Josh Benner

Category: Christian living

  • Choosing your poison. Israel’s demand for a king. Studying 1 Samuel 8:19-22

    Choosing your poison. Israel’s demand for a king. Studying 1 Samuel 8:19-22

    The book of Proverbs dedicates a lot of space to talking about the “fool,” the person who lives a life in opposition to the wisdom of God. The chief way a person can be a fool is in a failure to fear the Lord. We do this when we try to take God off of his thrown. Other examples of foolishness.

    Proverbs 28:26

    Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.

    In 1 Samuel 8, the Israelites speak up and say that they want a king to lead them. The problem is that they wanted a human king instead of God as their king. 

    And in this passage, the Israelites were trusting their own minds. Their own desires and will.And again there are many other examples in the book of Proverbs. 

    The people are going against the wisdom of God. And the chief way they’re doing this is the failure to fear the Lord and to honor him above all else. 

    Had they done that, they would have realized that they didn’t need a king. That they had everything they already needed in God. 

    The best way to know the will of God is to know his word. There are things we can do which are totally contrary to the wisdom of God. For the Israelites, it had been explained to them why a king was not going to be good for them. And they wanted it anyway. 

    And again, we can do that too. We can have all of the reasons to know that something will not be good for us. But then we do it. The Bible has wisdom in regards to how we manage our households, our finances, our health, our rest, our language. It’s in our best interest to get with the program. To live for God. To follow his wisdom. 

    Sometimes we even know better and continue to do what we want anyway. 

    It’s so easy to let the ways of the world influence us more than it is us influencing the ways of the world. We might not be asking for an earthly king, but we so often want another god. We so often look to areas of life that we think will lead to our flourishing. 

    Because of his goodness, God insisted that the Israelites be warned with what they were doing. He TOLD them it wouldn’t work well. And we receive warnings in God’s word. 

    The heart of the issue isn’t just about wanting a different king. It was putting something over God. And any time we choose to go against God, to go against his word, we’re putting ourselves on the throne. 

    Is there’s something you don’t have right now, but where you think “if only I had THIS” everything would be better? Or you’d truly be happy? 

    Don’t replace the true king. The issue is when we buy into the lies of what objects or relationships can give us and place those on a pedestal above God and the true fulfillment, and purpose, and grace, and the life that comes from him. There is a price to be paid for wanting to change the king.

    At the end of the passage, the Israelites make their choice. 

    Verses 19-20: 

    19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us,20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

    In this chapter of the story, it doesn’t tell us too much about the result. But upon continuing to read in the Old Testament, the things that Samuel had warned about did end up befalling the Israelites. With the advent of the monarchy, it did institute high taxes, losses of land, more wars. And the kings weren’t there to fight their battles for them. And those problems would continue to spiral from one generation to the next. 

    Isn’t that what happens in our lives too? When we decide to go against the wisdom of God? There are consequences for that. They might be external. They might be in our environment. But they’re also always going to be internal.

    Our sins, our putting things ahead of God, our living life as though a new king or a new source of purpose is going to fulfill us will chip away at our relationship with God. 

    God allows us to make bad decisions. It is sometimes through the tough decisions and struggles that we see that there is no other way besides God.

    God is the one true king. He is to be the king of your life. It’s not about looking elsewhere when we’re struggling. 

    In spite of the sin of the people, God was still gracious. Because God is a good God who is faithful to his promises. 

    The first king of Israel was Saul. But he would be replaced in the following generation by King David. And through David, came a line that would lead to the king of kings, the Lord Jesus. Even though God allowed for their to be a new king, he was always the one who was really in charge. He was always the one who was still sovereignly reigning and ruling in the world. For all eternity past, God had known what the Israelites were going to do and had already known how he was going to work through the sins of his people to bring about his kingdom. 

    But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s God’s desire for our obedience and to properly worship him as the king. We are to listen to his warnings. It’s his will for us to put him first, to worship him alone, to place our trust in him.  

    Don’t look to earthly kings when we have a heavenly king. Because unlike earthly kings who sin and fail, who can be in things for their own gain, our heavenly king is perfect, and he is just as he rules and reigns supreme over all creation.

    Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe!

  • The Gospel according to Genesis. Studying Genesis 3:7-13

    The Gospel according to Genesis. Studying Genesis 3:7-13

    In Genesis 3, we see the fall of humanity into sin. What is also significant about the passage is that we see the initial reaction of Adam and Eve to their sin. They do what humanity has done countless times since that first sin: they try to cover up their own sins.

    Man’s attempt to cover sin

    In Genesis 1-2, we see the account of God’s good and orderly creation. Everything is great in those first two chapter of the Bible. In chapter 3, we see the fall. Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. Sin is introduced into the world. 

    Lightning doesn’t immediately strike them dead. 

    The first reaction that we see to sin is not from God but from Adam and Eve. 

    Genesis 3:7-8 says: 

    7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

    Adam and Eve try to hide. 

    They try to cover up their own sin. But man is unable to do so. We cannot hide from an all knowing God and we cannot cover our sins up. 

    The God who covers sin

    In 2 Samuel 11, King David does something truly terrible. He has an affair with a married woman named Bathsheeba. 

    2 Samuel 11:2-4:

    ​​2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. 3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (underlines added)

    It’s similar language to Eve in the garden before the fall.

    So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

    -Genesis 3:6

    As Eve saw that the tree was good for good and it delighted her eyes, and she took the fruit; David saw Bathsheeba, that she was beautiful, and he took her. 

    Bathsheeba gets pregnant from this affair. Then David does something else truly terrible. He sends Bathsheeba’s husband to the front lines in battle for the purpose of having him killed. 

    In Psalm 51, we see David address this sin that he’s committed and he is devastated by what he has done. In my opinion, Psalm 51 is the strongest personal lament of sin found anywhere in the Bible. 

    But there’s one particular idea that I want to focus on from that Psalm. 

    8 Let me hear joy and gladness; 

    let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 

    9 Hide your face from my sins, 

    and blot out all my iniquities. 

    10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, 

    and renew a right spirit within me. 

    11 Cast me not away from your presence, 

    and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 

    12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, 

    and uphold me with a willing spirit. –

    -Psalm 51:8-12

    In turning to the Lord, David asks God to hide your face from my sins. 

    Do you see the difference? 

    Adam and Eve try to hide themselves from God because of their sin. David asks God to hide his face from David’s sins. 

    A holy God and human sin

    Genesis 3:9-11 says: 

    9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

    John Sailhamer points out that all of God’s responses to Adam and Eve come in the form of questions. The Lord does not respond by reigning down brimstone and fire. God is inviting Adam to confess what he has done. 

    God isn’t asking questions out of a lack of knowledge. God is all knowing. 

    It is through God’s questions that Adam convicts himself. 

    God asks Adam where he is  and Adam explains that he was afraid because he was naked and he had hid himself. God asks Adam how he knew he was naked and asks Adam if he has eaten from the tree that God commanded him not to eat of. 

    This is the real heart of Adam’s shame. It’s not because it’s naked. Adam is ashamed because he has disobeyed God’s direct commandment. 

    But Adam responds with excuses, as does Eve. 

    Excuses

    Genesis 3:12-13: 

    12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 

    The woman whom you gave to be with me. 

    Adam blames both Eve and God. He blames Eve for giving him the fruit, and he blames God for giving him Eve! 

    So often, we make excuses for our sins. We blame God, blame others, blame circumstances, blame family. Your sin is your fault and no one else’s. It is important that we recognize that. We commit our own sins. No one else does that. As Adam and Eve were guilty of their sin, we too are guilty of the sins we commit. 

    I believe that one of the ways we blame God when we sin is that we blame him for decreeing things are unholy that we want to do. 

    The place for shame

    I worry that our society has tried to do away with shame. But sometimes we feel shame because we did something bad or are doing something bad. In that instance, shame can be a good thing because it can point us to another way to live. 

    Our society preaches an anti-gospel that lifts up the goodness of man, makes excuses, and encourages hedonism. We say that we shouldn’t be ashamed, and yet our society is miserable. Mental illness, anxiety and depression are through the roof. Drug use is through the roof. 

    We know that we’re messed up and friends and society wanting us to have a sin positivity doesn’t take that shame away. 

    Not all shame is bad. 

    Shame should drive us to repentance. It should drive us to the one who does atone for our sins, to the one who does forgive our sins. The Lord Jesus. He was without sin and died so that all who believe in him can have eternal life. Jesus invites us to come to him and to turn from our sin. 

    Sources used: 

    Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990), 193–194.

    John H. Sailhamer, “Genesis,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 53–54.

  • Sermon: Called from obscurity – 1 Samuel 9:1-27

    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. 

    Sermon manuscript

  • Wanting to replace the true king. Studying 1 Samuel 8:1-9

    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. 

    . 

    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.

    Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe!

  • Studying original sin

    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. 

    Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share and subscribe!