Where Is Your Hope?
“And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king.”
Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you put your hope or trust in another person to provide the desired outcome? Maybe at your job, where you hope your boss sees your achievements and gives you that next big promotion. Or maybe you depend on your boss to make the right decision(s) to save your company so you can keep your job. Or maybe you’re hoping the next level above your boss recognizes that they need to go because they are negatively affecting your and/or others’ employee duties or making poor business choices.
Maybe you find yourself depending on a political party or person to make the changes necessary to lead your community, state, or national government in the right direction. If that is even possible these days. You might depend on someone to keep you safe or alive in a dangerous or emergent situation. Or you may rely on the best player on your favorite team to make the right plays to win.
Whatever that may be, every situation we encounter that tempts us to depend on someone is insufficient because every human is sinful, selfish, and flawed to varying degrees. Humans make mistakes; they make poor decisions sometimes. Some people are corrupt, some are incompetent, some are stubborn, some are ignorant, and some are just plain negligent.
Here in 1 Samuel 12, we see Samuel giving his farewell address to Israel, reminding them of all the situations where they got themselves in trouble and cried out to God for help. God heard their cries and faithfully provided someone to rescue them from each time of trouble. He reminds them of how God sent Aaron and Moses to rescue the Israelites from the oppression of Pharoah. He lists the times they forsook the Lord and were sold into the hand of Sisera of Hazor (Judges 4) and sold into the hands of the Philistines (Judges 10), and sold into the hand of the Moabite king (Judges 3). Each time they were given over into the hands of another nation, they eventually repented and cried out to the Lord, and Samuel reminds them of when they were saved by Jerubbaal, formerly Gideon, (Judges 6), Barak (judges 4), Jephthah (Judges 11), and Samuel (1 Samuel 7).
Samuel’s list leads right into 1 Samuel 12:12. Back in 1 Samuel 8, Samuel was getting too old and made his sons judges over Israel, but they did not walk in righteousness. We see in 1 Samuel 8:3 that Samuel’s sons “took bribes and perverted justice.” The Israelites recognized they could not trust Samuel’s sons to lead them. So, what did they do? They got their act together and turned to the Lord, trusting in Him as their King…WRONG!!! The Israelites instead demanded an earthly king. The era of judges would come to an end as the Israelites now felt that the role of judges was insufficient to lead them, so they instead demanded to elevate their quest for a new leader to the next level of human status and now wanted a king because they were influenced by the cultures around them who all had kings leading them. Despite all the examples throughout their history, they failed to recognize that God Himself longed to be their king, and only He could lead them in the right way, efficiently protect them, and bless them abundantly far beyond anything the world or any of its flawed inhabitants could offer.
After highlighting their foolish and sinful behavior, Samuel responds with a message of hope by telling them in verse 14 that if they “fear the Lord” and “serve Him” and “listen to His voice” while “not rebelling against His commands” both the people and the King will follow the Lord. If they do the opposite, the hand of the Lord will be against them. Samuel then called on the Lord to bring thunder and rain in a season when that was not normal as a sign to them that Samuel’s words were true, and after seeing and hearing this, (1 Samuel 12:19), the people responded by asking Samuel to pray for them because they recognized they were wicked in asking for an earthly king instead of putting their hope and trust in God. Samuel expounds on his message of hope in verses 20-21:
“And Samuel said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.’”
Unfortunately, we know they could not do this and quickly failed and continued to do so repeatedly.
As we read on in the Old Testament, 1st and 2nd Samuel, on into 1st and 2nd Kings, and into 1st and 2nd Chronicles, we see that human leadership is relentlessly flawed. Especially when acting under the direction of self-will and worldly wisdom. Not only kings in scripture but also priests and prophets had their shortcomings. Throughout scripture, we see one leader after another fall significantly short of being what only the Lord could provide for His people. We see this throughout history even to this very day. Praise God that Christ fills those roles perfectly.
Scripture reveals that the heart of mankind is inherently wicked, sinful, and foolish. Sometimes this is hard to hear. We like to think we are naturally good or mostly good. We don’t like to hear we are foolish or wicked, but apart from Christ, that is exactly what we are. All of scripture, and successive history, highlights the problems that follow when we put our hope and trust in ourselves and in other people. Other people let us down, disappoint, and fail us. The Lord will never do those things, He is faithful, and His way is always perfect. We are fortunate in this day and age because we have the entire bible to teach us how humans fail, and we can learn from those mistakes and hopefully avoid them. Even if we make the same mistakes, scripture teaches us how to course correct through genuine repentance.
As we reflect on the lessons Israel learned from Samuel and the Israelites here in this passage, may we be cognizant of not putting our hope and trust in other people but instead put all our hope and trust in the Lord, the only One who can effectively love us, teach us, guide us, protect us, correct us, and save us.
“Only fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things He has done for you”
