It's A Heart Issue

 

The Israelites wanted a king.
In an effort to be like the rest of the nations, they wanted what they thought they needed.

“Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.”  (1 Sam 8:5)

They were His people… and God was to be their King.
“I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.”  (Lev 26:12)

And it stops me in my tracks when, just after Samuel lists out all the reasons the people didn’t actually want a king, he says this, “When the day comes, you will beg for relief from this king you are demanding, but then the Lord will not help you.” (1 Sam 8:18)

“But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us.’”  (1 Sam 8:19)

So the Lord gave them what they wanted.

And King Saul was the result.
Saul was God’s response… the answer to the plea of the people.

All along God was to the their King.
And it has been a slow fade from this beginning… of living removed from the desperate necessity of His Kingship.

Often as the very punishment for rebellion and ingratitude, we get what we ask for and suffer significant consequences that linger for thousands of years to come.

We saw it with the complaining and ungrateful rebels in the wilderness.
They wanted food.
God gave them manna.
They rejected the provision.
They longed to return to the discomfort if it meant better meals.
And so God answered them.
He brought them quail.
So much of it that it made them gag.
And then a plague was their reward.  (Numbers 11)

Isaiah says it.
“I will make boys their leaders, and toddlers their rulers.”  (Is 3:4)
“People will oppress each other— man against man, neighbor against neighbor. Young people will insult their elders, and vulgar people will sneer at the honorable.”  (Is 3:5)
“In those days a man will say to his brother, ‘Since you have a coat, you be our leader! Take charge of this heap of ruins!’”  (Is 3:6)
“In that day he will cry out, ‘I have no remedy for this mess!  Don’t make me your leader!”  (Is 3:7, TPT)

They invited disaster upon themselves.

They ignored the One who was their true Leader… the Sovereign Lord… and because of that they were left with those who had no remedy.

They wanted a king.
They needed the Lord.

When Moses was the leader in charge of the Israelites and by the command of God, leading them out of their captivity in Egypt, they were dissatisfied with whom they received.  Ahh… and it wasn’t Moses they were rejecting, it was God Himself.
“Let’s choose a new leader and go back to Egypt” they said. (Numbers 14:4)

When they didn’t receive the delicious food they craved, and didn’t get the report from Canaan they were expecting, they dishonored the one God had appointed, and in anger demanded their “right” to a new leader.  Ahh… but leadership change would mean nothing as long as their hearts weren’t right.

And it won’t now.  
It’s not a leadership issue.
It never has been.
It’s a heart issue.

Oh how much has changed and yet how much has simply remained the same.

God help our unbelief.
And our abandonment of our One True God… the only King we’ve ever needed.