1 Samuel 8
1When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. 2The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. 3But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside toward dishonest gain, accepting bribes and perverting justice.
4So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5“Look,” they said, “you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king to judge us like all the other nations.”
6But when they said, “Give us a king to judge us,” their demand was displeasing in the sight of Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD.
7And the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you. For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king. 8Just as they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking Me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9Now listen to them, but you must solemnly warn them and show them the manner of the king who will reign over them.”
Samuel’s Warning
10So Samuel spoke all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11He said, “This will be the manner of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them to his own chariots and horses, to run in front of his chariots.
12He will appoint some for himself as commanders of thousands and of fifties, and others to plow his ground, to reap his harvest, to make his weapons of war, and to equip his chariots.
13And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
14He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his servants. 15He will take a tenth of your grain and grape harvest and give it to his officials and servants. 16And he will take your menservants and maidservants and your best cattle and donkeys and put them to his own use.
17He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18When that day comes, you will beg for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you on that day.”
God Grants the Request
19Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We must have a king over us. 20Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to judge us, to go out before us, and to fight our battles.”
21Samuel listened to all the words of the people and repeated them in the hearing of the LORD.
22“Listen to their voice,” the LORD said to Samuel. “Appoint a king for them.”
Then Samuel told the men of Israel, “Everyone must go back to his city.”
God lays out why corrupt men should not reign as king over his fellow man. Simply put, man will use his power for his own selfish gain, forsaking those that suffer from it.
To drive home the point, God appointed David as king after the people demanded that a human king reign over them. The Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart.
1 Samuel 13:14 “But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”
So, there was none better than David for the job, according to the Bible. Yet David committed two of the most egregious sins possible in his life, namely adultery with a married woman and the murder of her husband. Both sins by themselves were worthy of death in Mosaic law. Think of it, the most sinless and perfect soul God could find became a monster when he put that Lord of the Rings ring of power on his finger. There were only two more kings until the Hebrew kingdom broke apart and began to spiral the drain of destruction. Next thing the Hebrews knew, they woke up in the ovens of Nazi Germany.
But this goes back to the fall of Adam when he also put on that ring of the power of knowledge on his finger as well. It was just a latter manifestation of that sin.
For the Jew and for the secular humanist Leftist, original sin and 1 Samuel 8 presents an astounding problem. Who will be our Messiah to deliver us from the evil around us? For the Jew, they are looking for a mere mortal man once again to become their king and deliver them, which again feeds into the warnings God gave them about doing so.
Again, as 1 Samuel 8 points out, only God is qualified for that job. And for the Leftist, this means that centralized power can never lead to our collective salvation. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It will lead to our ruin as every failed regime, after failed regime, after failed regime, has proven time and time and time again. Yet mankind never connects the dots, do they?
