Rejecting the True King
How we follow God is a lot like how we treat New Year’s resolutions. You start out strong but down stretch you fade or look for shortcuts. With God, you start out on fire. You start out praying and reading your Bible and telling people about Jesus. “I’m going to follow you with my whole heart, Lord!” But then something gives. Maybe leadership fails you. A relationship hurts you. A season of prayer or Bible reading feels dry. You obey and nothing seems to change. And slowly, almost without realizing it, you begin thinking, “There has to be a better way than this. There has to be something more dependable than just trusting God.” Maybe you don’t blatantly think it, but you start living it.
A lot of time we start looking for something we can see. Something we can measure. Something we can manage. And without meaning to, we begin trading the rule and reign of God in our lives to trying to control it ourselves.
That’s where 1 Samuel 8 meets us. We’re starting a new series today on the life of King David. But before David ever steps onto the scene. Before the shepherd boy and the sling and stone. Before the songs and the promises and the victories. Before we ever hear about a man after God’s own heart. The Holy Spirit slows the narrative down and gives us what feels like a very ordinary chapter. There aren’t battles and giants here. There are no miracles or dramatic rescues. There’s just a leadership problem and a plea for change.
Amidst what seems like another ordinary moment, this passage drops a spiritual warning that both hits us where we are and shows us why Israel ended up needing someone like David though they were wanting someone like Saul. And if we’re being honest, we have the same impulse today. We so often demand a king we can see and reject the King who actually saves.
We must never justify abandoning God’s design for our own solutions. (1–3)
The story opens in a way that can almost seem uneventful at first glance. Verse 1 simply states, “When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel.” There’s no fanfare here or crisis. It seems to be nothing more than the natural passing of time and responsibility. An aging leader is making provision for the next generation. This is ordinary succession. Samuel’s been at this for decades. He’s been faithfully serving, praying for the people, delivering God’s word, settling arguments. Steady faithfulness—as Eugene Peterson would say, “A long obedience in the same direction.” He has led them through repentance and renewal. Now he’s old, and like any aging leader, he begins passing responsibility to the next generation. That’s what we should do. We should always be looking for ways to equip and raise up the next generation.
But then verse 3 pulls back the curtain. “Yet his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.” Samuel is faithful, but his sons are not. And that matters, because the judges for Israel weren’t just administrators. They were representatives of God’s justice. They were supposed to protect and provide for the people, and when they fell through, so did everything else.
So, Israel’s frustration is understandable. This isn’t a crowd of complainers inventing problems. There is real injustice happening. If you lived there and watched bribes decide court cases, you would be angry too. You would want change too. There was a real problem! Them calling out the issue wasn’t the problem, though. The danger is in how they respond to it. There are problems all around us, y’all. But how do we respond to them?
Verse 5 says the elders of Israel gather and come to Samuel. These aren’t immature nobodies. These are the leaders of the tribes. The respected men. The voices people listen to. And they present their case really in a very reasonable way. “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways.” Everything they say is absolutely true. You almost find yourself nodding along. “Yep. Yep.” But then they say it. The line that that reveals where the people’s heart is at: “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
And with that request, they reveal the true nature of their wayward hearts. Because notice what they don’t ask for. They don’t ask Samuel to remove his sons. They don’t ask for national reform. They don’t ask how to return to God’s design. They skip all of that and jump straight to replacing the entire system by looking like the other cultures.
Up until this moment, Israel’s whole national identity had been built around one central truth. God is their King. They aren’t like all the other nations. They are different. They don’t rely on political power or visible rulers. They rely on the Lord. When they need help, they pray. When they sin, they repent. When enemies attack, God raises up deliverers. And now they’re tired of that.
They look at the mess in leadership and decide the problem must be God’s design itself. And that’s always where compromise begins. A real-life disappointment becomes an excuse to completely abandon trust in God. People disappoint you, and you turn your back on God. Hear me—it wasn’t God who let you down. It was people.
This same thing shows up in our own lives, doesn’t it? In church, someone gets wounded by a leader, and instead of staying in the hard work of forgiveness and restoration, they just quietly (or not so quietly!) slip away. They leave the body behind rather than press on toward restoration.
Or maybe you’ve experienced it in prayer. You’ve kept praying. I mean really praying. Bringing it to God morning after morning, night after night. You’ve waited. And your waiting has been costly. It has cost you time and energy and pain. But you have tried to be faithful. And yet the thing you’ve been asking for hasn’t budged. Then there’s one of those moments where you think, “Is there a quicker way to get through this?” “Do I actually have to keep waiting… like this?” “Do I have to keep trusting when it honestly feels like nothing is moving?” “Surely there’s an easier way than staying put on the path God has me on right now.” That’s the moment that’s so dangerous. It sounds reasonable, but it’s really faithlessness in God rather than faithfulness in God when in reality He’s been nothing but faithful to you.
Israel is quietly declaring that God’s way isn’t good enough anymore. And that’s always the first step away from Him. Israel wants a solution they can point to. A throne they can see. They want a king like everyone else. But what they don’t realize is that in asking for a visible king, they are quietly rejecting the invisible one. The One True King. Yahweh.
God sees our craving for conformity as rejection of His reign. (4–9)
There’s one small phrase in Israel’s request that’s the thing the whole text hangs on. In verse 5 they come to Samuel and they say plainly, they want a king “like all the nations.” That’s the real issue right there. They weren’t simply saying, “We need better leadership” or “We want fairer decisions in the courts.” No. They were saying, “Make us like everyone else. Let us blend in. Let us look just like the nations all around us.” That desire to fit in, to be the same, to stop standing out as God’s distinct people, that’s what’s driving everything here.
Now here’s the thing, God had already promised them a king. He wasn’t against the idea of a king at all. He had a plan for it, a king who would rule under His authority, a king who would reflect His own kingship. But they didn’t want that kind. They wanted one “like all the nations.”
If you read the Old Testament carefully, you’ll notice how often this temptation shows up. From the very beginning God called Israel to be different. Set apart. Their whole existence was meant to say something about God. When the other nations looked at Israel, they were supposed to see what life looked like under the direct reign of God. But that kind of life requires faith. And you know what? Faith is scary and exhausting! There’s something in all of us that just wants to be normal. To stop living set apart. To not have to live so differently. It’s easier to just do what everyone else does. That’s what’s happening here. “Give us a king like everybody else!”
Verse 6 says Samuel is displeased. And what I love is what he does next. He doesn’t defend himself or argue with them. He doesn’t take it personally. You know what he does? He prays. When you’re under pressure, you must go to God first. Samuel doesn’t try to fix it with better strategy. He brings it to the Lord as he should.
And God responds bluntly. In verse 7 He says, “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” From Israel’s perspective, this is political. But from God’s perspective, it’s about their relationship with Him. It’s not “we need a better system.” It’s “we don’t want You ruling us anymore.” They probably didn’t think of it that way. They probably thought they were just being practical. They probably thought they were just solving a problem or trying to be good stewards. But God sees the heart. And He says, “This is outright rejection.”
Every false king fails to deliver what it promises. (9–18)
After that, God tells Samuel to warn them. In verse 9 He says, “Solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” And Samuel does. He walks through it slowly, painfully really, like a father explaining the consequences to a stubborn child.
And as he speaks, you can almost hear the same word echoing again and again. And it’s this: Take. In verses 11-17 he says the king will take your sons. He’ll draft them into his army, into his chariots, into his wars. He will take your daughters to cook and clean and serve his household. He will take your fields, your vineyards, your olive orchards. He will take your servants. He will take your flocks. He will take a tenth of everything. Everything this king touches, he will take.
Human “saviors” always take more than they promise. And here’s where this gets painfully practical for us. Because we may not be asking for a literal monarch, but we still crown kings all the time. We crown things in our hearts and expect them to save us.
Some people crown success. They tell themselves, “If I can just get that job or that income or that reputation, everything will finally feel secure.” But then success starts taking from them. It takes their evenings and weekends with their families. It takes their marriages. It takes their joy.
Some people crown approval. “If people just like me, if I can keep everyone happy, I’ll be okay.” But approval starts taking from them too. It takes their peace. It takes their convictions. It takes their backbone to stand up for things that are good and right.
Some people crown comfort. “I just want an easy life.” But comfort takes away courage. It takes away growth.
Even ministry can become a king. You start serving Jesus and end up serving people’s expectations. You start seeking the praise of people and end up performing for them. Then the very thing that was supposed to be joyful starts draining you dry.
Anything you treat like a savior will eventually start taking from you. That’s what Samuel is saying. This king you think will protect you is going to consume you. False kings always do.
God’s judgment is giving us exactly what we demand. (19–22)
By the time Samuel finishes, you expect the people to slow down. You expect them to say, “Okay, maybe we should think about this.” You expect some hesitation. But there isn’t any. Verse 19 says, “The people refused to obey the voice of Samuel.” They hear the warning. They understand the cost. And they still want it.
And then they say something that reveals the deepest issue of all. They say they want a king “that he may go out before us and fight our battles.” That’s their heart. They don’t want to have to trust God to fight for them anymore. And then comes one of the most sobering lines in the entire chapter. God tells Samuel to listen to them and give them what they asked for. In verse 22, God says to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.”
This isn’t God approving of their decision. This is judgment from God. Sometimes the most frightening discipline God can give you is letting you have what you desire. He hands you the very thing you think will save you and lets you discover, the hard way, that it can’t. That’s why so many people are unhappy and unfulfilled. And that’s why so many people are going to Hell.
And Saul is exactly that kind of king they asked for. He’s tall. Impressive. Head and shoulders above everyone else. He looks like a king. He feels like a king. He’s everything they thought they wanted. And you know what? He turns out to be a disaster for them. Because what they needed wasn’t someone taller. They needed God!
That’s where we start to see the gospel shine through in this story. Israel said to Samuel, “Give us a king who will go out in front of us and fight our battles.” Years later, God answered, “I will.” But not how they expected. Not a king who takes from the people. A King who gives everything. Not a king who sends their sons to die. A King who dies in their place. A King who carries the cross Himself. For them. For us.
Every earthly king takes. Jesus gives. Every earthly king demands sacrifice. Jesus becomes the sacrifice. Every earthly king builds his throne on fear. Jesus builds His throne on grace.
So the question for us isn’t whether we have a king. All of us already do. The question is which one your faith is in.
And today, maybe for some of us, the most faithful thing we can do is lay down the false ones. To stop clinging to the things we think will save us. To stop demanding control. And to come back to the true King with empty hands.
Only one King doesn’t take. Only one King truly saves. His name is Jesus.
