The Era of the Judges and the Kingdom of God (11) Rejecting the True King

"So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, 'You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.' But when they said, 'Give us a king to lead us,' this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. And the LORD told him: 'Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.'" (1 Sam 8:4–7)
 
Review
We’ve been studying the kingdom of God through the book of 1 Samuel. Chapters 1 through 7 cover the period just before the first king of Israel was established. Since there was no king at that time, the priests held the greatest authority. Through the example of three types of priests, we examined the important qualities we, as God’s people who serve Him as King, should cultivate in our lives.
First, through the story of Hophni and Phinehas, we learned the importance of knowing God. Although they were appointed to serve in God’s tabernacle as priests, they committed serious sins, and the Bible points out that the root cause was their lack of knowledge of God. In the same way, if we know God only intellectually without truly experiencing Him, we fail to know Him, lose a sense of reverence, and live sinful lives before Him. Therefore, as God’s people, we must earnestly seek to know Him above all else.
Second, through the story of Eli, we learned the importance of loving and honoring God above all. Although Eli knew the wicked actions of his two sons in the tabernacle, he didn’t rebuke them seriously. The Bible explains that this was because he honored and loved his sons more than he honored God.
When we fail to put God first in our love and respect, this misplaced order can bring tragedy not only into our lives but also into the lives of those we love. God’s people are those who love and honor Him above all else and prioritize His will as the most important goal in life.
Lastly, in our previous lesson, through the life of Samuel we learned the importance of growing up in God’s presence hearing His voice as His people. Eli, his two sons, and Samuel were all in the tabernacle, yet Samuel was the one most sensitive to God’s presence.
Samuel’s attitude toward God stands in contrast to Eli’s. Eli’s eyes were dim, so he could not see the visions given by God, and his ears were closed, so he couldn’t hear God’s words clearly. This was the result of him loving and honoring his sons more than God.
But Samuel clearly heard God’s voice, and God continued to reveal Himself to Samuel through His words. As a result, Samuel was able to grow continually in God’s presence and grace, and he was able to fulfill a significant role in leading the people of Israel according to God’s will.
This is also the kind of life we are called to live as God’s people. Jesus describes the relationship between Him and us as that of a good shepherd and his sheep, where the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, and the sheep hear the shepherd’s voice and follow him in an intimate relationship with the shepherd.
In the same way, if we are Jesus’ sheep, we must be able to hear His voice. And this is only possible through God’s word. If we strive to come daily to the Word God has given us and hear His voice through it, we will grow into the image God desires for us, rooted in the knowledge of Him and the hearing of His voice, and we will be able to live fulfilling the mission of expanding God’s kingdom on this earth.
 
The Israelites Demand a King
Today, we will continue to look at the final part of the period of the judges through 1 Samuel 8. This chapter is particularly significant because it serves as a turning point in the Old Testament between the era of the judges and the monarchy.
In the passage we read today, the people of Israel demanded that Samuel appoint a human king. By this time, Samuel had served as a judge and a prophet over Israel for many years, and he was already advanced in age. His two sons, however, didn’t follow in their father’s ways; they took bribes and perverted justice, showing that they were unfit as leaders.
So, all the elders of Israel gathered together and went to Samuel to request a king. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” (1 Sam 8:5)
A pastor I know once said that this scene is the saddest moment in the entire Bible — and I agree with him. That’s Because what the Israelites were demanding in this moment was essentially to reject God as their King.
Here, we see the underlying motivation behind the Israelites’ demand. They asked for a king because they wanted to be like the nations around them. In their eyes, other nations seemed better. They envied the surrounding nations that had strong kings who ruled with authority, and this envy led them to demand a king from Samuel.
But, what they didn’t realize was that, even without a human king, they already had a very unique political system far superior to any of the nations around them because God Himself was their true King. Because of this, they were a happier people than any other nation. Moses said in Deuteronomy 4:7,
“What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” (Dt. 4:7)
God chose Israel above all other nations and drew them near. He became their King, ruling over them directly, caring for them, and guiding them. Just by this fact alone, the people of Israel were more blessed than any other nations around them.
But they were not satisfied with that. They didn’t realize how blessed they were to be ruled directly by God Himself. So they wanted a king with a splendid appearance and power to rule them, like the surrounding nations. They forgot that God was their king and focused only on the fact that they had no human king. They compared themselves to other nations, and as a result, they lost a clear sense of identity as God’s people.
This gives us an important lesson. As Christians, we are God’s people who live under His kingship and possess a unique, distinct, and excellent identity in Him. But when we fail to remember and give thanks for the blessings God has graciously given us, and instead focus on what we lack and compare ourselves with those in the world, we quickly lose our identity as the people of God.
 We become dissatisfied with God alone and begin to demand something else. We begin to rely not only on God but on worldly things.  Ultimately, this replaces God’s rightful place as King in our lives with something else. This is exactly what the Israelites did when they demanded a king from Samuel.
 
Rejecting God’s Kingship
Samuel didn’t rejoice in the elders’ request, because he knew what it meant. To ask for a human king was to reject God as their King. But instead of rebuking the elders who demanded a king, Samuel first brought the matter to God in prayer. And God responded to Samuel:
"Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it isn’t you they’ve rejected, but they’ve rejected me as their king. As they’ve done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they’re doing to you." (1 Sam. 8:7-8)
God looked at the heart behind the elders’ request. Although it seemed like a political demand, in reality it was like spiritual rebellion. What the people of Israel were asking wasn’t simply to change their political system. It was to give to a human king the authority and sovereignty that belonged to God as their true King.
Rather than listening to God as their King and living under His rule, they chose the rule of a human king. The evil in the people’s demand wasn’t in the demand itself, but in the underlying motive—to reject God and replace His kingship with a human king.
It also showed that they didn’t trust God. Their request for a human king meant that, in their eyes, a human king seemed more reliable than God. They relied more on a visible human ruler than on the invisible God.
 
Even the Israelites knew that having a human king was equivalent to rejecting God as King. Before Samuel anointed Saul as Israel’s first king, he gathered all the people at Mizpah and said:
"This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’ But you’ve now rejected your God, who saves you out of all your disasters and calamities. And you’ve said, ‘No, appoint a king over us.’" (1 Sam. 10:18-19)
Yet even after hearing these words, the Israelites didn’t regret their decision, didn’t grieve, and didn’t repent before God. On the contrary, when Samuel presented Saul as king before them, all the people rejoiced, shouting, “Long live the king!” (1 Sam. 10:24).
They didn’t care about God’s feeling. They turned away from the God who had delivered them from all disasters and guided them faithfully, and chose to follow a human king according to the customs of other nations.
 
The Rule of a Human King: Taking
When the people of Israel asked Samuel for a human king, God told Samuel to first teach them about the institution of a human king. This is what God said.
“This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you on that day.” (1 Sam. 8:11–18)
In this passage, one word keeps repeating: take. God revealed the essence of the human king’s rule—it was about taking. The human king would take their sons to make them fight in battles, take their daughters to serve in his household, take their possessions and produce, and ultimately treat them as slaves.
This was not the ideal “kingly system” that God had in mind, but the kind of monarchy that existed among the surrounding nations of Israel at the time.
God knew that eventually Israel would need a king. So He had Moses explain in advance what the “kingly system” should look like. This is found in Deuteronomy 17:14–20.
"When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you a king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, ‘You are not to go back that way again.’ He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees, and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.” (Deut. 17:14–20)
This is the kind of king God desires. God wanted a king like this to be established. The appearance and character of this king were clearly different from the kings of the surrounding nations.
The king God envisioned would not forcibly take men from the people to serve as soldiers to increase his own power. He would not take daughters from the people to have many wives. He would not seize the possessions of the people to accumulate silver and gold for himself. Rather, the king God desired would revere Him, keep His word close throughout his life, and faithfully follow all that is written in God’s law.
But, when God spoke through Samuel about the institution of a human king, He described him as a king who takes. This was because the king the Israelites desired was not the kind of king God intended, but merely the kind of king the surrounding nations had. That king would exploit the precious things of the people to maintain his prestige, abuse his power and authority, and use a strong military to make the people his servants.
This is what happens when we set anything other than God as the king of our lives. We choose another king because we think it will give us greater benefit or blessing than what God provides. But in reality, it is the opposite. That king will take from us, exploit us, and ultimately make us slaves.
God, however, is not a king who takes. He is a king who gives. God is a good and faithful King who didn’t spare even His own Son to give us the blessing of eternal life and salvation. He always provides for our needs and bears our burdens for us. So, whom should we make the king of our lives?
 
After God explained through Samuel the kind of king the Israelites were demanding, He added, “On that day you will cry out because of the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you on that day.” (1 Sam. 8:18)
Here, when God says He will not answer, it does not mean that He deliberately ignores their request. Rather, it means that they place themselves in a state where they cannot hear God’s response because they had hardened their hearts toward God, rejected Him, and set a human king in His place. This is also a consequence of living a life that does not recognize God as King. Ultimately, it results in a broken relationship between us and God.
 
The Israelites’ Persistent Demand
Despite all these warnings, the Israelites still demanded a human king.
"But the people refused to listen to Samuel. 'No!' they said. 'We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.'" (1 Sam. 8:19–20)
God’s warnings about a human king didn’t change their stubborn hearts. Their desire to be like the other nations remained unshaken. Even after hearing that the king would take from them, exploit them, and ultimately make them his servants, and that this would distance them from God’s kingship, they still insisted on having a human king. In doing so, they removed themselves from the blessing of having God as their King.
And God told Samuel to grant their request. He knew that nothing He said would change their hearts. But God’s permission doesn’t mean that what they wanted was right in His eyes. Sometimes, God’s permission comes to us as a form of judgment.
At times, God refuses our requests out of love. But at other times, He grants our requests as a form of judgment. He lets us have what we want, even when it leads to consequences. God allowing the Israelites to have a king was such a case. They should have recognized that God’s permission was, in fact, the beginning of His judgment.
Yet even in God’s permission and judgment, we see His grace. The Israelites demanded a human king out of sinful motives, rejecting God as King, but through the very system they chose, God would ultimately send His Son, Jesus Christ, from the line of David.
When the Israelites rejected God’s kingship and chose a human king, the coming of God’s kingdom may have seemed delayed. But God used even their sinful decisions to send Jesus Christ as the true King into this world and, through Him, to establish God’s kingdom on earth.
This is the grace we can see even within God’s judgment. Because of this grace, even in the midst of our own wrong decisions today, we can still return to a life where God reigns as King.
 
Returning to God as King
Now, I want to wrap up today’s message. As we reflect on the story of Israel demanding a human king, we see the dangers of rejecting God’s kingship in our own lives. Just as the Israelites sought a king like the nations around them, we too can be tempted to place other things—our desires, our ambitions, our possessions—on the throne of our hearts. Yet the Bible reminds us that any king other than God will ultimately take from us, exploit us, and make us slaves.
But God is not a king who takes. He is a king who gives. He gives us life, salvation, guidance, and peace. He gave His only Son so that through Jesus Christ we could have eternal life and a restored relationship with Him.
Today, God calls us to examine our hearts. Whom are we allowing to reign over our lives? Are we yielding to our own desires, or are we submitting to the good and faithful rule of our Lord? True blessing comes from acknowledging God as King and living under His rule, trusting that His ways are best.
So, let us, turn away from the temptation to choose our own "kings" and allow God to reign fully in our hearts. He is the only true King who can give us true blessings that we need.
May we leave here today renewed in our commitment to live under God’s kingship, trusting His grace even when we face our own weaknesses and mistakes. May we welcome God once again as the King of our lives, receive all the blessings He gives, and live as His people, faithful citizens of His kingdom. Let’s pray.
 
[Prayer]
Heavenly Father, we come before You today acknowledging that You alone are the true King of our lives. Forgive us, Lord, for the times we have sought to place other things on the throne of our hearts instead of You.
Lord, help us to turn away from the temptation to follow other kings. Instead, may we submit fully to Your good and faithful rule, trusting that You are a King who gives salvation.
Teach us, Father, to live each day under Your kingship. May we keep Your Word close, revere You in all we do, and follow Your commands with a willing heart. Even in our mistakes and weaknesses, remind us of Your grace, that we may always return to You and live as Your faithful people.
We ask, Lord, that You reign in our hearts, homes, workplaces, and wherever we are. May we experience the fullness of Your blessings as we live as Your people, devoted to Your kingdom.
We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and King. Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1. Why do you think the Israelites rejected God as their King and demanded a human king? Can you think of moments in your life when you’ve put something else in the place of God as the ruler of your heart?
2. Sometimes God judges us by allowing our requests. Have you ever experienced this kind of judgment in your life, or witnessed it in the lives of those around you?
3. God judges, but He also gives grace. He may discipline us for our mistakes, yet He can use even our wrong decisions to restore us as citizens of His kingdom. Have you ever experienced this kind of grace from God amid your own wrongdoings?