“So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.””
(1Sam 8:4-5NIV)
As we see in the Scriptures, there is no human being that is infallible or incapable of making mistakes. In fact, James says in his letter that all of us stumble in many ways (James 3:2). The only person that is infallible is God. Therefore, there may be times when the most upright among us will miss it. And if this happens, we need to be careful not to use their failure as an excuse to deliberately fail God in any area of our lives. That is because doing that will only expose us to God’s judgment.
For instance, as we see in our opening text, there was a time that the elders of the nation of Israel approached Samuel and asked him to give them a king. Why? It was because of what they perceived to be a failure on Samuel’s part. And in what way did they think he failed them? It was by appointing his two sons as judges over them (1Sam 8:1).
Now we are not told whether Samuel sought God’s face or not before making his children judges over the nation of Israel. But we are told that his children did not walk in his ways. Why? Was it because he did not train them well? No, nothing like that is said in the bible. I know many preachers have erroneously taught that Samuel was as bad as Eli in raising his children. But the bible does not say that at all. And it is wrong to make it say so. What the bible says is that his children did not follow his example but turned aside after dishonest gain and began to pervert justice (1Sam 8:3). That means they were not raised this way at all. It was at some point that they chose to walk in their own ways. And this perhaps was why God never reprimanded or forsook Samuel because of them, as He reprimanded Eli because of his children.
In any case, the elders of the people decided to use this situation as an excuse to ask Samuel to give them a king. But all along God had been their invisible king. And He had been the one raising and anointing judges, who served as His representatives, for them. So, when they asked Samuel for a human and visible king, they were unconsciously rejecting the kingship of God over them. And that was one of the reasons they abandoned God totally years later and ended up in captivity. Their kings led them away from the worship of God to the worship of idols.
What should they have done instead of asking for a king? They should have asked Samuel to pray to God for them, so that He may appoint true judges who would not pervert justice over them, that is, in place of Samuel’s sons? But because they had never been happy with the fact that they did not have their own king like the other nations around them, they used the misbehaviour of Samuel’s sons as their excuse for rejecting God as their king.
In like manner, there are many today that are living in sin because certain people of God around them are living in sin or have done some wrong things in the past, things that they have repented of. And anytime such people are confronted with the reality about what they are doing, they will immediately say, “So and so are also doing the same thing,” or “So and so have also done something similar in the past.” But what they do not realise is that even though the bible actually makes it clear that God will not hold guiltless anyone that is responsible for the fall of others, it does not mean that the one that falls will not at all pay for their own sins (Luke 17:1-3). They will pay for them, especially when they are sinning wilfully.
For example, why did Adam eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden? Was it because he did not know it was wrong of him to do so? No! Rather, it was because his wife ate it. And when God asked him, “Why did you do this?” He lost no time in saying, “It was because the woman you put here with me ate it and gave me some of it to eat.” In other words, Adam deliberately decided to sin against God because his wife sinned against Him. But did God declare him guiltless because he imitated his wife in sinning? No! Instead, He passed a heavy judgment on him and also drove him out of his place of rest. (Cf. Gen 3)
So, don’t ever used anybody’s error as your excuse to go in the wrong direction. That will never work with God. That is why the bible says, “Do not imitate evil but what is good.” It also says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And my prayer for you is that your eyes will be opened to see every area of your life in which you are walking in disobedience to God because you are copying others before it is too late. (Cf. Rom 12:21; 3John 11)
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By: J.O. Lawal | Date: December 02, 2020 | Series: Youth for Jesus | Number: Vol. 3, No. 29