Underestimating Sin • 1 Samuel 8

43:45 Teaching begins

Notes

Samuel in his lifetime saw Israel enter into a golden age. They learned by experience that everything good in life comes from being in right relationship with God.

He also lived to see Israel walk away from all that they learned to go back into darkness and misery.

We really underestimate the power of sin and how difficult it is to stay in relationship with the Lord.

Today we’re going to learn from Israel’s mistakes to keep from drifting into sin.

We are in chapter 8 today, but to get the context I’m starting in chapter 7 from verse 15.

1. Samuel’s ministry is a golden age for Israel, 7:15-17.

A. He is ruling for God, God really is king in Israel.

B. The people enjoy all the blessings God promised for those who are right with Him. Peace, strength, stability, consistency. Everything you could want in a nation.

C. It’s so consistent that there’s no need to describe it. Each year is fabulous, just like the last one, just like the next one. It’s a golden age for Israel because they’re in right relationship with God through Samuel.

2. But nothing in this world stays the same forever. Samuel becomes old, and now has to face transition, vv. 1-3.

A. Samuel appoints his sons Joel and Abijah to begin taking on the work of leading Israel. He starts them at Beersheba in the south of Israel to take some of his circuit workload.

B. Joel and Abijah are tempted with easy money, and they take bribes and they get caught. They are corrupt and not walking with God.

C. The hard lesson is that you don’t inherit godliness, you inherit sin.

1.People have forgotten that we are born wanting our own way and ready to break all the rules, especially God’s commandments. Why is this world the way it is? People blame God. What a lousy world. Wait a sec: is there anything wrong with “You shall not lie, you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery”? No. Do you commit adultery and sexual sin, steal, and cover it up with lies? God doesn’t lie, you do.

2. Your children are born sinners. They want to disobey you. They are selfish and think their way is best.

3. What do you do? Most importantly you pursue your own relationship with Jesus because then you receive the love and forgiveness and patience and endurance and everything you need to be a parent and raise children. If your children see that you are not serious about your relationship with Jesus, they get the message: this is not important. And if following Jesus is the most important thing to you, then that is a witness to them that God is real because He lives in you, and they have no excuse when they stand before God.

D. But now Samuel and the elders of Israel have to figure out a new way forward.

3. Their solution is make us a king like all the nations, vv. 4-9.

A. This upsets Samuel because he feels rejected. That’s what God says when Samuel brings it to the Lord.

B. You notice that Samuel is hurt, but he’s not fighting for himself to preserve his job or fight for his position. He brings all this to God and says, “Well, what do You think?” God’s opinion is the only one that matters. He knows what to do.

C. Imagine Samuel’s surprise when God says, don’t take it personally. They’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting Me that I should reign over them. They’ve done this ever since I brought them out of Egypt. They have rejected Me over and over and over again, to serve other gods. This is idolatry. That’s why they’re rejecting you, it’s really Me. Samuel is in fellowship with God’s suffering.

D. But God is not pleased with their request, either. There is a steely tone to God’s voice: give them what they want, but warn them, warn them. Tell them what a king is going to do to them.

4. Samuel tells the people, “What you’re really asking for is trouble.”, vv. 10-18.

A. This king is going to take from you.

1. Samuel didn’t do this. He didn’t need much overhead. No staff to support, no lavish lifestyle like a king. He lived just like the rest of the people. Not impressive.

2. But a king has to be impressive and live above his people, and he has a large staff who live off the king.

3. And that means he will take from his people. He will take their land, their children, their crops, their male and female servants. He will take, over and over again. That means that the people will lose and lose and lose.

B. And, the king will take the very best from you.

1. The king is like God. You can’t give a king crummy fields, bad flocks, stupid people to serve him. He wants the best, the most handsome and beautiful, the most skilled, the smartest.

2. That means you lose the very best of everything. If you have a stupid son or an ugly daughter or an incapable servant, you can keep that, but they very best you have he will take and you lose.

C. You will be his servants. Anytime he wants something from you he will give the command and you have to obey him. God is going to give him the authority.

D. You will cry out to God. This will exhaust you. You will cry out for relief from your king. You will understand this was a bad idea, you had it much better before when God was your king, you’re sorry. And God will not listen to you, He will not take action, He will remain silent. This is irrevocable. You cannot reverse this step.

E. Remember that God is speaking through Samuel. All Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew by experience that God let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. Samuel is not guessing, he is telling the sober truth.

5. And the people do not listen to Samuel or to God. They insist on having their own way, vv. 19-22

A. They are leaving God to serve other gods. That’s what God says in verse 8. Which gods are they serving? The gods of pride and ignorance.

B. Pride, because they want to be like all the nations.

1. What do the nations have that Israel doesn’t have? An impressive king, with pomp and circumstance. Ceremonies.

2. He’s going to make life better for us. He’s going to rule over us and go out and fight our battles. And when he waves at us from the palace balcony we will swoon with rapture! He is exalted. He is going to solve all our problems.

C. Ignorance, because they don’t know how good they have it.

1. There was a time when they believed that everything good came out of their relationship with God. God solved all their problems. They lived that truth.

2. With time they began believing that God’s blessing is just how life is supposed to run. This is normal, that life is good. They take their good blessings from God for granted and stop giving thanks.

3. They look around them and see that all the nations have kings. It looks cool. It’s impressive. Look at us. We got nothing like that. We got ol’ Samuel here. Just an old guy. Nothing impressive there. Huh.

4. Now they are thinking, why don’t we have an impressive king? We have a need, a desire that we didn’t have before. In comparison with the nations, we’re different. We’re not as well off.

D. Here’s the real situation.

1. The nations only look impressive. None of the nations have God to bless them. They are lost in the dark worshipping idols that steal from them. Their kings use them, betray them, only live for themselves. They have a miserable existence. Their nation will be destroyed. All the nations that Israel envied passed away and were conquered by others. Their kings could not save them from other kings.

2. Israel has the true God, the blessings of being in relationship with God and they take it for granted. They’re choosing to forsake God and be destroyed as a nation.

6. So what?

A. Do not underestimate the power of sin in your life. Sin hasn’t gone away, it’s just biding its time, waiting for when you aren’t watching and not following Jesus closely.

B. The essence of sin is thinking there’s alternatives to Jesus that will work. Instead of seeking all that you need through Him, you can just go after the thing you think you need directly. Just like the devil told Jesus to go after food directly, go for all the kingdoms of the world directly. Not through God, directly, yourself.

C. Sin says I know better even when God says this is not a good idea. It is scary that Samuel’s words never fell to the ground empty, they always were fulfilled, and these people said, no, that’s not going to happen. We know better. Sin knows better than God does and ignores the Bible. Arrogance and ignorance always go together with sin.

D. Sin is unthankful and takes for granted all the good things that God does. Sin never gives thanks because sin ignores its debt to God.

E. The alternative to sin is you, yourself, submit to God. Let everyone else be a lemming and march off the cliff, but you follow Jesus. Samuel followed the Lord when it was cool and when it wasn’t cool. He didn’t care what others thought, not even what he thought. He always referenced everything to God, “I think this stinks. What do You think? Here’s what they said, what do You want?” You cannot go wrong if you continually say to God, I want what You want.”

Let’s pray.