Summary: Steadfastness is one thing; stubbornness quite another.

Hard-Headed Followers

January 9, 2011 Evening Service

Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK

Rick Boyne

Message Point: Steadfastness is one thing; stubbornness quite another.

Focus Passage: I Samuel 8:10-22

Supplemental Passage: 1Peter 2:9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

James 4:7 Submit therefore to God.

Introduction: Tell the story of the USN Captain refusing to turn his battleship even though he was speaking to a 3rd Class Seaman who was in charge of a lighthouse. Relate stories of children’s stubbornness.

I. The People Demanded a King

a. Samuel goes to God; God encourages Samuel by telling him that they rejected Him, not Samuel.

b. God tells Samuel to warn the people.

II. Samuel Tells them about their king

a. He’ll take your sons for battle.

b. He’ll take your daughters for servants.

c. He’ll take your crops and flocks for tribute. He’ll take the best fields and give them to his cronies.

d. You’ll hate it!

III. The people won’t listen and want a king, anyway.

a. They wanted to be like everybody else.

b. God told Samuel to “give them what they want”.

Invitation: Do you do things even though you know about the consequences? Are you stubborn when it comes to what you want, when you want it and how much? Do you listen to God when He tells you not to do something? Or, to do something?

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, "Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you." Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. "At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; (Jeremiah 18:1-7 NASB)