Podcast Introduction

Today we’re going to read 1 Samuel 6-10, and I’m calling the episode “How’s That Workin’ Out For You?” 

Comments on 1 Samuel 8

The first section of this commentary was written on September 6, 2020. Six months before this, much of the world began the “fifteen days to slow the spread” of Covid-19. Two months after it was written, the United States would have a presidential election.  The second section was written on November 22, 2021.

Thoughts on 1 Samuel 8 – September 6, 2020 

In this chapter, we see once more that there is nothing new under the sun. 

God rescued the children of Israel out of Egypt, and God looked out for them, cared for them and supplied their needs. He gave them the Promised Land, enabling them to defeat their enemies. But time and again, they forsook God and began to worship the false gods of heathen nations. Each time He forgave them, and for a time they would follow Him, but in the end, they would forsake Him again. 

Now in 1 Samuel, they put a different spin on things by saying they no longer wanted a judge, a man chosen by God to whom they would be accountable. No, they wanted a king like the other nations had. But as God told Samuel, “…they are not rejecting you. They are rejecting me.”

Think about it. The people had a tremendous amount of freedom. They had land. They could do what they wanted to do, and as long as they followed God’s laws, they would enjoy His blessings.

But they fell for the lie that by giving up their freedom, they would have a better life. 

Samuel warned them. He told them what living under a king would be like. The king would take them into forced labor. He would take their land. He would take their property, conscript their sons into his army, he would tax them, he would take their daughters.

But no, they wanted a king.

Does any of this sound familiar? Is there a lie floating around now? Free education. Free health care. Social justice. Freedom from systemic racism. Freedom from God.

Please, beloved. Bear with me. 

In just under two months, the United States will make a decision. That decision will be between two very different forms of government. On one hand, we have a government that acknowledges God, and the inalienable rights He has given to every person. On the other hand there is a proposed government that rejected the idea of including God in its platform, and would remove by legislation our God given rights. In exchange they promise the freebies I listed a minute ago.

The Democrat party has already demonstrated that they are for limiting free speech and freedom of religion. They deny life to the not-yet-born, and in doing so, they deny the notion that each person is fearfully and wonderfully made by God Himself. The riots and destruction we see in many of our cities is the evidence of what happens when groups of people deny the existence of God. 

This, and more, is what is in store for America if we choose this “king”. 

Beloved, I am well aware that the government we have right now is far from perfect. It has its flaws. It is made up people. But the way to fix it is not to utterly reject it for a system that has proven that it fails every time it’s been tried, because, yes, the Democrat party has been taken over by socialists. 

And we must not fall for the lies we are being told by the media. They are compromised. Not reliable. 

America is a good country, despite its flaws. Still and all, America is worth saving. God was in the founding of this nation. God has blessed this nation and its people. And I believe that if we will humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways, then God will hear from heaven, and He will forgive our sin and He will heal our land.

I do not believe that it is too late, beloved. I have hope for America. Let us not choose this new king.

November 22, 2021

So beloved, how well has this commentary aged, in your opinion? Are we better off with this new “king”? In my opinion, the more power you give any king or president or prime minister…or government in general, the fewer freedoms you will have. Dennis Prager is a man I respect immensely. One of his teachings is “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” https://dennisprager.com/column/the-bigger-the-government-the-smaller-the-citizen/ I think we are seeing the truth of this statement around the world right now, don’t you?

Contrast Dennis Prager’s thought with the former governor of my state-California: Arnold Schwarzenegger recently said, “Screw your freedom…” You may have heard that sound bite. But do you know what he said after that? “…because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities.”

People who believe that government should restrict freedoms think that the average citizen are not grown up enough to handle obligations and responsibilities, I guess. So how is that working? Are we better off, now that the governments of the world are wresting more and more control over nearly every aspect of our lives?

I’ll let you decide for yourself.

My opinion is that we are NOT better off. I still believe that we must do as God said in 2 Chronicles 7:14: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

All of us, no matter where in the world you live, must pray for people to turn back to God. We must look to Him. He is our only hope, beloved. There is no government, no politician of any stripe that can save us. America became a great, and yes, an exceptional nation because it was founded on a devotion to God. John Winthrop was an early Puritan leader who served many terms as governor of Massachusetts. He wrote a sermon in 1630 while aboard the ship that would take him from his home in England to his new home in the New World, in which these ideas were beautifully expressed. I encourage you to read the entire sermon here, but I would like to share a few paragraphs with you:

We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.
Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.
And to shut this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. “Beloved, there is now set before us life and death, good and evil,” in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.

Therefore let us choose life,
that we and our seed may live,
by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him,
for He is our life and our prosperity.

John Winthrop, Excerpt from A Model of Christian Charity, 1630

Today’s Bible Translation

Bible translation used in today’s episode: Ch. 6-8 CEV, Ch. 9-10 NKJV

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