Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD. 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. Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
Poor leadership can lead to more poor leadership and bad decisions. That is one of the lessons of the above passage. When Samuel grew older his sons were not up to the task to be the continuation of his leadership over Israel. So the nation asked for the wrong things. They made a bad decision. In this passage we read that Samuel was a great prophet for God but a poor dad to his sons. That is a story that is repeated throughout the Bible (read Isaac and his sons, or Eli the priest and his sons, or King David and his sons, or Solomon and his sons, etc). As a result of this poor leadership the nation of Israel requested a figure head leader that they could point to and rely on as a visible and tangible leader for them. God was not enough. They wanted someone like them and someone they could relate to. The irony here is this is the very thing God will give Israel in His Son, Jesus, the Messiah. Yet, they will reject Him. Samuel is opposed to this request but God lets Samuel know that He will give them a king. They are not rejecting Samuel they are rejecting Him, the God of the universe. God gave them everything they needed or could ever want. Yet, they wanted someone tangible, like the surrounding nations. This has always been the plight of mankind. They reject the God of the universe to be like the men of the world, men who know not the God of the universe. The temporal things we see replace the eternal things we need, but can’t see. We ought to be careful in our lives that we reject Him for what they, the world, has. We aren’t to desire the world’s model of doing things. We are to desire God and His model and strategies.
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