Make Them a King- 1 Samuel 8

21 And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the LORD. 

Samuel warned them but they steadfastly refused to hear him. He gave them room for repentance but they would not.

22 And the LORD said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city.

A refusal to repent before the Lord will eventually be judgment upon yourself. When the Lord finally lets you get your way, you have won the battle but lost the war.

Children do this with their parents.

Wives do this with their husbands.

Men do this with their elders and also in abdicating responsibilities.

All of these evasions of obedience are disguised as obedience, causing the Lord to turn away. He gives you your freedom in the moment, in the rejection of His leadership but the consequence is a growing form of tyranny.

This is why submission is such an important principle. If we learn to submit to God and His earthly authorities, rightly hearing Him and them as they speak God’s Word to us, then we will be in a place of blessing. This submission and the subsequent blessing will look and feel like freedom.

However, our insistence on freedom from God and freedom from our other authorities and responsibilities, feels initially like freedom but results in the litany of tyrannies listed in 1 Samuel 8. This sort of tyranny can and does come from the outside through ungodly substitute authorities. But it also comes from within as we revert to being slaves of sin. Having been set free from sin and made slaves of Christ, why would we assert our freedom from Christ and return to our former master?