God’s Rebuttal pt. 1
Friday (September 19)
God’s Rebuttal pt. 1
1 Samuel 8:7-8
And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.”
I spent a good bit of time yesterday wrestling with the LORD over His reply to Samuel here, asking question like these in my bewilderment: “LORD, I don’t understand why the people are wrong for calling out the wickedness in Samuel’s sons and asking for a different judge in their stead. If the judges in Israel are corrupt, and the people have come to Samuel to protest, why don’t You condemn Samuel’s sons first before condemning the people for wanting a king?” I paced around in the woods for a while, feeling that stinging sense of injustice rising up in my gut, yet, that’s when the light started to dissipate the shadows of doubt. That’s when it hit me that my own finite sense of justice is just a little trickling stream from a mighty river, and that mighty river is the perfection of Almighty God’s character. In fact, I can’t call the LORD out, nor can Abraham and Job and Habakkuk and Peter and Asaph, had God Himself not imprinted His justice on our hearts to begin with! In considering that powerful truth, Jericho walls came tumbling down around my feet and the meaning of 1 Samuel 8:7-8 became clearer.
God’s lack of reprimand for Samuel here does not and cannot imply that He has overlooked the crimes of Samuel’s sons. Far from it—those are written in His wounds as well. Oh, but these chief spokesmen aren’t really broken over that corruption. That’s part of the rouse. They aren’t demanding a king in good faith. They’re only using the corruption as a pretext for manipulating Samuel’s already distraught heart. Which is why I find God’s compassion toward Samuel amazing to behold. Instead of beating Samuel down further we know Samuel feels as though he’s failed as both a father and a priest—God lifts the burden from his shoulders and places it on His own.