All right, good morning, everybody.
It's always fun when you get to start a new, you haven't done
anything for a while and you get to start a new series and go
ahead and turn your Bibles to First Samuel 8, First Samuel 8.
But it's one of those things where it's like you, you, you
haven't been up here. So your, your first one, you're
a little like shaky and everything getting ready to go
and make sure everything makes sense to everybody else.
And but we'll be all right. Today's just an introduction so
it won't be so difficult. And so I got to make sure I look
at the time because now that we start at an earlier time, if if
I go till 10:40, I think pastor is going to be quite upset with
me. So, so the new time is not
10:40. So if I get there, just go like
this, like this, cut it, cut it. We're going too long.
So we're going to be doing lessons or things we find out
from the throne, meaning the Old Testament, the kings and Queens
and those that were in leadership in Israel during the
Old Testament time. We're going to look at a bunch
of different kings, mainly dealing with the southern tribe,
a couple that will look at the northern tribe.
But I wanted to start with kind of a introduction of, of why are
we doing this? And some, some don't, you know,
some people, I'm not going to think that everybody went to, to
Bible college and has an Old Testament survey class under
their belt. And I remember I loved Old
Testament survey. The thing I hated about it was
we had to chart every king know how to spell each and every one
of them and put them in order. And, and when they all have
pretty much similar names, it's very difficult.
So I won't make you do that. We won't have that for school up
here for Sunday School. But I just wanted to go over
what Old Testament history side of, of what we're doing because
human nature never changes. We, you know, we'll start off
with a little pop quiz. Who knows who George Santiana is
or what he's famous for? Nobody, because nobody that
knows phrases is famous, but it's a phrase that everybody
knows. He's famous for saying.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
That's who's that who, that's who came up with that phrase.
And it's something that we see every single day.
And and it's something that the Bible uses.
I think it's biblical. Why did God give us the Old
Testament? It's a history book.
It tells of the kings and tells of the prophets and everything
that happened to Israel of of starting.
It's a history book. But why is it there?
Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1011.
Now all these things happened unto them for in samples, and
they are written for admonition, upon whom the ends of the world
are come. God preserved his word and made
the Old Testament the way it is, so we could see examples for our
lives, so we can learn something from those kings and Queens and
and prophets and judges of how we should live and what
consequences we'll have if we don't do what God says.
And it what consequences we do if we do do what God says.
And so we see that the Bible clearly states that the history
book, the Old Testament is there for our learning, for our
admonition. You know, when you, when you
read through the Bible and you get to Leviticus or you get to
Numbers and you start going, OK, why do I need to know how many
times you need to sacrifice something?
All the rituals and the laws and everything and you're like, wow,
this one's hard to get through. Some of them are easy to get
through Genesis, you go to Job, you go through Isaiah and, and
some of the Old Testament. You can kind of sit down and and
read and, and you really like reading it, but some of them are
rough, rough to get through. And you wonder, why did God
preserve this? My here as a Gentile, not a Jew.
We don't do the temple law. Why did God keep some of that
stuff? Why does it preserved in his
Word? It's because it was all there to
teach us, to show us, point us, as the Bible says, as a
schoolmaster to Christ. But it's there as a an
admonition, a way for us to learn.
But it's not just to learn. If you go to school and you
learn stuff and then you get out on the job, if you never apply,
what you've learned, what you've learned is useless.
It's there's no point in learning it.
That why, why do we have the Old Testament for showing us
examples and and samples and for our learning?
It's not just so we know it, it's that we apply it into our
lives. Think, think of, OK, I talked
about we had to part plot the charts of all the kings and, and
the prophets and stuff. I think a lot of times we don't
realize how much they overlap each of these people.
You, you think of Adam, Adam and Eve.
Once we get to Cain and Abel and then Seth, we kind of forget
that Adam even was still alive. He, he was still alive around
Methuselah all the way up till Noah.
You think of Micah and Isaiah were together, Zephaniah and
Jeremiah were together. Jeremiah was all around when
Habakkuk and Obadiah was around. Hezekiah was king when Manasseh
was around. Daniel was around with Ezekiel
and Obadiah. You don't really think of people
overlapping, but they were around at the same time.
And, and the the things that Daniel would have written,
Ezekiel would have read. Ezekiel wrote things that Daniel
would have read. And you think of the overlap
that these people have. And that's why we've got to look
at what's the point of the Old Testament?
Why are we looking at the kings? And the first thing is we have
to do is we have to analyze that period.
Like I said, we some of us went to Bible college.
Some of us only had like I only took Old Testament survey.
That was my scope of Bible school.
But having a background in what the history of this nation is
can help us see where we're going to go with these kings
that we're going to look at. But let's pray and we'll get
into this lesson. Heavenly Father, I thank you so
much for this morning for being able to get up and out of bed
and the breath that you gave us and the health that you've given
us to be here and in your house. God, I just pray that you be
with the lesson and, and give me the right words to say and the
the exact things that you want us to learn from your word.
And I just pray that you help us as we go through these kings
that that you've preserved for all eternity and, and made for
us to know and find out what they did and what they didn't
do. And God, I just pray that it it
becomes something that we want to apply to our lives and not
just know about them, but and, and be able to answer questions
and and get candy for those questions being answered.
To be able to apply it to our lives that we'd be able to live
for you and be able to please you with our lives and those and
help those around us. God, I pray that you be pleased
and that your name be lifted up and you be glorified through
everything that goes on here this morning in Jesus name, I
pray, Amen. All right, so you're there in
first Samuel chapter 8. The first thing we're going to
look at is the period this period.
Think of, OK, Israel's in Egypt, they come out of Egypt and they
are set aside as a nation. There's over 2 million Jews.
There's, there's set aside as a country, but they don't have a
place yet. They're going to the the place
and and God has set up a set of government that is ruled by God
and he uses Moses, then he uses Joshua and then it goes to the
judges and it is although controlled by God and that is
called a not a monarchy, which has kings and Queens close
theocracy. It's called a theocracy and it's
governed and ruled by God Moses, and those are leaders, but God
is the ultimate one that gives the laws.
And we see here in first Samuel 8 verse one.
And it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons
judges over Israel. Now the name of his first born
was Joel in the name of his second Abbott Abbaya.
They were judges in Beersheba. And his sons walked not in his
ways, but turned aside after Luker, and took bribes and
perverted judgment. Then all the elders of Israel
gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Rhema,
and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, that's a nice thing to
say, and thy sons walk not in thy ways.
Now make us a king to judge us, like all the other nation, like
all the nations. But this thing displeased Samuel
when they said, Give us a king to judge us.
And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. We see here God's theocracy is
getting questioned, not because of God, but because of Samuel's
kids and, and, and all throughout the Bible you see
that. You see a father that is strong
in the faith and and used as a prophet and here as a prophet
and a judge. And yet somewhere he doesn't
teach his kids that. Somewhere he doesn't pass that
along to be important to his kids.
And so through time, Israel gets sick of the judges.
You think of Samson. You think of we have here
Samuel's kids later, later on. You think of now I just blanked
who what, who was the high priest that fell and Eli's sons
All through the Bible, we see a bunch of times where the man of
God that's being used by the man of God doesn't put priority in
instilling it into his kids. That's something that we have as
an example to apply into our lives.
As as spiritual as you might be, Dad, mom, unless you pass it
down to your kids to where they understand and it's important to
them, it's fine and dandy. If you can have all your kids
memorizing Bible verses and knowing Scripture and knowing
answers to questions on Wednesday night, that's great.
But if it's not important to them, it means nothing for their
life. We have to instill into them the
importance of the Word of God in the importance and the realness
of who God is. I think a lot of times we we
read the Old Testament and we read the Bible and wow, he
parted the Red Sea and wow, he fed the 5000 and wow, he, he
made manna and wow, he did all these things.
But we don't think that's the same God that is today.
And if we don't think it, what do you think our kids are
thinking? I've never seen a miracle.
I've never seen the Red Sea parted.
I've never seen a mountain move. We have to instill into our kids
that God's real and God's the same God today that he was back
then. He still has the same power to
part the Red Sea, to walk on dry ground.
It's still the same God. And we have to get that.
But the nation finally said, I'm done.
But we're done with this judges and listening to one man and,
and finding out that his kids don't follow it and we're going
to go down the wrong path. And they, they first are
disappointed in the judges. But then the second thing is
they're, they, they say in verse 6, give us a king to judge us.
Oh no, Verse 5 Now make us a king to judge us.
Like all the nations, they wanted to be just like all the
other people. All the other nations had kings
and rulers. They didn't have a theocracy.
They didn't have God commanding them, and that's why it
displeased them. And look there.
What's interesting is, even after Well here verse 7.
And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the
people in all that they say unto thee, For they have not rejected
thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over
them, according to all the works which they have done since the
day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day,
wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods, so do
they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their
voice, how be it yet Protest solemnly unto them, and show
them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
And we Samuel goes to them, and tells them, Verse 11.
And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall
reign over you. He will take your sons and
appoint them for himself, for his Chariots and to be his
horsemen. And some shall run before his
Chariots. And he will point him captains
over thousands and captains over 50 fifties, and will set them to
ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his
instruments of war and instruments of his Chariots.
And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries and cooks,
and to be cooks and to be bakers.
And he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive
yards, even the best of them, and give them on, give them to
his servants. And he will take the 10th of
your seed and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to
his servants. And he will take your men, men
servants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men and
your asses, and put them to his work.
And he will take the 10th of your sheep, and ye shall be his
servants. And ye shall cry out in that day
because of your king, which ye shall ye have, shall have chosen
you. And the Lord will not hear you
in that day. And look at verse 19, after
everything Samuel has told them, Hey, you want a king?
OK, here's what you're going to get.
You're going to lose a 10th of everything you have.
You're going to lose the good your kids, your daughters, your
sons are going to be in his army and going to be captains and
they're going to be all these things, a tenth of your stuff.
You're you're going to lose your your vineyards, the good places
that you love to have 19 Nevertheless, the people refuse
to obey the voice of Samuel and they said nay, but we will have
a king over us 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.
God told Samuel, give them what they want, but tell them what
they're going to have to deal with.
And the people went La La La La La La.
I don't care what is going to be the problems.
I just want to be like all the other people.
I just, I, I know that I'm going to lose.
God says that I will not hear them when they cry unto me about
the, the stuff that they're going to have to deal with.
I'm not going to listen to them because this is what they wanted
and I warned them ahead of time what you're going to deal with
and they still did it. How much is that?
Just like us, we read God's word and he says, don't do this
because this is the consequence of doing it.
And we go la, la, la. But I just want to be like
everybody else. God, I know I shouldn't be
drinking that or watching that or doing this.
And I realize that your word says that if I do these things,
it's going to destroy my life. But I just want to be like
everybody else. So many times we read the Old
Testament and we go really, Israel, really, come on.
I mean, you just got, you crossed the Red Sea on dry
ground. You're provided all these
miracles. And yet every time you just turn
your back on God and go after the other gods and you serve
everything else and you, you forsake God and you do
everything again. How can you do that after seeing
all those miracles and doing everything and yet we do the
exact same thing as they did. It's a history book for us to
learn and apply. So we see the departure of the
nation here, but the the nation gets divided.
Fast forward, Saul was the first king, tall head and shoulders
above every man. Started out great, wasn't really
that great of a king. Then we get David.
David is the best king that they have.
Then he has his son Solomon who starts out well, but like the
Bible says at the end who hath hindered you?
He he finishes horribly and and because of that his sin, his son
Rhea Boehm makes the whole nation split into two kingdoms.
The northern Kingdom was divided in was called Israel.
That's consisted of the other 10 tribes.
The southern Kingdom is Judah and that's 2 tribes, Judah and
Benjamin. The the southern Kingdom, which
is who will focus on mainly of their kings, has Jerusalem as
their capital. The Northern Kingdom, which is
interesting because, well, it's it's Samaria and it's
interesting in the New Testament, Samaritans are the
the bottom of the barrel cut according to Jews, but that's
different. Anyways.
The difference is though, it's interesting how we have 12
tribes that came through Egypt all together learn the same
things where one nation gets split and they become two
totally different nations. Not, not anything.
The only thing that's the same as they both had 20 kings.
Interesting. Both had 20 kings.
The Northern Kingdom, all of them were bad.
All of them were evil, some were worse than others, but they were
all evil and did evil in the sight of the Lord.
The Southern Kingdom Judah had here and there had some bad
ones, some good ones. He had a mix of both righteous
and wicked kings in Judah. But not only does do we see the
differences there, but the Southern Kingdom actually lasts
136 years more then the northern Kingdom.
The north northern Kingdom gets conquered by Assyria in 722 BC
while the southern Kingdom of Judah gets conquered by Babylon
in 586. And I totally believe the reason
why the Southern Kingdom lasted longer was because of those good
kings, because of those that feared God and wanted to do what
God commanded. And God still had judgment on
him, but he was going to hold his hand with that judgment.
We find all the history of the two kingdoms in the Kings and
1st and Second Chronicles. So that's that's kind of looking
at the period. Then we need to look at the
people who are we going to look at and, and realize that yes,
they are kings, but they're just like you and me.
They, they're, they're human. They, they face the same
temptations. Sometimes I feel like they face
more temptations being king, but they still have a variety of
personalities and characteristics.
We're like I said, we're going to really only look at one king
in the northern tribe because it's pretty much bad.
So you just take the wide brush and brush the northern kingdoms,
kings that way. But the southern kingdoms, we're
going to go over probably 9 of them, eight of them.
And, and to see the failures is what we're going to look at the
they all had failures, even even the good kings, they all had
shortcomings. But one day that God will give
us a king that will not have a failure.
One day Christ is coming back and going to sit on a throne,
literally, and rule this nation. The entire world will be
controlled by a king Christ, and he will not have failures.
We see that. The other thing we're going to
look at is these prophets that are during both of these
kingdoms to go tell a king that's doing well and doing what
God wants. Good job.
I'll take that audience with the king.
But to be the prophet that God comes to and says you need to go
to Ahab and you need to point your finger at him and you need
to tell him judgment's coming and you tell him what's wrong,
just like Jonah. We talked about Jonah going to
the entire city of Nineveh and telling them you're all going to
burn everything that you're doing.
You're going to be destroyed. God's going to destroy you.
There's a lot of people in Nineveh.
Three days it took him to walk from one end to the other end.
That's a lot of people to tell that you're wrong and they're
already wicked. I hope I make it from one end to
the other end. These prophets had to have the
courage that God gave them. Think of, you know, if you tell
somebody they're wrong at work, they get mad at you, but they
don't have any power over your life.
You go to a king, he, he's got all power over your life.
In fact, we'll read some of them.
They put them in prison. They put them in a pit.
These prophets had to have the courage.
And we have to have the courage as believers to go to this
world. This world is is in sin.
And they do what their father the devil tells them to do.
But we have the light. We have to be able to have
courage to go to them and tell them, hey, listen, I what you're
doing is wrong. And if we stopped there, we
don't really have a mission. And the prophets didn't stop at
you're doing wrong. God always gave them, here's the
solution. God gave us as Christians a
solution for those that are doing wrong and it's his word
and it's him. It's the gospel.
And we have to understand by watching and reading about these
prophets, the courage that they had.
We have to have the same thing when we go to this world.
We have to show them their their, their error, but show
them Christ. We have to, like I said, the
last thing I want to say is we have to apply this stuff that
we're going to learn. It means nothing if it's just up
here. Can you name all the kings?
Yeah, I can name all the Saul, David, Samuel.
Not Samuel. See, I can't even name him
already. Saul, David, Solomon.
Root. Well, Raya Boehm.
Say I should stop before I get going too far.
OK, great. You can name them all.
Can you chart them on a plot? Yes, I can chart them on a
timeline in order. I could spell them all.
Fine. Great.
What are you doing with it in your life?
Applying these precepts is the most important thing of what
we're going to be doing in these lessons.
Romans 15 for Paul says for whatsoever things were written
aforetime, the Old Testament were written for our learning.
As we study, we have to seek to apply what God gives us.
Those those examples are there for us to either mimic or stay
away from, and we'll discover some we have to find
consistency. We'll see a lot of kings in in
our study that start well, somewhere in the middle.
They're like whatever, and they start going this way.
We'll see some that through their entire reigns stay focused
on Christ and stay focused to God.
We see some that will see that are here and there.
And and it's not like good then bad then good.
It's it's good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, good, bad.
And they're inconsistent in their reign as far as being
right with God. And it reminds me of James 1/8
that says a double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
And we'll see through those kings that are so inconsistent,
that the reign is so inconsistent that their
stability of their nation falls. And we have to realize that you
and I aren't kings, but we have people we affect.
You have influence over people, whether it's your family,
whether it's other kids, people that you don't even know that
are looking up towards you. So why are we looking at kings?
Kings had their, yes, they had their own personal walk, whether
they were going to follow God or follow themselves.
But they had people that they ruled over.
They had influence and their walk with God affected what
happened to that nation, just like us.
Yes, you have your own personal walk with God and it should be
what the Bible has, but depending on how your walk with
God is depends on how your influence effects others, your
kids, your family, those around you, you as you work with,
that's all affected by how your walk with God is.
You can say all you want, Charlie, go, go read your Bible
every morning, OK? And as as a son, he has to obey
me should obey me. But if he doesn't see Dad ever
read his Bible for devotions every morning, why am I doing
this? Dad, you don't do it well.
And pastor says do his his phrase is do as I say, not as I
do. That doesn't work with kids.
Don't. Don't tell them to do something
and you yourself aren't doing it.
Don't expect your kids to love God if you're not loving God, if
you don't have a daily life and daily devotional with Him, if
you don't sit down and have time for a prayer with God, don't
expect your kids to grow up and do the same thing you have.
That's why we're looking at the kings, because we have influence
over them around. Even in church.
My kids look up to a lot of you. Your walk with God will affect
them. My walk with God will affect
others around here too. We have to understand it's not
just about me and or this circle I put around me.
Yeah, I just don't read the Bible.
But it's OK. I'll have to deal with the
consequences. Yes, you will.
But you also will have consequences that those that
look up to you just like the kings did.
But the thing that we'll see with especially with Manasseh,
Manasseh was a king that from the start rough.
He was a wicked king. And God said this is going to be
the judgment because of your wickedness.
And that's not going to change. But what happened was at the end
of Manasseh's life, he changes and focuses and and returns to
Christ and to God and to to do what is right.
The judgment didn't change because the consequence of
what's going to happen. But as we go through these
kings, we're going to see times where kings do wrong for so long
and then they get right just like and it's a reminder that
there's nobody out of hope. Christ is always there.
Nobody in this world is too far gone, too far lost that we
shouldn't share the gospel with them.
And we're getting close. I got to go.
We have to work. We have to remember about the
the possibility of conversion, the importance of communion, the
danger of complacency. I think this is that's the
biggest thing that I think is what we see here in America.
We've gotten so comfortable as Christians.
Nope. You've got churches who the the
first generation worked hard to build that church and knocked on
the doors and did everything they possibly could to get
people in and to be seeing people get saved.
And then you have the second generation that kind of sees
that and helps here and there. But by the 3rd generation,
they're just sitting on the Pew. They're not doing any work
because it life's easy now. I don't it's not OK.
Example, this church, when we started, we passed out 25,000
John and Romans. That took a long time.
But we knocked on every single door, gave out all those things.
We did all the work. If you're just now coming here
and you see there, wow, there's a ton of people here.
It wasn't just because poof, Pat, God called pastor and we
got a building and tada, we got all these people.
It was work. But we have to be careful that
it's not going to turn into, well, you guys got things
covered. Good.
I was happy to see yesterday as many people as we had here to go
knock on doors, to go doing Bibles, to go do visits.
That's important to remember that being content where you are
as a Christian is never a good sign.
The Bible says to be content. Don't ever be content with the
way spiritually you are. And we're going to see the
complacency of of a lot of kings that they, they, they go, they
follow what God wants them to do and God gives them victories.
And then they're like fine, easy streak.
I'm just going to sail and cruise control now, and I'm
going to focus on me instead of focusing on God.
And I think that's the biggest issue with American
Christianity. We've gotten too comfortable.
We've gotten too content with where we are spiritually.
We're going to see that in the Kings the need for correction.
I said this already, but over and over God sends prophets to
these kings to say, hey, we need to change some things or hey,
here's judgment because you don't follow after God and we'll
see ASA ASA is so mad when he gets told he was doing wrong
that he imprisons and and gets angry with the man of God.
Jehoshaphat is that an exact opposite.
When he hears the judgment and, and the the confrontation that
the prophet gives him, he humbles himself.
And what we learned from the difference.
We'll see. The peril of compromise is
another thing we have to be careful about as, as Christians
today and as most churches today, compromise is the second
biggest issue. Oh, we want to have church, but
we're going to compromise with the world so we can fit in.
We can so we can be like the other nations.
Compromise we'll see in these lives of kings destroys the
nations. We have to be on guard against
joining ourselves as we'll see with the enemy commitment.
We have to be committed to doing what God wants in world.
We're bond done. Proverbs 426 says this ponder
the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established.
The kings are examples to us, and we're going to look at all
of them. Not all of them, but most of
them. And we're going to see not just
what they did, but how is it important to my life today?
What can I learn from what their lives did?
How they did or did not follow after God, how they did or did
not humble themselves when God said change this.
But the most important thing again, we have to apply it to
our lives. Going through this means nothing
if you just have it all up here. We need to apply it into our
lives. Let's pray and we'll get in
ready for the next service next week.
If you want to read ahead of time and be ready.
Deuteronomy 17, read Deuteronomy 17.
We're going to look at the instructions that the
guidelines, the guidelines, yeah, that were given for the
kings to rule again. They they were kings, but God
was giving them directives and ways to be productive as a king.
And we're going to look at that and then after next week, it's
going to be off to the races and into the kings.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you so
much for today. God, I thank you for your word
and, and the, the importance of, of why you kept history, why you
had those that you recorded for us, for our lives, not just so
we can know it, not so we can and look at it as a history
book, but Lord that we see it as a way to learn and to draw
closer to you and know how to live our lives to be close to
you and how to not fall like a lot of the kings did not not
make failures like a lot of the kings did.
And to be able to see the past and, and what has worked and
what has not worked and to, to apply it to our lives, not just
to, to just repeat the same issues as they had.
God, I pray that you be with pastor, fill them with your
spirit this morning. Give us exactly what each and
every one of us need. I pray that you be glorified
with what goes on here and that your name be lifted up in Jesus
name. I pray, Amen.
You're dismissed.