Chapter 2 - The First Rejection of the King (Part 2 of 6)

God Wants His People to be Different

God wants a holy people. A people set apart unto Himself. A people who live differently from those around them. Distinctly different. The Apostle Paul understood this, when he so eloquently stated in Romans 12:1-2 (ASV): 

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Paul understood sacrifice. He knew that in this New Testament era, with Jesus being the “once and for all sacrifice for sin” (cf. Hebrews 10:1-18) and using this imagery of sacrifice, his readers would understand too. They were to be “living sacrifices.” This change of heart and mind would be seen as an act of “service.” That word (latreian in the Greek) can also be translated “worship.” For in God’s Kingdom, service and worship flow from the same heart and look very similar. It is sometimes referred to as “sacred service,” and is illustrated in the service a priest renders in the Temple before God. The imagery is clear. We, as a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), are to present our bodies as “living sacrifices” unto Holy God. That is our act of worship. That is our service unto Him.

Set apart unto God. Different from those around us. Holy.

These “living sacrifices” of the New Covenant are to be like the sacrifices of the Old Covenant in concept. They are not to conform to the patterns of this world. They are not to look like their pagan counterparts. They are not to act like them, smell like them, nor have any blemishes. The “living sacrifice”—i.e., our very lives—are to be wholly unlike the pagan ritual sacrifices of their pagan neighbors. Hence, Paul’s admonition to no longer conform to how the world operates.

Instead, his readers in—of all places, Rome—were to have their minds renewed. In other words, they had to unlearn how they had been taught to live as “good little Roman citizens,” and instead, they had to relearn or renew their minds with God’s Kingdom way of living. Why? So they could begin to understand what God’s will for mankind has always been throughout the Old and New Covenants.

Know Thy Enemy

The Accuser, on the other hand, has been working feverishly to muddy these waters since the Garden in Genesis 3. Every chance he gets, he lures and tempts us to be like our pagan counterparts. He entices us to act and behave contrary to the teaching and instructions of God, the torah. And to complete his masterful plan, Satan encourages our pagan counterparts to be a little “Christ-like,” a little “godly,” to be “good people” in the process. Satan knows it’s hard to believe you need a savior when you think you aren’t spiritually sick, like the rich, young ruler and the teachers of the law believed (Matthew 19:16-30; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32). So, he works incessantly to corrupt the Christian, getting him or her away from a life of holiness (qadosh¹) while convincing the pagan he or she can be qadosh without a deep, rich, sacrificial relationship with God.

So now, the theological stage has been set.

We know what God wants of us. A life of qadosh, set apart and consecrated for Him.

We also know what Satan has been planning and implementing since Genesis 3. Attack God by any means necessary. Cause confusion, invite disruption, and discredit the people of God in the eyes of our pagan counterparts.

It’s been a back and forth, spiritual battle since Genesis 3 and within the life of the nation of Israel for centuries. However, in one monumental scene, the tide changed, and it was not for the better 

Rejection #1

Setting the Historical Stage for 1 Samuel 8

The year is circa 1020 B.C., and the Israelites are the only “theocracy” (literally means “ruled by God”) in existence. God has given them The Law of Moses (The Torah).  They know how He wants them to live. They know how He wants them to live. They’ve known it since Moses came down from Mount Sinai, which would have been almost three hundred years by this time in their history. Yet, they aren’t satisfied with the arrangement. Having God as their “king” and being required to follow all of His “instructions and teachings,” the torah, quickly became tiresome.

This is hard for us to understand today. For it was the Israelites who cried out to God because of their cruel Egyptian masters. They begged Him to rescue them (Exodus 2:23). God heard them and sent a deliverer named Moses. Moses eventually led the entire nation from Egypt, and through divine intervention on their behalf, God answered their prayers. He rescued them and wiped out their pursuers in the Red Sea (Exodus 13:17-14:31).

Even a casual observer, watching all of this unfold, would have concluded that because of these miraculous events, the Israelites should have easily obeyed God forever. God displayed His power right in front of them, exposing all the gods of Egypt, including Pharaoh himself (for the pharaohs were believed to be divine too) for what they truly were—powerless frauds. Thus, God fulfilled His own words in Exodus 12:12: “I’ll pass through land of Egypt that night and strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both people and animals. I’ll execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD” (emphasis added).²

Refreshingly, the text in Exodus 12 says the Israelites were given explicit instructions on how to prepare for this catastrophic event and avoid being lumped in with their Egyptian oppressors. However, they could not deviate one iota, or the plague of the firstborn would fall upon their homes as well. And in verse 27, it says they obeyed God precisely and worshiped Him.

This entire scene was a “glimpse” of how it was supposed to be—for then, for all the time in-between then and now, and even for the future. It was exactly what God wanted from His people in those days and what He wants from us now. Obey His commands, every day, even in the midst of something as horrible as persecution, and He will take care of His children, sometimes in miraculous ways of His own choosing. And as a result of His actions, they should worship Him and Him alone, regardless of their situation.³

This entire Exodus concept is so important to understand as we inch closer to the context of 1 Samuel 8. For as we will see, it was this longing to revert back to a life similar to their pagan neighbors that became the defining issue. This “heart of betrayal” started in the desert while receiving the gracious gift of manna each morning. And as Paul admonished the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, he doesn’t want us to be ignorant and make the same mistakes.

Thought of the Week:

With this understanding, you can see how and why God grows angry and wearisome with humans all throughout Scripture. He moves mountains, manipulates kingly despots, even stops the natural order of things, like the sun from moving in the heat of the day (Joshua 10:12-14), all in an effort to make His love manifest among His chosen people. Yet, despite His efforts, like Hosea’s wife Gomer, His chosen people run away from Him and into the arms of idols, sin, and self.

All God wants is for His people to reciprocate His love, by living solely for Him. To recognize how much He has done for us and live accordingly.  

In our own power, this reciprocation process is not possible (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9; Philippians 3:12-14). That’s why there are so many “religions of men” out there. Each one tries to accomplish this feat of reciprocation but realizes it cannot. Therefore, it creates a god that looks and acts more like human beings. Once that step is completed, then creating the “religion” that takes its cues from the nature and attributes of that god becomes easy. Why? Because the “god” likes what the worshippers like—sin. Thus, the “religions of men” can focus on anything deemed important by that group of “men,” which could be anything from abiding by harsh religious rules to make one seem holy (the Pharisees and teachers of the Law are examples of this) to downright diabolical perversions (the orgies and use of temple prostitutes in so many pagan religions are examples of this). 

In contrast, worshipping Holy God is completely the opposite. The worshipper cannot worship the God of the Bible in sinful ways. The worshipper’s ways must acquiesce to God’s ways (Ezekiel 18:25-32; Isaiah 55:8). And when worshippers try to change God’s ways to fit their sinful ways, that’s when things go awry. That’s when the world points fingers at the followers of God, noting all the contradictions they see (and rightfully so). However, when the worshippers of God follow His commands, Jesus said that’s when those in the world, who see our good deeds, will praise God, even though they aren’t followers (Matthew 5:14-16).  

In other words, they will see how different we are, how set apart we are, how holy we are. That, my friend, will then get them to wondering if what Jesus said was true. Instead of stumbling blocks to salvation, our lives may very well become stepping stones to eternity for some.

What kind of stones have you and I been today? Over the last week? The last month?

NEXT WEEK:

We’ll continue to follow the nation Israel and her relationship to God leading up to a monumental moment in 1 Samuel 8.

Endnotes

1. 1. Benner, Jeff A. “Holy.” Ancient Hebrew Research Center. No Date. Web. 20 April 2019. https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/definition/holy.htm; See also Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs. “6918.” Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon. (Hendrickson Publishers; Peabody, Mass., 1979), p. 872.

2. Ramm, Bernard L. His Way Out. (Regal Books Division, G/L Publications; Glendale, CA., 1974, pp. 60-71).

3. Theologians call this event of the Exodus a “type.” “Typology” is a theological construct which describes how an Old Testament person, place, thing, or event, which was considered significant in the Old Testament, is referenced in the New Testament as a “picture” of something spiritually deeper and more meaningful in reference to the work of the Messiah and the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. It must be further understood that “types” are only types when the New Testament makes reference to it, basing the statement on something from Old Testament times. In other words, if the New Testament doesn’t reference a person, place, thing, or event as a “type,” then it was not intended to be one. Otherwise, people looking for such things make every word in the Bible fanciful, and everything becomes a “type,” and that is when irrational, erroneous teachings and downright heresies are spawned.

Other examples that illustrate types used in the New Testament are:

·       Melchizedek is referred in the book of Hebrews as a type for Jesus as the perfect high priest (7:1-28).

·       In chapter 9 of Hebrews, the tabernacle and the functions of the priests were a type and precursor to the redeeming work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

·       The Apostle Paul references the Israelites’ wandering in the desert as a type (1 Corinthians 10:1-6).

·       Paul also uses the situation between Hagar and Sarah as a type for salvation, even referencing a passage in Isaiah 54:1 to help bolster his argument (Galatians 4:21-31).

In Exodus 12, we have people—folks who claimed to be God’s chosen people, I might add—crying out because of their oppression at the hands of sinful men. They were saved from their bondage by the blood of a lamb or goat that was without defect (Exodus 12:3-5). This “salvation by the blood of a lamb” happened again in the person of Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God (cf. Isaiah 52:13-53:12; John 1:29; Hebrews 9:11-28). In this case, instead of just an earthly, physical rescue of the people of Israel from the hands of their Egyptian taskmasters, this Old Testament event was a “type” or, we could say, a “foreshadowing” of a saving event that has eternal ramifications, too, as Jesus became the “once and for all” sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:1-10; Jude 3).

In these passages and others like them, the Exodus event resonates into a new “picture” of how a person or a people can be held captive and forced to do the will of the captors until someone saves them from their bondage. In a spiritual sense, all of us are held captive by sin and its enticing ways before we are saved. Some of us even want to go back to sin at times after we became saved, like the people of Israel when they looked back toward Egypt and desired again the “leeks and onions by the Nile” (Numbers 11:4-7). Some of us miss the allure and excitement of sin. Some of us miss the “comfort” sin promises to provide. We, instead, desire to return to our own “Egypt,” the place where we lived spiritually before we were saved from sin’s oppression, and thus despise God’s salvation and the freedom it brings all at the same time. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said those “who put their hands to the plow and then look back” are not fit for God’s Kingdom (Luke 9:62). We must be careful. Looking back and desiring the very thing from which we were saved is grounds for non-admittance into God’s Kingdom.

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay and the following photographers/artists:

"Adam, Eve and Serpent" by Jeffjacobs1990

"Scroll/Torah" by falco

"Moses and red sea" by Jeffjacobs1990

"Praise in field" by 4653867