In 1 Samuel 8, the Israelites had demanded a king. In this ninth chapter, we are introduced to Saul, the man who would become the first king of Israel. From humble beginnings, we that Saul was chosen for this royal purpose but his story will also point forward to a greater king.
Author: the Josh Benner Blog
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Wanting to replace the true king. Studying 1 Samuel 8:1-9
I’m a sports fan. It can be easy to be disappointed in your teams. At the end of the season, there’s always only one champion.
More often than not, that’s not your team. Some teams wait years or decades to win titles. Some never even have.
Maybe your team has had a down year or a few down years, and you start to think about the coaches, and to think “this guy is terrible! What we need is a new coach.”
But sometimes the coach isn’t the issue.
Wanting to get a new coach can be an easy fix. You can’t get rid of the whole team. But you can fire a coach.
But so often, the new coach doesn’t seem to do much better than the old coach. Because sometimes the issue isn’t the coach. Sometimes the issue is the entire organization and a poor culture and an owner who won’t spend money and a front office that’s inept, and when everything else is bad, there’s only so much a good coach can do.
We can do that in life sometimes too. We can be reactionary and constantly changing things.
You look around a bookstore and one of the biggest sections are the self help books For a person who is not rooted in anything, they can be susceptible to drifting around and going from one philosophy to another. One life coach to another. One guru to another. All the while, just spinning the wheels.
I’ve seen people do that with faith. Someone grows up and maybe they have a nominal church background, but they’re not particularly religious. And then they start following the ways of the world and they end up disillusioned and unhappy. And they meet some Christians or start going to church. And they like it. For awhile.
But then something happens. Maybe they were misguided and thought that everything should be easier because they’re a Christian. The false gospels of the world can be appealing and the church becomes less and less appealing. I’ve sen people go full circle from not being Christians to being active in the church to not considering themselves Christians again.
And they keep searching. Onto the next thing.
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When things aren’t going well spiritually or when life isn’t going the way you feel like it should, we can face this temptation to think we need to make a change with who’s leading our lives.
In 1 Samuel 8, the Israelites decided that they wanted to make a change. God was on the throne. The glorious and gracious Lord. But Israel decided that he wasn’t what they wanted, and they asked instead for an earthly king to rule over them. They thought that taking God off the throne would somehow lead them to better results.
Teams can change coaches. That may or may not go well. But when people go away from God, that will always lead to misery and death.
Understanding First Samuel
By the time we come to 1 Samuel 8, Samuel is getting on in years. He’d served as a prophet and judge in Israel. His sons were set to replace him but there was a problem. They were wicked and the people did not want them.
While Samuel had been a great and Godly man, verse 3 says:
“but his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and prevented justice.”
So Samuel is a great man. His kids aren’t. I’m sure you’ve seen that story play out before.
So we have an issue.
Trying to dethrone the true king
The Israelites want a king but the issue is that they already have a king. The Lord God is their king.
God had ruled over Israel. He had led them in victories, he had miraculously led them out of slavery in Egypt. He had done the impossible. He had provided for his people as they wandered in the desert, he had brought them to the land. Everything the Israelites had in life was because of what God had provided for them and done for them.
Beginning in verse 4, a counsel meets to review the situation. They looked at Samuel’s sons who were going to replace him and they see how rotten they are and they don’t want them to have influence.
And they ask Samuel to give them a king, just like all of the other nations, as verse 5 will tell us.
4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
It’s almost like the stereotypical conversation that almost every teen has had with a parent, “but all my friends are doing it.”
But God hadn’t chosen Isarel, he hadn’t brought them from slavery, he hadn’t given them this land, just so they could be like all of the other nations.
It’s the same way with us and the gospel.
We are desperately sinful and when we come to faith in Jesus, we come to him in a desperate need. He is gracious to forgive us. God shows his love in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
But Jesus doesn’t save us just so we can continue to have the same struggles, just so we can look, live and act like everyone else around us. He transforms hearts and minds and souls and lives.
The Israelites were a people who had fallen into idolatry, they had worshiped other gods. They had been disobedient, they had repeatedly violated the laws of God. And here they have a desire to change the system. They want a king to rule over them.
And again while the idea of a king wasn’t inherently sinful, we will see in this text that Israel’s motivations for wanting a king were sinful.
The people say, “But all of the other kingdoms are doing it. They all have kings.” But their kings are all corrupt! They’re pagan nations!
In verse 7, when Samuel has prayed to God, the Lord tells him that the people haven’t rejected Samuel, they’ve rejected God.
And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
And again, God’s people are called to be different. During the exodus wanderings, the word of the Lord comes to the people and God says in Leviticus 20:26:
You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
But here the Israelites want to be like all the other nations.
I think we too can sometimes want something that isn’t inherently bad or sinful. But WHY we want it shows a heart that is sinful.
Why people buy the Prius
Sometimes people can want something but the motivation isn’t great. Perhaps you’ve done something nice for a person before, but the reason wasn’t really altruism. The reason was because you wanted them to owe you. Or perhaps you’ve said nice thing to a person before but it was to try to butter them up.
Something that’s good but for the wrong reasons.
In 2007, the New York Times did a survey on owners of the Toyota Prius, the Hybrid car with low emissions that can get upwards of 50 miles to the gallon!
In the survey, they tried to find out the biggest reason why people were buying the Prius. What was the number one reason?
Was it lower emissions? No that was the fifth most popular answer. What about the amazing gas mileage? That was just third. There had been different incentive and tax credits for buying the efficient car. That was the second most popular reason.
Number one reason, according to the article “makes a statement about me.”
So the number one reason wasn’t that people cared about the efficiency of the car. It was that they cared about people THINKING they cared about the clean running car.
If that isn’t the spirit of our age! Not actually caring. Just caring about people thinking you care.
Nothing wrong with the car. But wanting it because it’s a status symbol is a bit silly.
We can be fickle. We can care about our image and what others think of us. We can want certain things which aren’t inherently bad but for bad reasons.
I know when a person is single and wants to be married, marriage can become an idol. Marriage is a good thing. It’s given to us by God. But if we look to it as something that will totally fulfill us and give our lives meaning, we can make an idol of it. It’s not a bad thing, but we can distort it.
People can do it with accomplishments. Maybe a certain degree someone is striving for. Maybe a certain job someone has spent years working for. Again, those aren’t bad things. Ambition isn’t bad.
But it’s wanting a good thing for bad reasons when we think that we’ll finally be happy when we get it.
For the Israelites, they began with a desire. They want a king to rule over them. That was their vision of flourishing. They thought a king would be the one to make their lives better.
But they wanted that over the true king, the Lord.
Even today, sometimes we do this. We put trust in a person over trust in God. Most prominently, we do that in the world of politics. We can look to people being as being our hope.
Certainly there’s nothing wrong with taking an interest in politics or what’s happening in our society. But it is a problem when we make people out to be our hope. When we trust in men.
But God is still the king.
In the Old Testament, we constantly see God sovereignly working through the nations and through time to achieve his will. God moves the kingdoms of the world at his pleasure.
We might not covet a king the way the Israelites did, but far too often we can look at a leader as though they are the key.
And they’re not.
God did not stop being God between the time of these ancient Israelites and today.
Wanting someone in office because you think he or she has policies that are good is one thing. But it’s entirely different from thinking we need that person. That becomes idolatry. There is no man or woman who is our hope.
The Lord is our only hope. And it is He who is the king and who sits on the throne. Don’t look to earthly kings when we have a heavenly king.
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Studying original sin
In talking about Original Sin, I find R.C. Sproul helpful in his book “Everyone’s a theologian.”
What is original sin? Is it fair that all people are considered sinful because Adam and Eve ate a piece of fruit?
It is true that the Bible never talks of “original sin” in those specific words. But we do see in the Bible that humanity has a sinful nature.
David talks of being conceived in sin in Psalm 51:5:
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Again in Psalm 58:3:
3 The wicked are estranged from the womb;
they go astray from birth, speaking lies.
Romans 8:3 talks of Jesus being sent in the likeness of men, who were weakened by sinful flesh:
God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh
Isaiah talks of the universality of sin in Isaiah 51:6:
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
1 John 1:8 says:
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
We live under the consequences of the fall.Romans 5:12 says:
just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
We have a sinful nature as a result of the fall.
And we all sin.
We actively sin against God in disregarding the things we should do and failing to do the things we ought to do.
To quote Sproul, “Scripture does not tell us that we are sinners because we sin; rather, it affirms that we sin because we are sinners.”
Jonathan Edwards argued that even if we didn’t have the Bible telling us that we were sinful, we would naturally observe that there was a problem with our moral views. We inherently know that we are not right.
Again borrowing from Sproul “If we were by nature good or even morally neutral, we would expect a certain percentage of people to maintain their natural goodness.”
I think that is a profound idea. That we don’t know anyone who is perfect. I think of the most moral people I’ve ever known. They were still sinful because the world is sinful.
Borrowing an idea from Augustine, Adam and Eve were created with the ability not to sin. When the first command was given to Adam and Eve, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were capable of obeying that command. But when Adam and Eve sinned, humanity lost that. We are unable to not sin.
That’s why Jesus is so important. He is fully man and is like us in our humanity, but he is also fully God and was therefore righteous and without sin.
He was the only one who was capable of redeeming us.
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The living water Jesus provides. John 4:10-19
In John 4, Jesus is traveling through Samaria[] and encounters a woman at a well. He asks for a drink. At first glance, that might seem reasonable enough but by interacting with a Samaritan woman, Jesus was going against cultural norms.
As the passage continues, we discover that it’s ultimately not a story about water.
Living water
In verse 10, Jesus will totally change the subject from well water and instead point the woman to who he is and what he has to offer.
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Jesus points out that she doesn’t know who he is. He’s not so much judging her for that, but he’s directing her to what she should be asking of him.
Jesus uses the phrase gift of God. The Greek word for gift which is used here is found 11 times in the New Testament. Each time, it refers to a gift which has been graciously bestowed by the Lord.
Jesus is referring to the gift of eternal life which comes from God through Jesus and the lifelong Spiritual renewal which was to be bestowed upon people through the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that if this woman recognized who he was and knew what the gift of God was, she would want this gift, and that he would have provided living water.
Quite the statement to make to a person he’s just met.
But what does he mean? What is living water? I think there are two facets to that answer.
First, the living water of which Jesus speaks is a reference to the Holy Spirit. That’s clear based on what Jesus says in John 7.
John 7:37-39“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive
The Holy Spirit is undoubtedly rooted in the essence of living water. But I believe that this passage is implicitly getting at the work of all three persons in the Trinity in our salvation and sanctification.
All three persons are active in the process. If you don’t have faith, you don’t have the Holy Spirit, you don’t have living water. And if you don’t have God’s Holy Spirit, then you don’t have faith. You have not been born again, you do not have eternal life.
But the way to get living water is through the gospel and faith in Jesus.
Missing the point
The woman responds in verses 11-12:
“Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
She misses the point! She looks at what Jesus has said in merely naturalistic terms.She considers the depth of the well and that Jesus doesn’t have any vessel to collect water.
How is it that Jesus could provide fresh water without the tools. How is Jesus to get water? Let alone living water?
It seems laughable. It seems like he’s making an impossible promise. They’re at Jacob’s well. Jacob, this venerated figure from the Old Testament. To the woman, it seems like he’s saying that he’s somehow greater than Jacob.
The irony is that Jesus is better than Jacob. And the water he provides is greater.
Verses 13-14:
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The water from the well will merely satisfy a physical need. But what Jesus is saying is that he provides the water that fulfills our Spiritual needs. It’s the water of salvation. It’s the water of grace. It’s the water of forgiveness.
And that when you believe in Jesus and trust in Jesus, the effort we put into justifying ourselves, the effort we put into trying to be good enough for God is forever quenched.
You must keep drinking regular water, returning to the well, the sink, the fridge, the water bottle. But Jesus eternally quenches our need for life and salvation with the living water that he provides because the water that he gives becomes a spring of water.
Because it’s from God and not our own efforts or merit, we cannot exhaust the supply.
The water that Jesus provides flows through the human soul.
And it wells up to eternal life.
And again, for Jesus, this language doesn’t come out of the blue.
Living water in the Old Testament
Jeremiah 17:3 refers to the Lord as a fountain of living water.
Isaiah 12:2-3 talked of a future time when the Lord would bring deliverance to his people and draw water from a well of salvation.Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid;
for the Lord God is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.”
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Jesus gives us access to the living water and it is through Christ alone that we can have this living water because the only way we can have it is for him to give it to us.
Jesus has just told this woman something amazing.
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
The woman at the well and Nicodemus
In John 3, Jesus meets a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a prominent Jewish leader and an expert in the law. He’s heard of Jesus and has come to find out more.
Jesus tells Nicodemus:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
Nicodemus also misses the point. He takes this rebirth literally. John 3:4:
Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Just like Nicodemus, who when he was told that he needed to be born again, and responded by questioning how he could enter a second time into his mother’s womb, this woman is still merely looking at this as physical water.
Verse 16, Jesus changes the subject, but in doing that, he helps the woman see that he’s not merely talking about water.
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
This woman has had five husbands. And she has a sixth man who she lives with that’s not her husband.
Jesus knows. But she doesn’t know him. She’s never met him. Yet, he knows her background. He knows her situation. He knows her story. And in that, Jesus reveals to her that he’s not just some guy making grand claims. He reveals that he’s not just talking about water.
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Before this, the woman thought that Jesus was trying to offer her a way to an easier life. Never having to get water again.
But in Jesus showing that he knew her, he knew her life, and that he was pointing to something far greater.
The Samaritan woman and Nicodemus
Two stories.
Two encounters that Jesus has with two different people.
When considering these two stories side by side, it’s striking that these two people could not be more different.
Nicodemus is prestigious. The woman is part of a group who was hated.
Nicodemus is an expert in the Law. The woman has her sin exposed.
Nicodemus seeks Jesus out. The woman stumbles upon Jesus.
Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. The woman finds Jesus in the middle of the day.
He’s a man. She’s a woman.
Nicodemus is mentioned by name. She’s simply called the Samaritan woman, or the woman.
Nicodemus never quite understands what Jesus is telling him. The woman grows in knowledge of who Jesus is throughout the passage.
But the one thing that they have in common is that they are both in need of Jesus.
The offer of salvation is there for both of them. The offer to be born again, the offer for living water. It’s for both of them. And not just for them, but the offer is for the whole world. To know Jesus, to follow Jesus, to believe in Jesus.
No matter how moral and righteous someone like Nicodemus was, Jesus told him “you must be born again” and that “unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
No matter how sinful the Samaritan woman was, Jesus could say to her: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
No matter how righteous Nicodemus was, he still needed the saving grace of Christ.
No matter how much the Samaritan woman was looked down upon by society, Jesus still deemed her worthy of his grace.
Because we are all equally in need of grace. We are all dead in sin. And Jesus died for all who believe in him and his gospel.
With the gospel, you’re never so good that you don’t need grace, and you’re never so bad that you can’t have grace.
Are you going to the well of trying to justify yourself? Are you going to the well of self-righteousness?
Or have you believed in Jesus and been given the living water of eternal life?
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Sermon: First kings first – 1 Samuel 8:1-22
In the book of First Samuel, the Israelites had been in the Promised Land but had never had an earthly king. They hadn’t needed one. God had been their king who had led and provided for his people. In this passage, the people demand that they have a king to be like all the other nations. They’re warned that it will not ultimately be good for them but the people still insist.
