"Where is real security found?"

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I understand you're too old. He appointed his son as Israel's leaders. The name of his firstborn was Joe, and the name of his second was Avaya and they served at beersheba. But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after this August game, and accepted bribes and perverted justice.

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to sagul at drama. They said to him You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways. Now appointed king to lead us, such as all the other nations have. But when they said, Give us a king to leaders. This displeased, so he prayed with the lord.

And the lord told him, listen to all the the people are saying to you. It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king as they have done for the day I brought them off out of Egypt until this day forsaking me and serving other gods so they are doing to you. Now listen to them, but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them were claim as his rights. Samuel told all the words of the law to the people who are asking him for a king. He said, this is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his right.

He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses. They will run-in front of his chariots. Some, he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He would take your daughters to make them to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He would take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants He would take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants, your male and female servants, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, He will take for his own use.

He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, You will cry out the relief from the king you have chosen, but the lord will not answer you in that day, that the people refused to listen to Samuel. No. They said we want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the lord. The lord answered, listen to them, and give them a king. Then Samuel said to the Israelites, Everyone, go back to your own town. Thank you, Anne, for reading that for us. Please keep the passage open in front of you.

Page 2 7 7 2 7 8. And let's pray. Father, we thank you that we have your word. Thank you. Your word is living and active, sharper than any 2 edged sword.

And therefore, as we read it, as we come to it, as we seek to understand it, please would you be at work in our lives? Change us, shape us to be the people you want us to be. Bless us as we come to your word, help us to be ready to listen, to learn, and to live in the light of your word. Our men. Let me give you a quote.

Kjell would give you a quote, but I can't control it from here. I think you guys are gonna lose control of it. There you go. There's a quote from, John Woodhouse who wrote a commentary on 1 Samuel. I've quoted from him before.

This is how he begins in his chapter for, for this chapter in 1 Samuel. He asks, he says this. Most human beings spend a great deal of their lives trying to find or win or buy or build security for themselves and for those they love. Have you found it yet? He goes on.

Are there enough locks and alarms on your home? Do you hold adequate insurance for your property and person? Have you accumulated sufficient savings? Are you in possession of satisfactory health and strength? Have you made enough contacts, acquired enough power, generated enough influence exerted enough control, earned enough affection.

It's an insecure world, and life itself is insecure. How far are you from finding adequate security. Well, there are all sorts of things that we might look to for security to make us feel secure, and yet I think most of us will find, however much we put in place, we still worry enormously and fear what might happen. And so we live often cautiously or fearfully. Well, we come to 1 Samuel chapter 8, and we're gonna learn about security We see the elders of Israel here, recognize there is a security crisis for the nation of Israel.

We'll see what that crisis is. We'll see their plan. Turns out to be a terrible plan for how to deal with that crisis, and then we'll see from this the security, real security that we can have. First off, what's the security crisis that they had. Well, we see it in verses 1 to 5.

The problem is that their leader Oh, thank you. Their problem is that their leader, Samuel, is getting old. Now that may surprise you, that we're already at the stage where Samuel is old. After all, there's been quite a lot of build up to Samuel coming into his position, hasn't there? Chapter 1 to 3 of 1 Samuel We see Samuel born, and then growing up, he he's growing up in a place called Shiloh.

And throughout those opening chapters, we've had other priests who've been in their roles, Eli and his sons who've been scoundrels, They've been bad, but all the while in the background, we've been told Samuel is growing up. Samuel is growing up. And then chapter 3, things start to look like they're coming into place. Samuel is coming more to the foreground, and it says God was speaking to him, and we think, well, this is looking good now. And then chapters 4 to 6, Samuel drops out of the picture.

We don't follow him at all. He he's not there. And we say, well, what's going on? This guy was sort of coming up, and then then just disappears. And then chapter 7, we saw last week.

Samuel is in place. He's leading the people, and he leads them to repentance. And it's a good moment. At long last, we've had a positive chapter for the people of Israel because it's all been pretty grim up till then. Samuel is in place chapter 7, leads the people to repentance, and we're thinking now, well, maybe there will be a period of Samuel leading the people as their prophet, and it will all be good.

And then we get to chapter 8 verse 1 when Samuel grew old. You say, well, what happened? What happened to this, to the rest of his life? What happened to the rest of his career? What happened to this nice time that we were looking forward to of Israel having Samuel as their leader?

But, no, we just go straight in being old. And the problem then is who's gonna take over when Samuel is done. And the problem is, well, we learn in verse 1, Samuel has put in place His sons says verse 1. When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel's leaders. More literally, he appointed them as judges.

He thought his sons would continue after him. Now that is an odd move for Samuel to make because Israel has been led by judges for quite a long time. You can look at the book of judges and see these judges who are who, are raised up to lead the people of Israel. And what you find is that none of them are hereditary. They never pass on being a judge to their son.

And yet, Samuel thinks his sons should take over from him as judges, but they aren't like their dad. You've got their names in verse 2, but verse 3, it says, but his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain accepted bribes and perverted justice. And maybe this reminds us a little bit of Eli and his sons His sons were scoundrels. He was the priest before Samuel, his sons were scoundrels, and now Samuel wants to appoint his sons as judges, but they're dishonest, and they take bribes, and they're not good to take over either.

And so the elders of Israel come together to Samuel at Ramma, which is Samuel's home, and they gather before him, and they come to him because there is a crisis. First 5. They said to him, you're old. Fairly blunt. You're old.

Your sons do not follow your ways. Now a point of king to leaders such as all the other nations have. They see there's a crisis. A crisis of leadership coming up a crisis of security. They can see Samuel, when Samuel dies, they're gonna lack a leader.

Samuel, sir, his sons won't be good. And they might well be thinking back again to the period of the judges where there was this cycle. If you know the book of judges, you know there's a cycle that happens in Israel's history that the people rebel against God And so the lord brings another nation to conquer them, and they have to serve that nation. Thank you, Rich. So the cycle of the book of judges, the people of God reject god, Another nation, therefore, comes and conquers the people of god.

They cry out to god. God raises up another judge who rescues them. And then when that judge dies, the people rebel against God again, you go back around the cycle. Well, their judge, Samuel, is coming to the end of his life. And they might well be thinking, well, our security is at risk here, because when Samuel dies, when this judge finishes, if we go by the pattern that we've had so far, we're expecting, well, the people will rebel, and then another nation will come and conquer us.

So there's a security crisis here. What will happen when Samuel's gone? What will the future be? Will they be attacked and defeated again? So they come to Samuel with a solution.

Did you see their solution in verse 5? End of the verse, they say to him now appoint a king to lead us. Such as all the other nations have or more literally, appoint a king to judge us. Now why would they think this was a good idea? Why would they think it was good to have a king?

Well, they were clearly looking at the surrounding nations. That's what they say. Give us a king to be like the other nations. So they're clearly looking at the nations around them and going, actually, they look pretty good. They've got kings.

And the thing about kings is that type that role is hereditary. You pass it down, father to son. And that therefore means you know what who your next leader's gonna be. You know who your next king is gonna be. There's security, there's stability.

So we can see maybe the people thought A king was a good idea. But before we spot the obvious flaw in this plan, we should also notice that, actually, a king wasn't a terrible thing in terms of what God had said to his people, because in the book of deuteronomy, chapter 7, God actually made laws that would say what a king should and shouldn't do. You could go back to deuteronomy 7, and God says, when you have a king, this is what they're to do, and this is what they're not to do. So having a king itself wasn't a bad thing. So were they right to ask for a king?

First 6, over the page, if you're in the bibles that were on the chairs. First 6, But when they said, give us a king to lead us, this displeased Samuel. So he prayed to the lord. It actually says, this was a great evil in Samuel's eyes. What they're asking for is evil.

See, it wasn't just a bad plan, and it was a bad plan. I mean, it it really was a bad plan. It doesn't take into account any of the problems that there have been. After all, if they're thinking, well, the good thing about a king is his sons will take over when he dies, that completely ignores the fact that Eli's sons have been scoundrels and Samuel's sons, good people to take over either. So why would it be any better for a king?

As Woodhouse, again, in his commentary says, at this point, I like the way he puts it. He says this plan is stunning in its stupidity. And he says it's astonishing in its unfaithfulness, their unfaithfulness to god, and we see that in a couple of ways. First, You notice the fact that they're saying, we want this king to be like the other nations, a pointer king for us, such as all the other nations have. And if you look down to verse 20, that idea is repeated.

They say then we shall be like all the other nations with a king to lead us and to go out before us to fight our battles. That's what they want. They want to be like everyone else. But the lord had said to his people, his purpose for them was to be unlike everyone else. He'd said to them they were to be a holy nation, in other words, set apart.

They were to be different from everyone else because they're his people. And yet they are saying, no, no, no, no, we wanna be just like everyone else. And by saying that, They are rejecting the lord's call for them. We don't wanna be your holy people. We wanna be like everyone else.

And, actually, just as an aside, isn't that our problem too? The lord calls us to stand out from the culture around us, but do we don't want to? We wanna be like everyone else. We don't wanna be seen to be different in the way that we speak, in the way that we behave, in the way that we are, at work, socials, Christmas. So we don't wanna be different.

We wanna blend in, be like everyone else. Or with friends at school, we just wanna be like they are in the way we speak, the way we behave, and God says, no, that is not what I've called you to be. But this call for a king is also rebellious in that it's actually a request to replace god. Notice this in verse 7 and 8. Would you cast your eyes down to verse 7?

Verse 7, and the lord told the Kim, listen to all that the people are saying to you. It is not you they've rejected, but they've rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day, I brought them up out of Egypt, until this day forsaking me and serving other gods so they are doing to you. You see, the lord gets to the heart of the issue. Here's the issue.

He says, Samuel, they haven't rejected you. You're their judge. They haven't rejected you. They've rejected me as their king. And then you've got that interesting link in verse 8.

He says, This is typical of what they do. Did you notice verse 8? As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt, until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods. Now what's interesting there is that They aren't saying that they're gonna worship another god. Are they?

They haven't mentioned another god. It's not like they're all saying, tell you what, let's ditch the lord. Let's all worship dagon, which was another God mentioned, the God of the Philistines, or any other god. They've not said that. What have they said?

They've said, we want a king. Presumably, they thought we'll keep worshiping the lord. Oh, yeah. He's our god. But we want a king for what purpose?

To lead us, to judges, to lead us in battle. But those are all things that the lord has been doing for them. See, here's something we need to understand about idolatry. Ideometry isn't just replacing the lord with another named god, It's also looking to something or someone else to do the things God should do for you. Do you get that?

So it's not just saying, well, we won't worship the lord anymore. We'll worship another named god. You could even commit idolatry by saying, no, no, we'll worship the lord, but we'll look to someone or something else to be and to do what God should do for us. You're actually being unfaithful to the lord if you do that as the people were. Let me give you an illustration.

For instance, in a marriage, take a a married couple. They live together, husband and wife, and the husband is at home every weekend. And on anniversaries gives his wife a card, but the husband is also seeing someone else, meets up with her frequently, confides in her more than his wife, He looks to the other woman for affection and support, and it is her he calls when he's feeling low, or when things are great. And he stays over at her place during the week, but comes home at weekends. Is he being unfaithful?

Of course, he's being unfaithful. But he might say, but, legally, I'm still married to my wife. She's still my wife. Yeah, but you're not being faithful because you're looking to someone else for the things that you should be looking to your wife for. So idolatry also is not just replacing God with another named god.

It's also looking to something or someone else for things that God should give you, and that includes leading, judging, security. And they say to Samuel appoint a judge for us who will lead us. And do you remember what it said to lead us into battle? The previous chapter, chapter 7, who had led them into battle. The lord had, and had won the victory for them, but now they say, no, we want a king to do that for us.

You see, the problem wasn't that they asked for a king. A king could have been okay. It wasn't necessarily wrong, but they were looking for a king to take god's place, to lead them, judge them. Go before them into battle to be their security. So for us, worshiping the lord isn't just about coming to church on Sunday, is it?

It's about him being lord of your life throughout the whole of the week, and that includes trusting him for your security. If we claim the lord is our god, But we're actually in our lives looking for other things to be our security, to lead us, go before us in our battles, we aren't being faithful to the lord. Now, it isn't wrong to have window locks or insurance, or to want a stable secure job It's not wrong to have those things. Just as it wouldn't have been wrong for the people of Israel to have a king. But there's a difference between being wise, so putting those things in place, and putting our trust in them for our security.

Do you see there's a difference? And maybe 1 of the ways we can tell that difference in our own hearts is to think how do you react in a security crisis? How do I react? If you hear of burglars, that there are burglars in your area, that they've burgled other houses in your area, do you first turn to the lord or review your locks? When we know jobs are gonna be lost in your workplace, do you first look for security in the lord and pray to him, or do you find security in finding another job?

It's when we feel like we're in a crisis that maybe we see a bit better where our hearts are. Now there's a warning that then comes. The lord warns the people. The lord tells Samuel to listen to the elders verse 9. He said now listen to them, but warn them solemnly.

Let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights. So there's a warning that this will lead to Well, let's see where it will lead. What will the king? Is that the the lord says, okay. If you can have a king, this is what the king will do.

And the word that is repeated over and over again versus 10 to 18, the word is take. This king will take. He will take from you. What will he take? Verse 11.

This is what the king who reigns over you will claim as his rights. He will take your sons. Now I'm not gonna read through the whole thing again, but, he will take your sons and they will serve in his army. Then verse 13, he will take your daughters to work for him. So he's the king will take your family.

Your sons and daughters, they won't be with you. They won't be with you at Christmas, if they celebrated Christmas, which they didn't. But they won't be there at the family occasions. They'll be serving in the army, and they'll be working for the king. What else will he take?

Next first. First 14. You'll take the best of your fields and vineyards. He'll take your property. First 15, he will tax you.

First 15. He will take a tenth of your gray and your vintage, and we look at that and go, oh, only 10 percent. That's not that's not too bad. Is it? I mean, he's already taken fields and sons and daughters, so it's not that great, is it?

Verse 16, your male and female servants will be gone. Verse 17, take a tenth of your flock, ah, verse 17. This is where it will lead. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. That's where this is heading.

You'll be his slaves. He will take and take and take and in the end, he will take your freedom. You are choosing to go back to being slaves as you were in Egypt. And yet the lord says First 18, when that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the lord will not answer you in that day. The people have cried out before.

They cried out when they were slaves in Egypt. And the lord rescued them. They've cried out over and over again in the book of judges when other nations came in and dominated them, and they cried out and the lord raised up a judge. And God is saying now. You ask for this king.

If you have this king, you will cry out and I will not answer you. And what we see here is what we see over and over again in the Bible. Rejecting the lord, looking to other things, feels like the way to freedom, but it leads to slavery. The world tells us God's way is restrictive and boring, Worshiping the God of the Bible, they say leads to an unfulfilled dull life. Follow him and you will be a slave.

Break free from the lord, they will say. You'll be free. And yet the Bible warns us it is the exact opposite. Rejecting the Lord, turning from his ways, leads to slavery, leads to suffering, leads to harm. We see it in so many ways in, in different areas of life, especially in the world's teaching about gender and sexuality.

The world says, are the Bible restrictive? Be free, be who you wanna be, yet it is the world's way that leads to pain and suffering and harm. And this is true in the area of security as well. If you put your security in locks and bolts, you will never have enough. If you put your security in your job, you will constantly be anxious about how well you're doing, and and whether your job is safe.

If you put your security in money, You will never have enough. You'll always be worried whether it's safe. If you put your security for your kids in where you live, the right area, and the school that they go to, surely they'll be alright there, but you know that the school can't guarantee that they'll grow up alright, that they won't fall into the into a bad group. And so we will constantly be worrying and in fear we'll be enslaved to it. The lord warns out of love for his people don't go down this route, but they refuse to listen.

Verse 19, the people refuse to listen to Samuel, no, they said. We want a king over us. Then we shall be like all the other nations with a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles. And so, verse 22, the lord gives them what they want. The lord answered, listen to them, and give them a king.

Here is actually the judgment of god. On his people, having warned them what it will be like, and them having refused to listen, God says, okay, give them what they want. And we won't turn to it. We won't get into it, but it is very like the book of Romans chapter 1, where it says the wrath of God is being revealed against the godlessness and wickedness of people how as you go through the chapter, you see God hands people over to what they want. Part of god's judgment on us, part of it, is to say if that's what you want, that's what you'll get.

You read what you say. You get what you've asked for. We see in 1, Samuelate, a sorry story of god's people seeking security, not in the lord, but in a king. And we learn, don't be like them, but rather put your trust in Jesus. See, we can't just leave 1 samuel 8 there, we need to think where real security comes from.

And it comes from Jesus. What security does Jesus give us. You see, the world is still uncertain. There are still bad things out there. What security does Jesus give us and our family?

Why trust him? Well, do you remember the people said we want a king who will go before us and fight our battles? That is exactly what Jesus has done for us. He fought the greatest battle you and I have, the battle to defeat our sin. And he did it not through taking.

It it but through giving. He's exact opposite of this king. This king, the lord says, will take and take and take and make you a slave. Jesus gives and gives and gives and gives us freedom. And he gives through giving his life when he died on the cross.

He gave up his life for you and me to defeat our sin. Now what difference does that make? With our sin dealt with, you and I, if we put our trust in Jesus can be forgiven, and we are promised, if we put our trust in him, we are children of god. And god's promise to his children, to his people, is this, from the book of Hebrews. He says, interesting where it starts.

Keep your lives free from the love of money, we could find our security and money coming. He says, keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have because God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, the lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?

And that is real security. He says never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. It is a security 1 forest by Jesus, when he didn't just risk everything but gave his life. And it is total security. It isn't a security you need to put in place, and you don't need to keep reviewing it or strengthening it, nothing in this world can shake it or defeat it.

This is total and utter security. Does this mean you will never be burgled? Or lose your job or get ill? No. That isn't the security that Jesus offers.

God does not say never will you suffer. But never will I leave you? Never will I forsake you? He doesn't promise to take us out of the storm. But to walk with us through it.

Do you see what difference this makes? There are still wisdom calls we've gotta make. You've still gotta if you've got children, teach them not to run out into the road. Now you've still gotta teach them that. You don't just say, well, it's alright.

God's with you. You can run. Go run. Run across the a 3. No.

Don't do that. Learn wisdom. We've gotta learn wisdom. Teach our children wisdom. But as we grasp hold of this promise, the more it sinks in, we can realize we can actually be more confident in this life than we had thought.

Because for followers of Jesus, do you see this security is something you already have. You've already got it. You don't have to put it in place. The lord God has already promised. Never will I leave you.

Never will I forsake. You've gotta realize what you've already got. If you had times where with insurance or something else like that, you you start looking for insurance, maybe you have travel insurance, or something like that. And then you realize, actually, I've already got it through something else. Part of the realization we need to have this morning is to say.

What have you already got in Jesus? He says, never will I leave you? Never will I forsake you? Doesn't that make a difference to this week? How you go into it?

There's a confidence that you can have. Confidence that will actually set you apart from everyone else. There's a confidence this world doesn't have. Those at work, other families, they don't have this confidence, but you can. Don't be like them.

Don't look to the things they look to for security. Know what you already have in Jesus. Now we're already slightly over time with this summer, but I have just got 1 last challenge. It's quite brief, and it may just be for a smaller group within us. But keep listening.

1 of the things we as elders have started to talk about is that we really want to support people from Hope Church to train to be pastors and go out on mission. There is a great need out there. But I wonder whether some would rule out going, not because you aren't gifted, but because you think it's too risky. What will you do for income? What will you do for safety and security for your family?

And maybe you know pastors or missionaries who've had bad times, bad experiences, and you think It's too hard. I couldn't do it. I couldn't put my family through it. Not at this stage of life, not with the responsibilities I have. Now it isn't easy being a pastor, it's not easy being on the Mission Field, from what I gather.

The Bible tells us it isn't easy. And, Beth, will tell you, I don't go around with this kind of confidence on a daily basis. And so I need to preach this to myself as much as to you. We need to remember, God says, Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you, and he keeps his promise. So trust him.

You and I have a security. This world knows nothing about. And we can say with confidence the Lord is my help. I will not be afraid and so we can step out into life. We could even step out into being a missionary or a pastor, or we can step out into this week, and what's coming next with a confidence without fear, standing out from the world, not arrogant or self confident, but secure because God is with us.

I'm gonna pray for us. Kevinly father, we praise you for Jesus. And thank you that though these Israelites looked to other things for their security father. Please help us to learn from them not to try to be like other people, but to know you and the security that we have in Christ. And the promise you have made to us.

And therefore, father help us to look to you for our security, knowing that it is something we already have in Christ. And so help us to trust you and go into this week knowing your presence is with us, not because of our goodness, or our strength of character, not because we put not because, we find our confidence, but actually because of your grace, and your mercy towards us. And even when we feel insecure, we know you are with us. So help us to realize what we already have in Christ, amen.