Introduction to the Kingdom

All right, good morning, everybody.

It's always fun when you get to start a new, you haven't done

anything for a while and you get to start a new series and go

ahead and turn your Bibles to First Samuel 8, First Samuel 8.

But it's one of those things where it's like you, you, you

haven't been up here. So your, your first one, you're

a little like shaky and everything getting ready to go

and make sure everything makes sense to everybody else.

And but we'll be all right. Today's just an introduction so

it won't be so difficult. And so I got to make sure I look

at the time because now that we start at an earlier time, if if

I go till 10:40, I think pastor is going to be quite upset with

me. So, so the new time is not

10:40. So if I get there, just go like

this, like this, cut it, cut it. We're going too long.

So we're going to be doing lessons or things we find out

from the throne, meaning the Old Testament, the kings and Queens

and those that were in leadership in Israel during the

Old Testament time. We're going to look at a bunch

of different kings, mainly dealing with the southern tribe,

a couple that will look at the northern tribe.

But I wanted to start with kind of a introduction of, of why are

we doing this? And some, some don't, you know,

some people, I'm not going to think that everybody went to, to

Bible college and has an Old Testament survey class under

their belt. And I remember I loved Old

Testament survey. The thing I hated about it was

we had to chart every king know how to spell each and every one

of them and put them in order. And, and when they all have

pretty much similar names, it's very difficult.

So I won't make you do that. We won't have that for school up

here for Sunday School. But I just wanted to go over

what Old Testament history side of, of what we're doing because

human nature never changes. We, you know, we'll start off

with a little pop quiz. Who knows who George Santiana is

or what he's famous for? Nobody, because nobody that

knows phrases is famous, but it's a phrase that everybody

knows. He's famous for saying.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

That's who's that who, that's who came up with that phrase.

And it's something that we see every single day.

And and it's something that the Bible uses.

I think it's biblical. Why did God give us the Old

Testament? It's a history book.

It tells of the kings and tells of the prophets and everything

that happened to Israel of of starting.

It's a history book. But why is it there?

Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1011.

Now all these things happened unto them for in samples, and

they are written for admonition, upon whom the ends of the world

are come. God preserved his word and made

the Old Testament the way it is, so we could see examples for our

lives, so we can learn something from those kings and Queens and

and prophets and judges of how we should live and what

consequences we'll have if we don't do what God says.

And it what consequences we do if we do do what God says.

And so we see that the Bible clearly states that the history

book, the Old Testament is there for our learning, for our

admonition. You know, when you, when you

read through the Bible and you get to Leviticus or you get to

Numbers and you start going, OK, why do I need to know how many

times you need to sacrifice something?

All the rituals and the laws and everything and you're like, wow,

this one's hard to get through. Some of them are easy to get

through Genesis, you go to Job, you go through Isaiah and, and

some of the Old Testament. You can kind of sit down and and

read and, and you really like reading it, but some of them are

rough, rough to get through. And you wonder, why did God

preserve this? My here as a Gentile, not a Jew.

We don't do the temple law. Why did God keep some of that

stuff? Why does it preserved in his

Word? It's because it was all there to

teach us, to show us, point us, as the Bible says, as a

schoolmaster to Christ. But it's there as a an

admonition, a way for us to learn.

But it's not just to learn. If you go to school and you

learn stuff and then you get out on the job, if you never apply,

what you've learned, what you've learned is useless.

It's there's no point in learning it.

That why, why do we have the Old Testament for showing us

examples and and samples and for our learning?

It's not just so we know it, it's that we apply it into our

lives. Think, think of, OK, I talked

about we had to part plot the charts of all the kings and, and

the prophets and stuff. I think a lot of times we don't

realize how much they overlap each of these people.

You, you think of Adam, Adam and Eve.

Once we get to Cain and Abel and then Seth, we kind of forget

that Adam even was still alive. He, he was still alive around

Methuselah all the way up till Noah.

You think of Micah and Isaiah were together, Zephaniah and

Jeremiah were together. Jeremiah was all around when

Habakkuk and Obadiah was around. Hezekiah was king when Manasseh

was around. Daniel was around with Ezekiel

and Obadiah. You don't really think of people

overlapping, but they were around at the same time.

And, and the the things that Daniel would have written,

Ezekiel would have read. Ezekiel wrote things that Daniel

would have read. And you think of the overlap

that these people have. And that's why we've got to look

at what's the point of the Old Testament?

Why are we looking at the kings? And the first thing is we have

to do is we have to analyze that period.

Like I said, we some of us went to Bible college.

Some of us only had like I only took Old Testament survey.

That was my scope of Bible school.

But having a background in what the history of this nation is

can help us see where we're going to go with these kings

that we're going to look at. But let's pray and we'll get

into this lesson. Heavenly Father, I thank you so

much for this morning for being able to get up and out of bed

and the breath that you gave us and the health that you've given

us to be here and in your house. God, I just pray that you be

with the lesson and, and give me the right words to say and the

the exact things that you want us to learn from your word.

And I just pray that you help us as we go through these kings

that that you've preserved for all eternity and, and made for

us to know and find out what they did and what they didn't

do. And God, I just pray that it it

becomes something that we want to apply to our lives and not

just know about them, but and, and be able to answer questions

and and get candy for those questions being answered.

To be able to apply it to our lives that we'd be able to live

for you and be able to please you with our lives and those and

help those around us. God, I pray that you be pleased

and that your name be lifted up and you be glorified through

everything that goes on here this morning in Jesus name, I

pray, Amen. All right, so you're there in

first Samuel chapter 8. The first thing we're going to

1 Samuel 8 · chapter mention

look at is the period this period.

Think of, OK, Israel's in Egypt, they come out of Egypt and they

are set aside as a nation. There's over 2 million Jews.

There's, there's set aside as a country, but they don't have a

place yet. They're going to the the place

and and God has set up a set of government that is ruled by God

and he uses Moses, then he uses Joshua and then it goes to the

judges and it is although controlled by God and that is

called a not a monarchy, which has kings and Queens close

theocracy. It's called a theocracy and it's

governed and ruled by God Moses, and those are leaders, but God

is the ultimate one that gives the laws.

And we see here in first Samuel 8 verse one.

And it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons

judges over Israel. Now the name of his first born

was Joel in the name of his second Abbott Abbaya.

They were judges in Beersheba. And his sons walked not in his

ways, but turned aside after Luker, and took bribes and

perverted judgment. Then all the elders of Israel

gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Rhema,

and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, that's a nice thing to

say, and thy sons walk not in thy ways.

Now make us a king to judge us, like all the other nation, like

all the nations. But this thing displeased Samuel

when they said, Give us a king to judge us.

And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. We see here God's theocracy is

getting questioned, not because of God, but because of Samuel's

kids and, and, and all throughout the Bible you see

that. You see a father that is strong

in the faith and and used as a prophet and here as a prophet

and a judge. And yet somewhere he doesn't

teach his kids that. Somewhere he doesn't pass that

along to be important to his kids.

And so through time, Israel gets sick of the judges.

You think of Samson. You think of we have here

Samuel's kids later, later on. You think of now I just blanked

who what, who was the high priest that fell and Eli's sons

All through the Bible, we see a bunch of times where the man of

God that's being used by the man of God doesn't put priority in

instilling it into his kids. That's something that we have as

an example to apply into our lives.

As as spiritual as you might be, Dad, mom, unless you pass it

down to your kids to where they understand and it's important to

them, it's fine and dandy. If you can have all your kids

memorizing Bible verses and knowing Scripture and knowing

answers to questions on Wednesday night, that's great.

But if it's not important to them, it means nothing for their

life. We have to instill into them the

importance of the Word of God in the importance and the realness

of who God is. I think a lot of times we we

read the Old Testament and we read the Bible and wow, he

parted the Red Sea and wow, he fed the 5000 and wow, he, he

made manna and wow, he did all these things.

But we don't think that's the same God that is today.

And if we don't think it, what do you think our kids are

thinking? I've never seen a miracle.

I've never seen the Red Sea parted.

I've never seen a mountain move. We have to instill into our kids

that God's real and God's the same God today that he was back

then. He still has the same power to

part the Red Sea, to walk on dry ground.

It's still the same God. And we have to get that.

But the nation finally said, I'm done.

But we're done with this judges and listening to one man and,

and finding out that his kids don't follow it and we're going

to go down the wrong path. And they, they first are

disappointed in the judges. But then the second thing is

they're, they, they say in verse 6, give us a king to judge us.

Oh no, Verse 5 Now make us a king to judge us.

Like all the nations, they wanted to be just like all the

other people. All the other nations had kings

and rulers. They didn't have a theocracy.

They didn't have God commanding them, and that's why it

displeased them. And look there.

What's interesting is, even after Well here verse 7.

And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the

people in all that they say unto thee, For they have not rejected

thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over

them, according to all the works which they have done since the

day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day,

wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods, so do

they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their

voice, how be it yet Protest solemnly unto them, and show

them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.

And we Samuel goes to them, and tells them, Verse 11.

And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall

reign over you. He will take your sons and

appoint them for himself, for his Chariots and to be his

horsemen. And some shall run before his

Chariots. And he will point him captains

over thousands and captains over 50 fifties, and will set them to

ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his

instruments of war and instruments of his Chariots.

And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and cooks,

and to be cooks and to be bakers.

And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive

yards, even the best of them, and give them on, give them to

his servants. And he will take the 10th of

your seed and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to

his servants. And he will take your men, men

servants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men and

your asses, and put them to his work.

And he will take the 10th of your sheep, and ye shall be his

servants. And ye shall cry out in that day

because of your king, which ye shall ye have, shall have chosen

you. And the Lord will not hear you

in that day. And look at verse 19, after

everything Samuel has told them, Hey, you want a king?

OK, here's what you're going to get.

You're going to lose a 10th of everything you have.

You're going to lose the good your kids, your daughters, your

sons are going to be in his army and going to be captains and

they're going to be all these things, a tenth of your stuff.

You're you're going to lose your your vineyards, the good places

that you love to have 19 Nevertheless, the people refuse

to obey the voice of Samuel and they said nay, 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.

God told Samuel, give them what they want, but tell them what

they're going to have to deal with.

And the people went La La La La La La.

I don't care what is going to be the problems.

I just want to be like all the other people.

I just, I, I know that I'm going to lose.

God says that I will not hear them when they cry unto me about

the, the stuff that they're going to have to deal with.

I'm not going to listen to them because this is what they wanted

and I warned them ahead of time what you're going to deal with

and they still did it. How much is that?

Just like us, we read God's word and he says, don't do this

because this is the consequence of doing it.

And we go la, la, la. But I just want to be like

everybody else. God, I know I shouldn't be

drinking that or watching that or doing this.

And I realize that your word says that if I do these things,

it's going to destroy my life. But I just want to be like

everybody else. So many times we read the Old

Testament and we go really, Israel, really, come on.

I mean, you just got, you crossed the Red Sea on dry

ground. You're provided all these

miracles. And yet every time you just turn

your back on God and go after the other gods and you serve

everything else and you, you forsake God and you do

everything again. How can you do that after seeing

all those miracles and doing everything and yet we do the

exact same thing as they did. It's a history book for us to

learn and apply. So we see the departure of the

nation here, but the the nation gets divided.

Fast forward, Saul was the first king, tall head and shoulders

above every man. Started out great, wasn't really

that great of a king. Then we get David.

David is the best king that they have.

Then he has his son Solomon who starts out well, but like the

Bible says at the end who hath hindered you?

He he finishes horribly and and because of that his sin, his son

Rhea Boehm makes the whole nation split into two kingdoms.

The northern Kingdom was divided in was called Israel.

That's consisted of the other 10 tribes.

The southern Kingdom is Judah and that's 2 tribes, Judah and

Benjamin. The the southern Kingdom, which

is who will focus on mainly of their kings, has Jerusalem as

their capital. The Northern Kingdom, which is

interesting because, well, it's it's Samaria and it's

interesting in the New Testament, Samaritans are the

the bottom of the barrel cut according to Jews, but that's

different. Anyways.

The difference is though, it's interesting how we have 12

tribes that came through Egypt all together learn the same

things where one nation gets split and they become two

totally different nations. Not, not anything.

The only thing that's the same as they both had 20 kings.

Interesting. Both had 20 kings.

The Northern Kingdom, all of them were bad.

All of them were evil, some were worse than others, but they were

all evil and did evil in the sight of the Lord.

The Southern Kingdom Judah had here and there had some bad

ones, some good ones. He had a mix of both righteous

and wicked kings in Judah. But not only does do we see the

differences there, but the Southern Kingdom actually lasts

136 years more then the northern Kingdom.

The north northern Kingdom gets conquered by Assyria in 722 BC

while the southern Kingdom of Judah gets conquered by Babylon

in 586. And I totally believe the reason

why the Southern Kingdom lasted longer was because of those good

kings, because of those that feared God and wanted to do what

God commanded. And God still had judgment on

him, but he was going to hold his hand with that judgment.

We find all the history of the two kingdoms in the Kings and

1st and Second Chronicles. So that's that's kind of looking

at the period. Then we need to look at the

people who are we going to look at and, and realize that yes,

they are kings, but they're just like you and me.

They, they're, they're human. They, they face the same

temptations. Sometimes I feel like they face

more temptations being king, but they still have a variety of

personalities and characteristics.

We're like I said, we're going to really only look at one king

in the northern tribe because it's pretty much bad.

So you just take the wide brush and brush the northern kingdoms,

kings that way. But the southern kingdoms, we're

going to go over probably 9 of them, eight of them.

And, and to see the failures is what we're going to look at the

they all had failures, even even the good kings, they all had

shortcomings. But one day that God will give

us a king that will not have a failure.

One day Christ is coming back and going to sit on a throne,

literally, and rule this nation. The entire world will be

controlled by a king Christ, and he will not have failures.

We see that. The other thing we're going to

look at is these prophets that are during both of these

kingdoms to go tell a king that's doing well and doing what

God wants. Good job.

I'll take that audience with the king.

But to be the prophet that God comes to and says you need to go

to Ahab and you need to point your finger at him and you need

to tell him judgment's coming and you tell him what's wrong,

just like Jonah. We talked about Jonah going to

the entire city of Nineveh and telling them you're all going to

burn everything that you're doing.

You're going to be destroyed. God's going to destroy you.

There's a lot of people in Nineveh.

Three days it took him to walk from one end to the other end.

That's a lot of people to tell that you're wrong and they're

already wicked. I hope I make it from one end to

the other end. These prophets had to have the

courage that God gave them. Think of, you know, if you tell

somebody they're wrong at work, they get mad at you, but they

don't have any power over your life.

You go to a king, he, he's got all power over your life.

In fact, we'll read some of them.

They put them in prison. They put them in a pit.

These prophets had to have the courage.

And we have to have the courage as believers to go to this

world. This world is is in sin.

And they do what their father the devil tells them to do.

But we have the light. We have to be able to have

courage to go to them and tell them, hey, listen, I what you're

doing is wrong. And if we stopped there, we

don't really have a mission. And the prophets didn't stop at

you're doing wrong. God always gave them, here's the

solution. God gave us as Christians a

solution for those that are doing wrong and it's his word

and it's him. It's the gospel.

And we have to understand by watching and reading about these

prophets, the courage that they had.

We have to have the same thing when we go to this world.

We have to show them their their, their error, but show

them Christ. We have to, like I said, the

last thing I want to say is we have to apply this stuff that

we're going to learn. It means nothing if it's just up

here. Can you name all the kings?

Yeah, I can name all the Saul, David, Samuel.

Not Samuel. See, I can't even name him

already. Saul, David, Solomon.

Root. Well, Raya Boehm.

Say I should stop before I get going too far.

OK, great. You can name them all.

Can you chart them on a plot? Yes, I can chart them on a

timeline in order. I could spell them all.

Fine. Great.

What are you doing with it in your life?

Applying these precepts is the most important thing of what

we're going to be doing in these lessons.

Romans 15 for Paul says for whatsoever things were written

aforetime, the Old Testament were written for our learning.

As we study, we have to seek to apply what God gives us.

Those those examples are there for us to either mimic or stay

away from, and we'll discover some we have to find

consistency. We'll see a lot of kings in in

our study that start well, somewhere in the middle.

They're like whatever, and they start going this way.

We'll see some that through their entire reigns stay focused

on Christ and stay focused to God.

We see some that will see that are here and there.

And and it's not like good then bad then good.

It's it's good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, good, bad.

And they're inconsistent in their reign as far as being

right with God. And it reminds me of James 1/8

that says a double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

And we'll see through those kings that are so inconsistent,

that the reign is so inconsistent that their

stability of their nation falls. And we have to realize that you

and I aren't kings, but we have people we affect.

You have influence over people, whether it's your family,

whether it's other kids, people that you don't even know that

are looking up towards you. So why are we looking at kings?

Kings had their, yes, they had their own personal walk, whether

they were going to follow God or follow themselves.

But they had people that they ruled over.

They had influence and their walk with God affected what

happened to that nation, just like us.

Yes, you have your own personal walk with God and it should be

what the Bible has, but depending on how your walk with

God is depends on how your influence effects others, your

kids, your family, those around you, you as you work with,

that's all affected by how your walk with God is.

You can say all you want, Charlie, go, go read your Bible

every morning, OK? And as as a son, he has to obey

me should obey me. But if he doesn't see Dad ever

read his Bible for devotions every morning, why am I doing

this? Dad, you don't do it well.

And pastor says do his his phrase is do as I say, not as I

do. That doesn't work with kids.

Don't. Don't tell them to do something

and you yourself aren't doing it.

Don't expect your kids to love God if you're not loving God, if

you don't have a daily life and daily devotional with Him, if

you don't sit down and have time for a prayer with God, don't

expect your kids to grow up and do the same thing you have.

That's why we're looking at the kings, because we have influence

over them around. Even in church.

My kids look up to a lot of you. Your walk with God will affect

them. My walk with God will affect

others around here too. We have to understand it's not

just about me and or this circle I put around me.

Yeah, I just don't read the Bible.

But it's OK. I'll have to deal with the

consequences. Yes, you will.

But you also will have consequences that those that

look up to you just like the kings did.

But the thing that we'll see with especially with Manasseh,

Manasseh was a king that from the start rough.

He was a wicked king. And God said this is going to be

the judgment because of your wickedness.

And that's not going to change. But what happened was at the end

of Manasseh's life, he changes and focuses and and returns to

Christ and to God and to to do what is right.

The judgment didn't change because the consequence of

what's going to happen. But as we go through these

kings, we're going to see times where kings do wrong for so long

and then they get right just like and it's a reminder that

there's nobody out of hope. Christ is always there.

Nobody in this world is too far gone, too far lost that we

shouldn't share the gospel with them.

And we're getting close. I got to go.

We have to work. We have to remember about the

the possibility of conversion, the importance of communion, the

danger of complacency. I think this is that's the

biggest thing that I think is what we see here in America.

We've gotten so comfortable as Christians.

Nope. You've got churches who the the

first generation worked hard to build that church and knocked on

the doors and did everything they possibly could to get

people in and to be seeing people get saved.

And then you have the second generation that kind of sees

that and helps here and there. But by the 3rd generation,

they're just sitting on the Pew. They're not doing any work

because it life's easy now. I don't it's not OK.

Example, this church, when we started, we passed out 25,000

John and Romans. That took a long time.

But we knocked on every single door, gave out all those things.

We did all the work. If you're just now coming here

and you see there, wow, there's a ton of people here.

It wasn't just because poof, Pat, God called pastor and we

got a building and tada, we got all these people.

It was work. But we have to be careful that

it's not going to turn into, well, you guys got things

covered. Good.

I was happy to see yesterday as many people as we had here to go

knock on doors, to go doing Bibles, to go do visits.

That's important to remember that being content where you are

as a Christian is never a good sign.

The Bible says to be content. Don't ever be content with the

way spiritually you are. And we're going to see the

complacency of of a lot of kings that they, they, they go, they

follow what God wants them to do and God gives them victories.

And then they're like fine, easy streak.

I'm just going to sail and cruise control now, and I'm

going to focus on me instead of focusing on God.

And I think that's the biggest issue with American

Christianity. We've gotten too comfortable.

We've gotten too content with where we are spiritually.

We're going to see that in the Kings the need for correction.

I said this already, but over and over God sends prophets to

these kings to say, hey, we need to change some things or hey,

here's judgment because you don't follow after God and we'll

see ASA ASA is so mad when he gets told he was doing wrong

that he imprisons and and gets angry with the man of God.

Jehoshaphat is that an exact opposite.

When he hears the judgment and, and the the confrontation that

the prophet gives him, he humbles himself.

And what we learned from the difference.

We'll see. The peril of compromise is

another thing we have to be careful about as, as Christians

today and as most churches today, compromise is the second

biggest issue. Oh, we want to have church, but

we're going to compromise with the world so we can fit in.

We can so we can be like the other nations.

Compromise we'll see in these lives of kings destroys the

nations. We have to be on guard against

joining ourselves as we'll see with the enemy commitment.

We have to be committed to doing what God wants in world.

We're bond done. Proverbs 426 says this ponder

the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established.

The kings are examples to us, and we're going to look at all

of them. Not all of them, but most of

them. And we're going to see not just

what they did, but how is it important to my life today?

What can I learn from what their lives did?

How they did or did not follow after God, how they did or did

not humble themselves when God said change this.

But the most important thing again, we have to apply it to

our lives. Going through this means nothing

if you just have it all up here. We need to apply it into our

lives. Let's pray and we'll get in

ready for the next service next week.

If you want to read ahead of time and be ready.

Deuteronomy 17, read Deuteronomy 17.

We're going to look at the instructions that the

guidelines, the guidelines, yeah, that were given for the

kings to rule again. They they were kings, but God

was giving them directives and ways to be productive as a king.

And we're going to look at that and then after next week, it's

going to be off to the races and into the kings.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you so

much for today. God, I thank you for your word

and, and the, the importance of, of why you kept history, why you

had those that you recorded for us, for our lives, not just so

we can know it, not so we can and look at it as a history

book, but Lord that we see it as a way to learn and to draw

closer to you and know how to live our lives to be close to

you and how to not fall like a lot of the kings did not not

make failures like a lot of the kings did.

And to be able to see the past and, and what has worked and

what has not worked and to, to apply it to our lives, not just

to, to just repeat the same issues as they had.

God, I pray that you be with pastor, fill them with your

spirit this morning. Give us exactly what each and

every one of us need. I pray that you be glorified

with what goes on here and that your name be lifted up in Jesus

name. I pray, Amen.

You're dismissed.