The Dangers of Politics: 1 Samuel 8:1-22

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

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And have we over promised an under delivered?

Jeff, Well, I don't know. People keep coming back.

Okay, well they do. They kind of do well, you know,

it's so funny. I see the numbers sometimes and I

always wonder like are those the same people or are

they people who fluctuate who? You know. It's kind of

like when you see the crowd of church, right, You're like,

are these the same people? They only come to church

once a month, you know? Or are they are they

faithful people? What percentage of people come week?

So on the on the YouTube side, so I don't

get as good metrics. We're working on getting a new

dashboard to figure out all the podcasts, but I'm on

the on the YouTube side. It's usually hundreds and hundreds

and hundreds of new listeners joining the thousand regular listeners.

You know what I mean. So it's kind of a neat,

neat thing. I don't have that in front of me

right now, but there's a yeah, it doesn't want to

open up. Yeah, So lots of long timers stay with us,

and you're with us every day, and then you know,

on a regular basis, it's all the time, more and

more people. Hey, by the way, we just crossed our

two thousandth listener subscriber subscriber on YouTube on YouTube. Yeah, yeah,

and you know who it was. I looked at it

and we were at nineteen ninety nine and I was

sitting at my dinner table.

That's a good song.

And I asked my whole family, Hey, who hasn't signed

up yet subscribed? And it was my daughter in law.

I hadn't subscribed, so she went on and she was

number two thousand. I literally I watched it click over

to two thousand subscribers. Yeah, so it's kind of fun. Hey,

did you know this? Let me tell you. Well, no,

I'm going to keep it a secret. Oh I have

a secret. Well, Today's Friday, yees, Today's Thursday.

No, no, no, no Friday. For the podcast.

No, today's Thursday for the podcast.

Oh am I skipping over?

Yes you are, because the episode tomorrow is a very

special episode, big celebration. Yeah, so today we moved things

and we're changing things. This thing's up this week because

tomorrow's a special episode. So on this Thursday. The big

question is it's it's everybody's favorite segment? What made Chris

mad this week?

Oh? They they they are doing. Oh they moved it

up today. Yeah.

Yeah, so it's Thursday. Okay, so this Thursday, because it's

it's such a you're such a man of routine, That's

what happened.

It took me a while to digest that.

Yeah, so it's we're just changing things up Chris. Sorry,

we moved it out of order. Yes, but on this

on this episode, because tomorrow is a very special episode. Yes,

so on this we decided to move this forward to

everybody's favorite segment? What made Chris mad this week?

Okay, I'm up.

It's because you love us. You love us, and you

are angry on behalf of all the rest of us.

I do. I am angry on behalf of you know what.

My wife has a sing and she says all the

time she says, you know, it doesn't take a lot

of effort to be kind. That's true, it really does not.

It doesn't, you know, Like my son and I went

into This is what made me mad. My son and

I went into a place. I'm not going to name

the restaurant, but it was a restaurant. It was a

restaurant that was it was really popular at one point,

and then the management ran amok. There was like a

big reputation in the city that it was under poor management,

and then the attendance went down. Then somebody bought it

and they put these signs up and the name they

gave it, the new name was a terrible name, but

they said under new management and all these different things.

So my son finally says, hey, let's go check out

that revised, you know, renovated restaurant whatever. So we walk

in and turns out it was great, and we met

the owner and the food was fine and the rest

of the environment was fantastic. He was great, and he

said it hasn't gone very well. I was like, wow, huh.

So then what ended up happening was the other day

I said, hey, where do you want to go? And

he says, let's go back and let's support this restaurant

that didn't seem to be doing very well. I was like,

all right, let's do that. So we went there and

we walked in and he was not there, and there

was an employee apparently who was running the show. And

she was behind the bar, she was on the floor,

she was, you know, just running the whole entire restaurant, right,

And we sat in a booth and we waited. It

was we looked at our watches, it was thirteen minutes, okay,

And she had walked by us like twelve times. And

when I mean walk by us, I'm talking like within

I could reach out and touch her, that's how close

she walked by us. And she never once said, hey guys,

I'll be with you in a minute, or hey, welcome

to so and so. Right, she literally ignored us. And

we were sitting there for like twelve or thirteen minutes,

and uh, and I thought to myself, Okay, now I

know why this guy's restaurant is failing because of probably

a few really really bad employees. Right, yeah, And it

was it was her. And so here's what I don't appreciate.

Here's what got me mad this week. I was. I

was mad on two fronts, Jeff.

Okay, I'm super excited.

Not just one. I mean you laid some groundwork here,

but two fronts.

We're getting a double whammy. Yes, it's a double whammy.

What made Chris mat here's the first.

Here's the first front. If you are a server, it

does not take a lot of effort to smile and

say and I don't care what kind of bad day

you're having, this is your job, okay, and say hey,

I'll be right with you. That's it. That's all we wanted. Right,

we would have waited the fifteen minutes for a menu.

Oh right. And by the way, guess how many people

were in the restaurant, like eight? Well it was it

was bad, okay, it was really bad. Okay, So so

she could have like she it wasn't like her running

the whole restaurant. Oh I feel so bad for the server.

She was the only one. No, no, people listen to me.

It was a party of six and one other booth

of two. That's it in the whole restaurant. Okay. And

so anyway, that's that's the first front. The second front

made me three times as mado, which is why is

it that we as young adults and she was probably

mid twenties. Why is it that young adults can't think

beyond themselves sometimes and actually think like, hey, listen, maybe

I'll do something for the benefit of the owner, right,

Like maybe maybe I'll try really bad. Why don't I

care about somebody else's restaurant, right, Why don't I actually

think to myself, Hey, I better really be you know,

because I like my boss, he's a great guy. I

want this to succeed, right, instead of being wrapped up

in your own world. And sure, there are may be

extreme circumstances of what kind of day you're having, but

for the most part, I'm guessing that she wasn't that distraught.

She didn't look that distruught. So guess what we did.

We got up and left. Oh really, Oh yeah, we

get up and left.

So that owner it's not getting any better. So so Chris,

you learn.

Seriously thought about going back to that restaurant and finding

the owner and saying like, I figured out your problem.

Yeah I really have.

Hey it might be yeah, go serving helping. Yeah it's

a good idea. Okay, Well, thank you Chris for that.

That is a double feature. Yes, super two for the

price of one. It doesn't take that much effort to

be kind fantastic, I know, but for you, for you

to vicariously carry all of the anger that the rest

of us should be having in society, yes, and you

being willing to carry it for.

Us, it's a tough burden, that's right.

It is fantastic. Yeah, yeah, you know very quickly. When

I was working for Marriott, one of the back then,

they had this kind of structure where managers would be promoted,

kind of like in a train. So a manager would

build his team and when he get promoted a lot

of times the people on his team would follow right

behind him. So you hit your wag into the right train,

you can move up in the organization pretty quickly. And

I learned that I would succeed far more by making

my boss win than by making me win, right, right,

And if I could make what I wanted him to do,

is know that I was helping him. So it wasn't

like I was just doing it generically. But I was

engaging in this relationship. And I was only twenty years old,

and I was engaging in this relationship. I was trying

to figure out what was important to him what was

important to his boss. I wanted to know his boss.

I wanted to figure out all those things and figure

out how to create the thing that he was trying

to create. So my boss was one of the real

up and comers. He just did a was doing great job,

and as he got bumped up, so did I. I

wanted to making more money. Bonus. All that kind of

stuff came behind when I was helping my boss win.

So I didn't own that hotel. I wasn't you know,

I wasn't a manager. I wasn't. But as he succeeded,

so did I, and my life was better and it

wound up giving me more purpose at work. It was

more fun. It was a more fun job to do

when I knew that my my productivity would help all

of us get better, right as fulfilling his vision?

There it is, yeah, generation ze, listen up.

There's something about that.

There. Yeah.

All right, well, hey, thank you so much, Chris. And then,

like I said, tomorrow is a very special day. So

our listeners don't want to miss out on the episode

just follows this episode today.

Do they know why? No? I don't think so. I

almost blew it.

I think if they look around a little bit. They

might figure it out, but I'm not going to tell them.

Tomorrow is the big day, big day. Okay, are you ready?

Yep?

Okay. So we are in First Samuel, and let me

give you some background up to this point. Now, Samuel

was like a boy, a young man, and serving Eli.

God speaks to him. He continues to be faithful through

the time. Eli continues to work. Eventually Eli dies as

God had said. The Philistines are causing trouble. They actually

come in, they raid, they steal the Arc of the Covenant.

It gets really bad. Then they decide God brings judgment

on them for stealing the Ark of the Covenant. They

decide to bring it back. They just give it back. Okay,

we don't want this anymore. It's a really funny story.

It's really funny story. You should read it. It's in

First Samuel, first couple chapters. And then it comes to

a town and like all these people go, hey, let's

go look and see what's in the Ark of the Covenant.

And they open the arcat of the Covenant and seventy

people die. Guy said, do not touch the Arc of Covenant.

They did. They open it up if I found the

Archa of the Covenant, I want to look at it. Well,

it happened Indiana Jones. It happened in Raiders the Lost Art. Yeah,

they guys, they opened it up and they melted.

Right.

Yeah, so so God, God's not messing around.

Exploded.

Yeah, God's not messing around. He says, don't touch the

covet the ark of the Covenant. They do, they die.

So then they're like, hey, get this thing out here,

and they send it back. They re established the tabernacle,

all those kinds of things. This whole time. Samuel now

is the leader. There's a great He leads the people

in this incredible victory, a battle against the Philistines. God

wins the battle actually with thunder. He scares the Philistines

really intimidating thunder. They're frozen in fear, and the Iselites

are able to defeat them and finally brings a little

bit of peace. So now Samuel has led the nation

for years and years and years, and now he's starting

to get some years on him, he's getting some miles

on him. He's becoming an older man. His children have

grown up, their adults. He's doing ministry all around the country.

So with that being said, in chapter eight, it says,

as Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons to be

judges over Israel. Joel and Abijah, his oldest sons, held

court in Beersheba. But they were not like their father,

for they were greedy for money, and they accepted bribes

and perverted justice. Finally, all the elders of Israel met

at Rama to discuss the matter with Samuel. Look, they

told him, you are now old, and your sons are

not like you. Give us a king to judge us,

like all the other nations have. Samuel was displeased with

their request and went to the Lord for guidance. Do

everything they say to you, Lord replied, for it is

me 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 abandoned me and followed

other gods, and now they're giving you the same treatment.

Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the

way the king will reign over them. So Samuel passed

on the Lord's warning to the people who were asking

him for a king. This is how a king will

reign over you, Samuel said, the king will draft your

sons and assign them to his chariots and his charioteers,

making them run before his chariots. Some will be generals

and captains in his army. Some will be forced to

plow in his fields and harvest his crops, and some

will make his weapons and chariot equipment. The king will

take your daughters from you and force them to cook

and bake and make perfumes for him. He will take

away the best of your fields and vineyards and olive

grows and give them to his own officials. He'll take

a tenth of your grain and your grape harvest, and

distributed among his officers and attendants. He'll take your male

and female slaves and demand the finest of your cattle

and donkeys for his own use. He'll demand a tenth

of your flocks, and he'll you will be his slaves.

When that day comes, you will beg for relief from

this king you are demanding. But then the lord will

not help you. But the people refuse to listen to

Samuel's warning. Even so, we still want a king, they said.

We want to be like the nations around us. Our

king will judge us and lead us into battle. So

Samuel repeated to the Lord what the people had said,

and the Lord replied, do as they say and give

him a king. Then Samuel agreed and sent the people home.

Yeah, it's you know, this reminds me of this is

a very strange analogy. But I remember when I was

about eight years old, I tried to sneak a cigarette

from my mom. Oh, and she smoked at that time.

And I think everybody smoked back then. Yeah, I think

we all smoked. You're right, we all smoked. I didn't

light up, but man, every restaurant you went to full

of smoke, every plane you got on full of smoke.

Everything was his second hand smoke.

Yep. We all smoked and didn't want to. Yeah, but anyway,

but I remember I trying to sneak a cigarette and

I was trying to hide it and I had a

lighter and I was heading out and she was sitting

there with her friend and she saw me and she goes,

what do you got there? And she busted me and

I said, oh, it's a cigarette, you know. And I

thought I was gonna get in trouble. And she goes, oh,

she goes you know what. She goes, why don't you

go ahead and light that up? And I was like

eight years old, and I said, what are you serious?

And she said, yeah, oh yeah, let's do that right now.

She goes, let's go and do it. So she took

it and she she lit it up and she goes, uh,

go ahead and puffet. So I went and she goes, no, no, no,

she goes, you have to inhale. Let me show you.

So she got a cigarette like this and she goes,

she goes, go ahead, do that. So I did it

and then I, of course, you know, just gagged, right.

I just started started coughing and you know, and then

they made fun of me in front of everybody, in

front of like the whole room of women, and they

were just pointing and laughing. And she goes, now give

me that thing. And she goes, now get out of

here and don't ever touch that again. And guess what

it worked. Wow. I never came close to anything like that.

I thought to myself, I'm like, well, she gave me

what I wanted, right, and I got what it was,

had it and I wish I hadn't had it. That

to me, it's like it also reminds me of Luke

chapter fifteen, where it says, remember the younger came to

him and begged, give me the share of my inheritance.

And it says then his father just gave it to him, right.

And it's like it's almost like you almost wonder if

what the father was saying to the younger son was

I think this is the only way you're going to learn,

because it's you're going to learn by misery, and you

have chosen misery, and you won't stop. You're convinced that

this is what you want. I'm going to give you

what you want, and you're going to see and you're

going to learn the hard way. And and and Samuel,

you know, hears from God, and God basically says they've

done this continually. Right, judges have ruled for three hundred

years and and Samuel and longer than that now because

same as old right, and and and so, and it's

almost like what God is saying is like, hey, tell

them all the bad that's coming, tell them it's a

bad idea, but give them what they want, because they

just won't shut up. They just won't stop. They're like children.

He's fed up with it.

Yes, and and that's that to me. So when I

read that, I think of my mom's cigarette.

Yes, so them getting their king was almost a punishment

from God.

Yes, right, yes, give what they want then they'll see

yeah right.

And at that point there's no getting out of it.

Right.

So so it's interesting Samuel, you know, as an old man.

The Bible says that he had set up there were

three Let me see if I can find those those cities.

There were three cities that he had set up. Each

year he traveled around setting up his court, first at Bethel,

then at Gilgel, and then at Mizpah. He judged Israel

out of these places and then he'd return home to

Rama and he's your case is there? Right? So he

had these four places where he just he was kind

of like this itinerant judge that would travel around Israel

provide justice, he'd provide godly leadership. He do all these things.

And the people loved Samuel, yes, they loved him. But

Samuel's sons just didn't have any character. Yeah, and it's

it's interesting. So God held Eli accountable for his sons. Sorry,

God held Eli accountable for his sons, and hey, you're

going to lose your ministry and you and your sons

are going to die. But there's not that same kind

of consequence for Samuel. And I often think I wonder why.

I think I might know why I think Samuel. I mean,

I think Eli. The Bible is pretty clear Eli knew

that his sons were doing the wrong thing, and he

was warned, yeah, and he didn't do anything about it.

He was allowing them to do the wrong thing. And

a lot of times, you know, parents, oh, well, you

know how Johnny is. You know, that's just how his

personality is. That's just what he does, and we don't

want to confront them. And it seems like maybe that

was a pattern the boy's whole life, Like he indulged

them and you know, spoiled him rotten. And so God

was like, hey, you are the cause. You're the one

who you're the enabler for that, as opposed to in

this situation. Now, Samuel is an old man, and in

his old age he appoints his adult sons, who Now

it's not about how Samuel raised his sons, it's about

how his sons are choosing to behave as adults.

Right.

I think that there's a difference here, probably because he's

an old man appointing his grown men sons. And it

turns out when the opportune because I think you just

don't know. You don't know how you're going to respond

until you get around money. You don't know how you're

going to respond until you get around power. You don't

know how you're going to respond until you get around

temptations of any kind, right, right, And in this situation,

it turns out that his sons were very tempted by

money and they were taking bribes. But it wasn't that

Samuel was endorsing it. Samuel wasn't winking at it. Samuel

wasn't going, oh, well, you know how my sons are.

It was more like apart from you know, your adult

children can do whatever they want to do. You're not

in control anymore. Whereas with Eli, it seems like that

was the pattern of their boys' lives and the dad

was the one that was co signing it. That you know, Elio,

it seemed like maybe was enabling and so God held

Eli accountable along with the sons as opposed to hear.

But that made is real frustrated. It is really frustrated

because they were like we don't want these guys leading us.

They're not as good as you, so give us a king, right, yeah.

Yeah. And by the way, there's a little chart and

the Life Application Study Bible that talks about every warning

that Samuel gave to them was fulfilled. Isn't that crazy?

So when he says he'll draft young manage your army,

he said that verse number eleven and twelve. If you

fast forward just what was at age. Six chapters later,

it says, so whenever Saul observed a young man who

was brave and strong, he drafted him into his army. Yep. Yeah,

so whenever saw, when ever saw, which.

Is every time the name of the king, I want

that one. I want that one, you want that one?

Yep. And then it says having the young men run

before his chariots in chapter fifteen, that came, you know,

to fruition making slave laborers. Second Chronicles, chapter two, it happened.

That's how kings behave, right, Solomon did that, taking the

best of your fields and vineyards. In First Kings, the

Future Kings stole enables vineyard. At least that was an example.

They probably probably happened waiting before that. Yeah, sure, right,

and then and then demanding a tenth of your harvest

and flocks. Well, there's examples of that as well, right

in first kings, and I'm sure it happened. So everything

that Samuel said happened. And what they're saying is, we

want to be more like everybody around us. We're tired

of being different, right, We're tired of being the outcasts,

the ones that aren't looked upon with respect, the ones

that aren't feared like the other ones. You know, perhaps

you know, people don't understand the fact that our king

is invisible. You know, our king is you know, like,

we don't want that anymore. And ever since, you know,

God says, they've done this, ever since we've delivered them

from slavery from Egypt, they've said these things.

James Madison said, you know, one of the founding fathers

of America said that we've staked our ability to be

free people on our ability to keep the Ten Commandments. Right,

So we've staked this whole nation on the idea that

we would choose to be moral people. We are freest

when we choose to limit ourselves and govern ourselves under

the laws of God, and we are less and less

free the more we require government to force us to

do what the general population believes is the right thing

to do. Right, And so this is exactly what happened.

I was like, you're free, you are free people.

Right.

Other than your tithes and offerings to the temple, I mean,

to the tabernacle, there's nothing else. You just do good

in the community. You live free, own your land, do

your thing, run your businesses. And he says, if you

choose to throw off this freedom for a powerful government,

this government will take everything from you. You will never

be free again. Right, And that's exactly what happened to them,

and so our founding fathers they referenced these ideas in

their writings. They talked about this specifically, that this whole

concept that if we put a king, or if we

make a strong government, take everything from us.

Do you remember the motto of Jamestown. So, Jamestown one

of our first you know, settling nations.

Right, settlements, settlements, Yeah, or.

What I say, nations, settlements in our nation, they actually

have had a motto, and the motto was love god fully,

then do what you want. Wow, isn't that great? Yeah? Yeah?

Be free? Yeah, be free?

Well, that's I love that. So there is a note,

and maybe this is the right place to end because

it's so practical to our culture today. First Samuel, chapter

eight five and six in the Life Application Bible says

the people clamored for a king, thinking that a new

system of government would bring about a change in the nation.

But because their basic problem was disobedience to God, their

other problems would only continue under the new administration. What

they needed was a unified faith, not a uniform rule.

Had the Israelites submitted the God's leadership, they would have

thrived beyond their expectations. Our obedience is weak if we

ask God to lead our family or personal life, but

continue to live by the world's standards and values. Faith

in God must touch all the practical areas of life.

So they were looking at the other kingdoms of the

world and going, we want what the world has, and

God's like, I'm offering you so much more right. And

they thought that a change in their political system would

make all the difference. And I think, right now, we've

got a lot of people on both sides of the

aisle thinking, man, a change in the political system make

all the difference in the world, And it won't because

most of our problems in our anxiety are because of

our rebellion against God, not about not because we need

one more policy or one more law, right, yeah, and

and and the kings we choose will never fulfill us

or take care of us like they promise.

So that's great. Well, look, that looks like it's our time.

So hopefully tomorrow for a very special episode, you'll tune

in out just out of sheer curiosity, hopefully, and we'll

see you then on the Bible. Guys,