02/17/2016 CHOOSING NEEDS OVER WANTS – PART II
1 Samuel 8:4-9; 19 Finally the leaders of Israel met in Ramah to discuss the matter with Samuel. They told him that since his retirement things hadn’t been the same, for his sons were not good men. “Give us a king like all the other nations have,” they pleaded. Samuel was terribly upset and went to the Lord for advice. “Do as they say,” the Lord replied, “for I am the one they are rejecting, not you---they don’t want me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt they have continually forsaken me and followed other gods. And now they are giving you the same treatment. Do as they ask, but warn them about what it will be like to have a king!”. . . . But the people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning. “Even so, we still want a king,” they said, “for we want to be like the nations around us. He will govern us and lead us to battle.”
[Living Bible translation]
Summary
Samuel was God’s prophet---God’s messenger to the people. But the people did not want a messenger from God or GOD’s leadership. They wanted a king. At first Samuel was upset. Samuel had spent his entire “career” as a prophet trying to help the Israelites serve GOD and now it seemed that all of his work trying to steer the Israelites in the right direction was for nothing! Despite all that GOD had done, the Israelites wanted a king to lead them instead of GOD. They wanted to be “like the [other] nations.” They looked at other nations and wanted what they had. They wanted to be just like everyone else.
1 Samuel 8:1-19 is a classic example of a people making a decision detrimental to their own physical, emotional and spiritual health----choosing what they wanted instead of choosing what they needed.