May 29, 2015

The People's Choice

Note to our readers: Barack Obama took office as the nation's 44th president on Jan. 20, 2009. I wrote and posted the following article on Jan. 19, 2009. "Then Samuel said unto Saul...I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night."

Someone has said about prayer, “Be careful what you ask for, you may get it.” It is possible to get what you want, but lose what you have (Psl.106:15). Nowhere is this truth seen clearer than in Israel’s desire for a King. The story is found in 1 Samuel chapter eight, and on. Samuel was old and passing off the scene; a new generation was emerging with new leaders and ideas. God was no longer the nation’s life. He had become only a small part of it. The old prophet felt they had not only rejected God, but himself also. His heart was broken.

Saul was the people’s choice; he was, in a sense, the first of his kind. He was tall, dark, and handsome. When a nation’s religion is built on externals, their political decisions will soon follow suite. Their new leader was like cotton candy, mostly air with no real substance. He had a show of humility, but this proved to be arrogance in disguise. God’s man warned the people the kind of leader they were getting. He was going to tax them, take their property, and line his pockets, as well as those of his friends, with revenues that he would take from the masses. He’d also take their young men and women and draft them into his services (both military and personal). The key word that characterizes this pseudo-leader is “take.”

The people were in for a real surprise. Their supposed deliverer would soon blame them for his inherent weaknesses and lack of manliness! This emotional instability follows him throughout his disastrous reign. Since he was predominately a secularist, and not Spiritual, it is no surprise that his moral decisions were influenced by the former philosophy. It is an impossibility to be Spiritual without being a scripturally moral person. Spiritual people love what God loves, and condemn what God does. But the nations around them, who they wanted to emulate, were not concerned with what God liked or disliked, and so neither would they be.

It is a sad day when a nation chooses such a leader; there are dire consequences that go with such a choice. But, of course, God’s man had told them this. I guess they figured the old man didn’t know what he was talking about. He had warned, in essence, they’d have to “pay the piper.”

“And they sought to lay hold on him…for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them.” 
(Mk.12:12)

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