I Samuel 22:7 then Saul said to his servants who stood about him, “Hear now, you Benja- mites! Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds?
I once heard about an approach to classroom management that involved students coming up with the list of rules. Though I never tried it, I did hear about some cases where it was employed. Ironically, though they typically complain about rules in general, given the opportunity, students create a list of rules. Often, more rules! And it’s not unusual in these situations that the student-created rules are stricter with, often, strong consequences for infractions!
The people had come to Samuel and asked him to “give us a king.” Their reasons were pretty specific. They wanted a king to go out for them and fight for them. They wanted to be like the other nations. At God’s leading, Samuel complied and Saul was anointed king. Saul had been a man of such promise! But now he has become a man of empty promises. Their stated desire to have a king that would “go out for them and fight for them” has turned out quite differently. He is not going out. He is hunting all over Israel for David. But he is not fighting for them. He has compelled them to fight for them! Desperate and paranoid, he starts throwing out empty promises to convince the people that David should be hated by them as much as he is by Saul. Israel had become like other nations. They were ruled by a demanding tyrant.
It’s really quite tragic. But so predictable. And, equally tragic, it’s a situation that repeats itself over and over in so many lives. People reject God because they don’t like His rules. They want the freedom to do whatever they want. Though they don’t always understand it, they trade God’s loving and wise ‘rules’ for slavery to the enemy of their soul. Bob Dylan said it succinctly. “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody!”
The question remains: “Who will we serve?” The Bible teaches that the object of our service, if it’s not God, is actually an idol. So even if we’d like to imagine that ‘No one tells me what to do!’, our ‘independence’ becomes our idol. As an alternative to all of that with the accompanying drama, trouble, and strife that accompanies it, the Bible offers this: (in Matthew 11:28)
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Jesus doesn’t sound much like a taskmaster to me! His ways really are best.
Blessings,
Pastor Russ
