There is nothing new under the sun.
Solomon said that, and he said it about three thousand years ago, and he said it because he had already watched it happen in his own family, in his own nation, in his own lifetime.
And I want to tell you that what happened in Israel in 1 Samuel chapter 8 is not ancient history. It is a mirror. And if you hold it up to what we have just watched happen in this country, you will see your own face in it, and you may not like what you see.
What I am going to do is show you something uncomfortable. I am going to show you that the way we talk about elections in this country – the way you talk about elections, the way I have talked about elections – sounds almost word for word like a nation standing in front of a prophet of God, shaking its fist, and saying, “Give us a king.”
And I am going to show you that God gave them one. And that it was a judgment.
Israel’s Demand: “Give Us a King Like All the Nations”
Look at the setup. Samuel is old. His sons are corrupt – they took bribes and perverted justice, and the people knew it. So the elders of Israel come to Samuel at Ramah, and they make their case.
On the surface, it sounds reasonable. It sounds practical. It sounds like a people who just want good government.
Let’s look at 1 Samuel 8:4-5:
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
Now hear what they are actually asking for.
They are not asking for a better judge.
They are not asking for Samuel to raise up godly sons.
They are asking for a king – and notice the phrase, because this is the whole thing: “like all the nations.”
That is the sentence that damns them.
Not “give us a king like You would give us.”
Not “give us a leader after Your own heart.”
Like all the nations. They want to look like everybody else.
They want what everybody else has. They want the same structure, the same prestige, the same military, the same throne, the same pomp – because they have decided that being different is the problem.
And here is where I need you to lean in, people. Because that is exactly what we do. We are the people of God. We are supposed to be a peculiar people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people who do not operate the way the world operates.
Yet every four years, we get down in the mud with the world, we adopt the world’s language, we adopt the world’s anger, we adopt the world’s contempt for our opponents, we adopt the world’s whole framework for what a savior looks like – and we call it being engaged.
We want a king like all the nations. We want a savior who looks like everybody else’s savior. And we tell ourselves it is wisdom.
The Real Rejection: They Did Not Reject Samuel — They Rejected God
Now watch what God says to Samuel, because this is the verse I want you to write down and put on your refrigerator. 1 Samuel 8:6-7:
But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.
Samuel is hurt. Of course he is. He has given his whole life to these people. He raised them, he judged them, he prayed for them, he wept over them. And they come and tell him, in effect, we don’t want your kind anymore.
He takes it to the Lord, and the Lord says something that ought to make every one of us tremble:
They have not rejected you. They have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.
Hear that people!
The rejection was not of a man. The rejection was of a throne. They did not want God ruling over them. They wanted a system they could control. They wanted a king they could point to, a king they could blame, a king they could manage — a king who would give them what they wanted without ever telling them what to do.
And God says, this is not new. Look at the next verse, verse 8:
According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day – with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods – so they are doing to you also.
This is not a one-time failure. This is a pattern. This is the habit of a people who want the blessings of God without the rule of God.
Now let me ask you something, and I want you to answer it honestly in your own heart, not out loud. When you went into that voting booth – or when you filled out that ballot at your kitchen table – what were you actually looking for?
Were you looking for a king who would reign over you in righteousness? Or were you looking for a king who would give you what you wanted?
Were you looking for a man who would call you to repentance? Or were you looking for a man who would tell you that you were right all along and that the problem is all those other people?
Because if it is the second one, you did not reject a candidate. You rejected the reign of God. And you did it with a smile on your face and a sticker on your shirt or jacket.
God Gives Them What They Want — and It Is a Judgment
Here is the part of the story that ought to terrify us. Samuel warns them. God tells Samuel to warn them solemnly — to tell them exactly what this king is going to do to them.
And it is a brutal list. We see it in 1 Samuel 8:10-18:
So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. And he said, “This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.”
He will take your sons.
He will take your daughters.
He will take your fields, your vineyards, your olive groves – the best of them.
He will take a tenth of your grain, a tenth of your flocks.
He will take, and take, and take, and you will be his servants.
Then – verse 18 – you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
That is the sentence. You will cry out, and the LORD will not hear you.
They heard the warning. They heard every word of it. And what did they say?
We see it in verses 19 and 20:
Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
Nevertheless. That is one of the saddest words in the Bible. They had the truth in front of them, plainly stated, with the cost spelled out in detail – and they said nevertheless, we’ll have it anyway. We know what it will cost. We do not care. Give us what we want.
And God says — and this is the judgment in verse 22 – “Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king.”
Do you understand what just happened? God gave them exactly what they asked for. He did not stop them. He did not override their will. He let them have it. And it was not a blessing. It was a judgment. The worst thing God can do to a rebellious people is give them the leader they deserve.
I need you to stew over that.
Sometimes the thing you are celebrating as an answer to prayer is actually the hand of God giving you over to what you demanded.
Sometimes the election result – whichever way it went – is not God blessing America. Sometimes it is God saying, fine. Have it your way – and you will cry out, and I will not hear you.
The Petulance of a People Who Want a King Without a Lord
Now let me say something that is going to step on toes, and I am going to say it anyway, because I love you and because I would be a coward not to.
Look at the tone of these people. Look at the posture.
They do not come to Samuel with humility. They do not come with a question. They do not come saying, Samuel, we are concerned, we see corruption in your sons, what does the Lord say?
No. They come with a demand. They come with an ultimatum. They come with the attitude of a child in a grocery store checkout line, throwing himself on the floor because he has seen the candy and he has decided that he will have it, and he does not care what it costs, and he does not care who he embarrasses, and he does not care that his father has told him no.
That is what this is. That is what a nation looks like when it has decided that it wants what it wants and it does not want to hear the word no.
And I am telling you – I am telling you as plainly as I know how – that is what we have become.
We have become a people who cannot hear the word no.
We cannot hear it from God, we cannot hear it from Scripture, we cannot hear it from a pastor, and we certainly cannot hear it from each other. We want what we want, and if the system will not give it to us, we will tear the system down.
If the vote does not go our way, we will burn the city.
If the preacher tells us something we do not like, we will find a preacher who tells us what we do like.
If the Bible says something that offends our sensibilities, we will find a Bible that has been edited to agree with us.
That is not conviction. That is not faithfulness. That is a tantrum. And it is being thrown from both sides of the aisle, in both directions, by people who claim the name of Christ and then behave exactly like the world they claim to be saved out of.
And here is the thing about a tantrum: it always ends the same way. The child gets what he demanded, and it never satisfies him, and he is back on the floor next week demanding something else. Because the problem was never the candy. The problem was the heart.
The Warning to Us: A King Cannot Save You
Now let me bring this home, because I do not want you to leave thinking this is a message about politics. This is a message about idolatry.
Israel wanted a king because they believed a king would save them. A king would give them security. A king would give them prosperity. A king would give them standing among the nations. A king would fix what was broken. And God says, no. A king will take. A king will not save.
And I want to say this as clearly as I can: no election has ever saved a single soul. Not one. Not the election you were thrilled about, and not the election you were devastated by.
No president, no senator, no governor, no mayor, no ballot measure, no supreme court decision has ever regenerated a dead heart, has ever forgiven a single sin, has ever reconciled a single sinner to a holy God.
That is not what politics is for.
Politics is a tool. It is a useful tool. It is a tool God has given us to restrain evil and to promote a measure of justice in a fallen world.
But the moment you begin to look to it for salvation – the moment you begin to believe that the fate of the kingdom of God rises and falls with an election result – you have made it a king.
And a king will take.
He will take your sons. He will take your daughters. He will take your peace. He will take your witness. He will take your love for your neighbor. He will take your ability to speak the truth in love to a lost world, because you will have traded your testimony for a talking point.
And in the end you will cry out, and you will find that the thing you trusted cannot hear you.
People, we have done this. We have done it on the right and we have done it on the left. We have made an idol out of an election, and we have called it engagement, and we have called it faithfulness, and we have called it standing for righteousness.
And God is looking down at His people throwing tantrums in the public square and He is saying, you have rejected Me, that I should not reign over you.
The One King Who Does Not Take
But I cannot leave you there. Because the story does not end with Saul. Saul is the king they asked for – and Saul is a picture of everything a king will take from you. But God, in His mercy, did not leave His people with Saul. He raised up David – a man after His own heart. And David is a picture of a better King.
And that King has come.
There is a King who does not take your sons and your daughters to be his servants.
There is a King who does not take your fields and your vineyards for his own glory.
There is a King who did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.
There is a King who did not take a tenth of your grain.
He gave everything He had. He gave His own body. He gave His own blood. He went to a cross and He bore the wrath of God in the place of rebels like you and like me, and He rose again on the third day, and He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and He is coming back to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.
His name is Jesus. And He is the King you were always looking for when you were looking for a king.
And here is the difference between Him and every other king.
Every other king says, give me what I want. Jesus says, give me your heart.
Every other king says, serve me and I will give you what you desire. Jesus says, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.
Every other king will take and take and take until there is nothing left of you.
Jesus takes a dead, rebellious, tantrum-throwing sinner and He makes him a son.
But He will not be your king on your terms. He will not be a king like all the nations. He will not be a king you can manage, or a king you can use, or a king you can put in a box and take out on election day. He is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.
Conclusion: Choose This Day
So here is where I land, and here is where I am going to ask you to land with me.
The people of Israel stood in front of a prophet and said, give us a king. And God said, they have rejected Me.
They got what they asked for, and it cost them everything, and they cried out, and God did not hear them.
We have just come through a season in this country where the people of God, on every side, have stood up and demanded a king. And I am asking you to examine your own heart and to ask yourself honestly: what did I want?
Did I want a king who would reign over me in righteousness, or did I want a king who would give me what I wanted?
Did I want a leader who would call this nation to repentance, or did I want a leader who would tell me that I am fine and the problem is everybody else?
Because if it is the second one, then the problem is not in Washington. The problem is not in the statehouse. The problem is not in the other party, or the other candidate, or the other voters.
The problem is in us. The problem is in our hearts. The problem is that we have been throwing a tantrum in front of a holy God, demanding that He give us what we wanted, and calling it faith.
There is a King. He is not like all the nations. He is not the king you would have chosen. He is better. And He is here, and He is calling you to lay down your demand, lay down your tantrum, lay down your idol, and bow the knee to Him.
Not to a party. Not to a candidate. Not to a movement. To Him.
And if you have never done that — if you have never repented of your sin and trusted in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation — then I want you to know that today is the day. Not tomorrow, not next Sunday. Not when you get your life together. Not when the political situation settles down. Today.
The Scripture says, today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart. The King is here. The throne is open. The mercy is available. And He will not turn away a single sinner who comes to Him in repentance and faith.
But He will not be your king on your terms. He will be your King on His.
So I am going to ask you to do something. If you are here and you have never surrendered your life to Jesus Christ – if you have been trusting in a king that cannot save you, whether that king is a politician or a party or a paycheck or your own self-righteousness — I want you to come. Come and let me pray with you, and let me show you from the Word of God how a sinner is saved.
Just tell the King that you are a sinner – that you cannot do this on your own, and that you’re tired of serving earthly kings – whatever they may be.
Ask Him to forgive your sin, then ask for help to turn from it – to wash you white as snow,
Then turn your life over to Jesus – submit to Him, and Him alone. He is your King – the only king that satisfies.
And if you are a believer, and the Lord has shown you that you have been throwing a tantrum in front of Him – that you have been demanding a king instead of submitting to the King – then you need to do some repenting too. Come and repent. Come and lay it down. Come and let the Lord reign over you again.
They have not rejected you. They have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.
Do not let that be said of you.
