Samuel has a "public announcement of the king" party for all Israel. God also wants us to go to him for our sense of worth. Later, after “their king” fails, God will give Israel “His king” – David. But you still want a king. Isaiah 43:15 “I am the LORD, your Holy One, Israel’s Creator, your King.” In Exodus 19:5-6 God told Moses “Now if you obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all nations you will be My treasured possession. When the Israelites asked for a king in 1 Samuel 8, God says ‘they have rejected me from being king over them’ (verse 7). David Commands Israel Be Counter. The Earth, their delegated territory, was compromised. Why doesn’t the cost matter to you? Sin had infiltrated the kingdom. we might even guess that if Israel did not forsake the LORD here, God would have made David the first human king of Israel. Why would God’s people want a human king when they had the King of Heaven? (See Deuteronomy 12:31.) God was their king… Little wonder, then, that when King Ahab chose to marry a woman from Baal territory, the farmers in Israel built a house for this new god and welcomed him to the neighborhood (see 1 Kings 16:31). In particular, they want a king who will be a strong military leader (v. 20), an authority in competition with God instead of a servant of God. The problem was that Samuel, God’s prophet, had promised to meet … (Judges 17:6)Four times in the Book of Judges we are told that "there was no king in Israel in those days" (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25), indicating that the book must have been compiled either by Samuel (the last judge) or someone else of his or a later generation. In 1 Sam 10:7, Samuel tells Saul to do “as occasion serves him, since God was with him.” In 1 Sam 10:8 Samuel tells Saul to wait seven days. They might have thought they were something, but God knew they were going to lose. And the Isrealites said, nay, but we WILL have a king. If we agree that God was so displeased that Israel asked for a king, do we have the right to say that God foreordained all along for Judah's tribe to take the throne (and use this as a premise)? Israel Really Wants A King (Part I) by R.J. Moeller • November 22, 2013 I recently posted some thoughts at The Power Blog on “ God’s Problem With Centralized Power ”, which took a macro view of what I believe to be God’s clear disdain for mankind pursuing their own ends instead of His articulated purposes when it comes to how we organize ourselves communally. When did God decide to remove Saul, Israel's first king, and raise up David in his place? 33:11). In 1 Sam 13:8 Samuel was late – Saul waited seven days – then made a sacrifice – to God! Bible Answer: First, we will look at the historical event and then look at why God disciplined David. They were plotting against Judah, Jerusalem and King Ahaz, in particular, but God said their plan “shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass” (verse 7). Though he continued to have many trials during his lifetime, King David became the greatest ruler of Israel! They thought God must be punishing her by not giving her children. This is an example of God’s providential concurrence in secondary causes. God told Saul that he couldn’t be king anymore and God told Samuel to choose David to be the next king. Despite God’s warnings, they were adamant — enough with this judge stuff; give us a king! When we do not and rely instead on our own strength and wisdom, we open ourselves to disaster. This occurred between 1100 and 1000 BC or roughly 350 years after the original making of the covenant. (2Ki 9:6) And he arose, and went into the house; and he poured the oil on his head, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of the LORD, even over Israel. He didn’t want to be King to begin with – God forced it on him. The historical event is recorded in both 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. … Greed can turn a king away from God. The biblical evidence leads to the conclusion that God did intend for Israel to have human kings. He reminds them that God didn’t want them to have a human king, that God agreed to their request for a human king, and then he starts this long identification process where he narrows things down by tribe, clan, family, and finally it’s time to say, "Heeeeere’s King Saul!" Why, in spite of all these warnings straight from God, do you still want a king? Additionally, not only did God use Israel’s might to punish evil nations like these, He used the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian kings to punish Israel. Shortly after his confirmation, Saul found himself staring down the Philistine army at Gilgal. King: a ruler who answers to no one Lesson Outline Lesson Text Israel wanted a king. Because they were insisting. Saul's first allegiance was to God, as is ours. That command was not for Israel, but for each specific king. It was just too strong. God said, not yet. God eventually concluded that He should not have chosen Saul to be ruler over his people because he was not obedient to his commands. But what it boiled down to was, if they realized it or not, what they were saying was they didn't want God to reign over them; they wanted a king like others had. You may get a bad king. As the sole superpower in the region, wealth poured into Israel. That was the core of their sin. Lesson 17. They apparently overlooked God’s warning that they needed to obey Him and keep the covenant they had made with Him in order to be a “special treasure” to God “above all people” (Exodus 19:5). I have been attending a Conservative temple recently and my rabbi there lent me your tape series. In fact, God said, Israel would not even be a nation in another 65 years ! I listened to about six of the tapes and enjoyed your style and research very much. So God gave them Saul. Why did God discipline David after telling him to take the census in 2 Samuel 24? They were turning against God himself instead of Samuel. God will often use human forces to mete out His discipline. When Solomon was made king upon David's death, not a nation on the face of the earth would have considered attacking Israel. God didn't want Israel to have a king because he was their king, but since the people longed for one, He had his prophet Samuel anoint a man named Saul as the first king of Israel. He governed over God's people for forty years, from 1010 to 970 B.C., then died at the age of seventy. If we want to understand the kingdom of God and live in peace in the midst of earthly kingdoms, we should start with an understanding that the God of the Bible is King, Emperor, and Lord. No, but we will have a king over us: God will give Israel “their king” – Saul. In 1 Samuel 8, Israel wants to install a king to make them like other nations. Indeed, death should not gladden our hearts. 4) rather than a Deut 17 king. King David of Israel was "the head of the nations," and faraway kings he did not even know trembled at the mention of his name. Thank you for your fair and even-handed presentation of both sides. Someday they would be sorry, but they would have to learn that the hard way. When Saul sinned by making a sacrifice to God that wasn't his to make: Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude. 1 Samuel 8:7-8 Israel had already deviated from faithfulness, but here, she formally rejects God as her Ruler, taking a major step toward being exactly like all the nations around her. Even God’s judgment on evil should bring grief along with the joy of justice. 1 Samuel 1, 8, 13, 15 Hannah didn’t have any children. Hannah wanted a child so much. Although nearly all foreign embassies in Israel are located in Tel Aviv, the country considers Jerusalem to be its capital. God wants us to depend on him. Of the three choices presented to David, the first two would have involved some level of dependency upon the mercy of man: the warfare, of course, would be as severe as the enemy wanted it to be; the famine would require Israel to seek food from other nations, relying on the pity of their neighbors. Because we suppose that God ultimately wanted Israel to be a monarchy (based on Deuteronomy 17:14-20). God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live” (Ezek. But after Saul had been king of Israel for a long time, he started to do things that God didn’t want him to do. For now, though, God would not just turn his people over to another human being, even if he were a king. In that reading (from 2 Samuel 24) we hear the story of how King David ordered a census to be taken. Question: Dear Rabbi Singer: I have been a Jewish Christian (Messianic Jew, meshumed, whatever) for 20+ years. Joab, David’s general, strongly cautioned the King against it, but David insisted. King Saul had the look of a king, but it didn’t take long for him to show he didn’t have the heart of a king. The Cost of a King. Unfortunately, ancient Israel forsook God, yet because of their opportunity to serve God, they often wrongfully thought of themselves as superior to other peoples. Be cautious in what you ask for. The Israelites at the time of Samuel were coming to the end of an era which was unique in world history. Jehu executes the judgement, pronounced on Jezebel, by God, through Elijah It is this kind of a king that Samuel warns against in verses 11-18. Been appointed king by God, through Elijah God wants us to go to for. 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