately are ambassadors on behalf of God in the land. So why a king? And ultimately they're not honest. It's really about the fact what we see later on when they ask for the king and then they begin to demand the king. And we see in the elaboration what's really going on. Verse 20 it says they all say the king that we also may be like the nations and that our king may judge us. Go out before us fight our values. They want a king they can see. They want a king they can look to and rely because there is something I've tal about before. There's something in life that we tend to trust the things that we can see and not the things that we cannot see. Just time and time again happens in our life where we we have such a hard time with choosing and trusting and relying a lot because we can't see. we can't see and know and we would rather find an idol or or money or things in our life and say I can trust that I can set up a king in my life. I can look to him. I can put my hope in him and my trust in him and he can be this great leader who set up this guy. And it's just one instance in life where we want to trust the things we can see over what is unseen. That's not the life of faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not faith is is that it's trusting not just what we can see but in what is minds that one to be honest here is to just admit that they're afraid that they don't trust that God will be there to live them to say like we want the kingdom we can seek because we're not sure if God will judge if God will set up somebody to be a good judge in place of their sons that that we can have a great deal who will deliver us from the Philistines that from Jan. They just need to be honest with God, but they're not even honest with themselves about it. They just want to use scripture to make their claim, which by the way is a new way God to use scripture. Find one verse in the Bible and that proves your point for something. suddenly in the entire insertion. And here God wants us in life to just be honest because it's not until we're honest with God that he can really begin to work on our hearts. See, when you come to God and you're just honest and you say, "I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm afraid." You give air to those things and input them before we were and it allow the voice to come again and it again work on those things of heart. It gives him the opportunity to speak and to call to mind things to address those things in our life. And even for these judges for them to just air the concerns before the Lord or not we're not sure to protect us. We we don't like trusting what he cannot see and allowing the Lord to stoop into those places. It's possible that he would be reminding of what he just saw in previous chapter who gave him deliverance. Was it an a single invisible king? Was it a leader? Was God himself? God. And sometimes the Lord will just remind us and he will just breathe on things that will increase and grow our faith. But until we're honest and we come to God with these things and we pour them out, then we don't have the opportunity to heal. We don't have the opportunity for God to lead us into ISIS. So God calls us to be honest. cuz when we aren't honest, we wind up repeating the mistakes that we've done in the past. So that's that's the next thing that we see is that when you don't learn from your past, well, we know the expression when you don't when you don't learn your past, you're doomed to repeat it at the end of the day. You're doomed. But we see right here that in uh in in verse 8, verse 7, the Lord says to S, "I'll obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, that they rejected me from being king of it." Verse eight, "According to all the deeds that they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you." So he's saying the Lord is saying to Samuel, I've seen this thing before. I've seen this play out over and over in the lives of these people where their Horus I brought them from Egypt and immediately within a very short period of time they needed something they can see and trust in. So they what? Set up a golden calf. This is the God that delivered us from Egypt. And over and over and over again, these people have constantly eternity. And the call sometimes is just for us to remember and to be reminded that we need to to see the past mistakes. There's two ways to learn in life. Two ways. You can either learn the hard way by making the mistakes yourself. Or you can look at the history around you in the past and see other people and their warnings either verbally or the life story that they lived out and say that's a bad path. That's a bad way to go. And ultimately here if the elders don't just look at the history look at the last time we can be trusting God. Look at the last time we were honest with God. Look at the last time we sat an eye and said this will save us what happened in our lives. Has this really brought a blessing? Has this really brought life? Or has it been a way of destruction? But it seems time and time again that they forget the past about their lives. One of the great stories about how this plays out in life and world is in 1941. I was going to the story. I'm going to try to tell it really quickly here, but uh Hitler invades Russia or the Soviet Union invades in land in the summer of uh of 1941 goes in and they think it's going to be a quick war. They had that blitz free approach where they just take over a country within a matter of weeks. Well, some things happen and some tactical decisions were made and they get they make a lot of progress. They're getting deep into the country all the way to Moscow. But then the walking war begins to stall and then it lengthens out over months and they get to offer and things are going to go bad because winter begins to set in and you have a German army doesn't know how to fight. They don't have the equipment, the clothing, the gear, the supplies, anything to fight and it just gets colder and cold. So that by the time we enter into the winter time, it's actually more people in the hospital of the camps Jones that have frost fight than it would do by the woods. People dying battlefield because they're shocked and weighing their simple leg injury can be healed up of freeze to death. And the Russians know just stall this thing out because winter's going to take care of them for us. And if if Hitler had known his history, he'd have looked a 100 years before and seen Napoleon made the same exact mistake. He marched late moa the soldiers first did heaven you can repeat the mistakes past and it's so important for us to just look even look at scripture and be reminded be reminded of the stories and the forces of the past tell us speak to us that warn us in Romans 15:4 just hear me when I say here but Romans 15:4 says for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouraging scriptures run by whatever was written before was for our construction. reward us, guide us, judges of Israel, listen to what Sam says would do. Look at the past. Look at our history. The Lord even sees over and over again they've done and the author is helas and recounting this as he walks us through one more time. But they won't listen when they'll repeat the mistakes of the past. They won't take inventory. They won't look at the stories of the past. But just continue to lie ahead with good intentions but discarding the warning signs the present. And when you ignore the warning signs of God, this is a bad path. we see a warning sign come up immediately here. The Lord directly tells Samuel to warn them about this kind of king. So we see Samuel says in um verse 10, Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asked him why he came for him and he said these will be the ways of the king who will reign over he will take your sons and appoint them for his chariots ta we're just going to pause right there verse 11 will be said these will be the ways of the king and the reign of that that verse Yeah, the will be the ways. Now, in Hebrew, this is one of the great things about Hebrew is it can mean a lot of different things. This word the ways is mishpish. You don't have to know that and memorize that P day. But it it means it can mean judgment or decision or verdict. It's what a judge does. It's what a ruler does. They rule in a certain way. They judge in a certain way. They bring justice in a certain way. They deliver Mishop. And ultimately what we find is this. We see in verse three back here Bible tells us yet his sons did not walk in his ways. Talking about Satan's sons, but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and they converted. They converted justice. that converted their rulings, their decisions. And as it right here, he didn't have to use this word. It could have used the other words that other times it could have used, you know, show fate, mel could have used other different words in the here is telling us, do you think that this king that his Misha will be any better than the Mish the Samuel? I want to tell you the kind of Mishb that he's going to deliver and you're going to see in this list of wins that I'm about to deliver to you for the other entities that his niche path will be no more just mean the other one's good. You're trying to to solve a problem and you think a king is going to resolve this You've not inquired me. You've not come to me. You've not been honest with me. You're repeating your mistakes in the past. And so I'm going to warn you and I'm going to tell you right now, the mesh spot right here in the Hebrews will not be any better. It's going to be exactly the same. And that's what we begin to see right here. As we see this list and uh I think I got it here. So we ignore Yes. So as you can look at this list as the king begins as as if the king will take your sons. The king will take your daughters, take your land. And that word just keeps coming to via the attention. He's going to take he's going to take take your produce and your servants and your livestock. Well, what's the ending here? You slavery. This judge, this ruler that you want to set up that is a thing will bring the kind of pot that just takes and takes and takes. Anybody know that? In fact, this king that you want is even worse. This is a bad idea. Let me be clear. It's not wrong to want a king. It's not wrong. It's the kind of king that he wants. That is a real failure in this. It's the kind of king that they perceive in their mind that they want to set up. a king that looks like all the other nations. This great military proud hero that can come and rise up and be all of the things that they've longed for and that they can put their hopes in in a human, in a man. And right here, God is telling them he is just going to take take and take and take and over and projecting. You're your God is your king. And I just I put this list here because I wanted this striking to remind us so much about how God through scripture always reminds how he gives the blessing that he pours out on the lives. He directly tells this to the people in Israel constantly. Choose me, follow me. I'm going to do what? And he talks about this. I'm going to give you son and the blessing sons and daughters will come forth from me. Well, I gave them what? Where did the promised land come from? From God. He gave them the land. He said, "I will bless you. Your crops will abound and were fruitful." He gave them the servants even the kingdoms of the earth around them. He increased their livestock. And ultimately, he's the one that freed them from slavery, of Egypt, and from bondage. So, which is a better king? God or this human king? And we can do this in life so often. We can find the king. What's the kingypes? What's the thing that you you want to set up and say if I can obtain this really what I'm doing? Won't meet my hopes and dreams and expectations. If I can just get it, whether it's the job, the money, the family, the marriage, any of these things in life, we put our hope on say if I can just if I can live this, it'll afford this kind of life and it'll make me happy. It'll make me feel secure. It'll quiet the anger's own souls. God wants us to come to him. He wants to be the king of our life as he is fortunately the kind of kingom we need. and anybody that he sets up should only be ultimately pointing back to him, not serving himself and enslaving the people to serve them and their own desires. Finally, last piece is when your decisions are based solely on how they adhere to others, give us a key so that we can be like all the nations around us. It's time. We're a confederation of tribes. We're ruled by some invisible god. We can't even make an image of him. We don't get to worship multiple gods. We have to worship one god. We don't have a king that makes us look, you know, that we just will march out in front of us in our armies and say, "Yeah, that's our king." We don't embody any of these things. And Israel and judges walk around and just say, "We're not serious as a nation. We only worship one god. We don't even have an idol of him. We're so different. We don't even have a king or a central figure. It's time to catch up with the times. It's time to have somebody. It's time to have something that we can look to and that we can show off to all the nations around us. We need to modernize. We need to be different than how we are. And Bible the Bible gave us this ability. Scripture has told us we can do it. So let's move forth and do it. And that desire when your decisions are based solely on how they adhere to others. That's a meaningless. When the decision and the drive of your life is so that you can appease and live for the appeal of other people and what they think about you, how they perceive you, that's a bad drive of life. That's a warning flight for life because it will drive you in all sorts of different directions where you won't even know who you are. You're just constantly torn apart in different directions trying to appease and appeal to other people and other things in this life instead of asking who has God made me to be who does he call me to be and go wind up not for God but for the respect and the appeal and the praise of other people and we can follow their ways. Um, Leviticus 18:3. Yeah. Leviticus 18:3 says, "You shall not do." This is when they come into the land and and the Lord is saying, "And you come into the land, you shall not do as the other nations do as they do in the land of Egypt where you live. You shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, in the place where you were born, to which I bring you. You shall not walk in your statutes. you shall not walk in your ways. And we find and we looked at throughout the Old Testament that God took his people out of Egypt. And in Exodus 19, he said, "I'm going to set you up as a peculiar and priestly people. You're going to be different than all the nations around me. I'm going to use you as this priestly people to bear witness of me to be a light to the nations around." heart of God's master plan for Israel is yes, you're different. Yes, you're unique. I made you that way. I've called you to be that way. I want you to be that way. Because if you aren't that, then what different are you than the world around you? What kind of hope can you claim? What kind of prophetic voice can you be to the nations around you? The whole point of being different is because your life and your ways of doing Mishbah and justice and worship and everything points to the God of heaven. And the nations around will see the shortcomings of their God and the shortcomings of their hopes not being fulfilled in in earthly kings. And they will look to you and they will look ultimate unto the God of Israel. You're supposed to be different. Church, you're supposed to be different.  Christian, you're supposed to be different. Not different for different sake, but different as God calls you to live out. It's against the flow. It is counterculture. But that's how God calls us to live. Because if we try to be all things to all people, if we try to live for the appeasement of other people, if we try to water down the gospel and the truth of who God is and what he says and how he calls us to live, then what are we calling people to? How is it any different or any better than what the world has to offer already? God wants his people to live with priestly people and make divine hall according to his grace to be his temple his hands his feet his vine and to proclaim the mercies of him and call you out into his marvelous slide. We're called to be a different kind of people. And when our decisions are based solely on how they appear, we will try harder to be relevant to the world around us to earn their affections, their applaud, their appreciation, whatever, so that we can keep up with the times instead of looking at God and living the glory of God. What are the warning signs in your life? What are the warning signs of where maybe you're not honest with yourself or honest with God or you continue to make past mistakes or you don't listen to the voice of scripture and by the way that's just one great case for lightness staying in God be it let us speak to you if you don't know how to talk to Fox and there will talk about how to study scripture. How learn speaking to us cuz right here overly and in this subvert in this text in this office telling us things giving us warning signs. The judges of Israel are on bad horse. This is a collision path for destruction. Good intentions but it's going to lead to what we have to go. So, back to new regional issuing. We need justice. They need justice in the land. They need God to appoint someone. They're going to need a judge or a king or leader or someone who rightly leaders justice who helps their world to be more order and to be the way it ought to be. Israel's desire for a king isn't a bad thing. It's a kind of king and a fact that king would be a replacement of God. It makes it wrong. Makes it that good intentions gone. Good intentions gone wrong. They want a king that they can see. They want a king they can look to. They want a king that meets their expectations. There's a justice problem in this text for sure. The land is not as it should be. Justice is corrupted. We have a justice problem in our world. The world ultimately doesn't work the way it should be, way ought to be, the way that God wants it to be. You don't have to follow Christ to know that. But how do you know the world isn't operating as it should be? Unless the universe is savior, there's a standardly progress in this. It's only God. You have to admit that there has to be some sort of universal standard set by something outside of humanity, outside of every different culture, tongue, nation, and people sets that standard.  Ultimately, God and his word give us that standard. But the question is then, what is the standard? And who says it ought to be that? If there is no God, then there is no what? If there is a god, then there ought to be what shape in deep down we all believe that there bears true good and light. That's because God is as placed in us. The words truth, good and right have no meaning unless there is a God created some sort of standing that we all own. We may not agree on the path to attain it, but we all want it. But you can't have it without Althia. Israel certainly isn't that place. She wants a military Kira. She want she wants someone strong and powerful, mighty, good and everything else. But the king that is coming soon isn't going to be the solution. Oh, he'll look the part. He'll be taller than everybody else in the land very strong. But God isn't going to give them the king ultimately they want for the vac. And one day God did send for that kind of king. His son of king. It was his own son. Not like Elvis's sons. It's not like saying no sons. This was God's son that he brought Mishbot his justice into the land and he absorbed the sin of mankind that he all sudden dealt with nar. He was just and he was and is the king. The king that we should all look to. The king who dealt and will deal with volume justice and law in this world. He is the king we can trust. The king that we can look to the king who will fight our values. He doesn't replace God. He is God. God with us. Yet we are so tempted to trust our own way. We want to meet our expectations instead of serving and surrendering to his will. Will you ignore the one size? Will you ignore perhaps and not trust the news about this king? You know what that path is? That one for your own speaker is that let go your past and receive ambush for all that he is all that he has done. always for biggest thank you. We thank you that you gave it not the king to whom won the but the king the whom beat it. We thank you God that when we have made war decisions, right intentions, but the wrong rationale using the light of the long that you still had grace in our stories that though we so often we do not he did not call on your names. I was not even innocent. But I thank you that in the lowest opponents of life, you can't find us. And over and over and over again as we fail you, Iv pick us back up to always to say I become the king. Come. I will not take you. I will take your shame. I will replace it. I will not just leave him empty. full full of myself. We thank you that you are the God who gives and praise you in Jesus name. Amen.