National Security Pt. 1

Initially, the elders give Samuel three reasons why they want a king:

1. Samuel is old; therefore, they need a new leader.


2. Samuel’s sons are not good leaders like he was:  they're corrupt.


3. They want a king like all the other nations.

Reasons 1 & 2 seem like pretty good reasons.
Of course, that might be all that it is:  good sounding lip service.

We have a tendency to justify things we want with pious, religious justifications.  But God knows the heart, and he knows our true motives.  Honestly, I don’t know.  They might have really been concerned… actually, I do think that there were elders who were genuinely concerned about the dangerous prospect of corrupt leaders considering they knew that devastation always came to the nation when there was a corrupt leader (just read the book of Judges).

I think the real reason actually has a lot more to do with Reason # 3.  They actually confess to this in verse 19 & 20 (I Samuel 8).

However, this is where things become complex.  They say they want a king like all the other nations.  And it is easy for us to view this through our American mindset and conclude that they just want to be like everybody else… they want to be cool… they’re just a bunch of followers.  But is it really that simple?  Do they really want a king BECAUSE they want to look like everybody else?  You see, the reason WHY is the most important thing for us to understand.  We are gravely mistaken to assume they’re just a bunch of wanna-be posers.

Actually, they finally fess up and say that they want a king so that he can fight their battles.  Now, we’re finally getting somewhere.  They wanted security; they wanted to be a strong nation so that they would no longer have to fear invaders.  In that day and time it would take a strong king to build a strong nation, and a strong nation was a safe nation.  Is it really so different today?  We were born into a very secure nation.  We have no idea what it is to be afraid.  I mean to be at the mercy of violent and aggressive invaders.  We hear a lot about terrorism, but we really have no idea of true terror.  Terror is a vast army of wild eyed men wielding swords and torches heading straight for your village when you are defenseless.  It is the terror of death stampeding and slaughtering everyone you ever loved.

Now, why did they want a king?  Because they were AFRAID!!!  And with good reason.