GENERIC CHRISTIANITY
1 Samuel 8:4-21
Generic – If you have ever had to purchase any type of medication, you certainly have heard of that word before. Generic means that there is no brand name, only a common content description used by every manufacturer. One generic is the same as the next and there is no difference between the original and the copy. I don’t think that this is true in all medications, but I know that it’s not true when it comes to being a Christian.
There are a lot of Christians who want to be generic Christians. They don’t want to be labeled Pentecostal, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or any other label. They just want to be called Christians. Now there isn’t anything wrong with being called a Christian, and there are times when “Brand Names” of religion really do act as barriers to the unity of the Body of Christ. So desiring to be called Christian without the Brand is understandable and even commendable for those who believe the truth and live by it and don’t want any stigmatism to become a dividing factor.
But this message isn’t really about those people who are honest and sincere in their trust and relationship with the Lord. This message is concerns those who just don’t want to stand out from the crowd. They want to be called Christians but they don’t want to be too holy so that they can blend in with the worldly crowd and they don’t want to seem so worldly that they can’t blend in with other Christians either.
Israel had come to the place where they were tired of being different. They didn’t like the idea of allowing God to lead them through the leadership of his chosen judges. They wanted to be like every other nation and be ruled by a King.
Samuel had ruled as a judge over Israel for many years and finally, when he became too old and weak to rule, his office passed to his two sons. Those two sons, Joel and Abiah, ruled over Israel but they were unjust judges. Their rulings were easily swayed by offering them bribes. Filthy lucre (wealth and power) became their guiding factors and not the voice of the Lord. Every decision they made was in favor of the highest bidder in the court.
We see this same thing going on in our own court system. I’m not necessarily accusing any specific judges of taking bribes but I’m sure that some do. Even though I cannot point a finger of accusation at anyone in particular, how many of you know that if you have enough money to hire the best lawyers that you can get away with anything. In that fashion, we are still selling out righteous judgment to the highest bidder.
I can’t really blame Israel for not wanting to put up with unjust judges, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Desiring to want a king to rule over them instead of judges who were supposed to be directed by God wasn’t the right choice to make.
The right choice would have been to seek the face of God, turn from their sin, quit looking for man to have their answers and trust in the Lord to guide them in his perfect will.
It has been my experience in dealing with people that the last thing most people do is seek the will of God for anything they really want to do.
We will look to doctors, we will look to psychologists, we will look to the scientist, we want the opinion of the banker and we will even counsel with the preacher, but we won’t look to God or his Word. We would rather have the bigoted opinions of the flawed thinking processes of a man rather than the absolute truth of an unchanging God. We can’t get too angry with Israel when we find ourselves guilty of the same thing.
Let’s begin reading the account of Israel’s rebellion against God’s leadership by turning to 1 Samuel 8:4-10.
1 Samuel 8:4-10, "Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make 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 unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king."
If you notice you will see that the first excuse that Israel used in speaking to Samuel was that he was “old”. That’s one of the most common excuses that I still hear when we talk about letting man’s logic lead us instead of trusting in the Lord and keeping to his ways.
Anytime you mention sticking to the tried, proven and tradition ways of worship, preaching, or building a church, there are always those who will begin to say that you are simply too old fashioned, out of touch with reality and stuck in your ways.
I believe in trying some new things. I like some of the new music. I think that some of the new ways of reaching out to people using new technology and methods are really wonderful and very effective. But that doesn’t mean that I am willing to throw everything old and traditional out of the window either. I’m convinced that the old ways that brought me into the Kingdom of God and saved so many of my ancestors, are still just as effective today. The old songs still have a powerful message and can move the heart of men towards Jesus. The old method of “word-of-mouth” is still the absolute best method for building a church, even with all the new technology.
I don’t believe that we need to throw out the baby with the bath water. We don’t need to throw out the old traditional ways and take on only the new things. Why can’t we keep the old ways, add in the new ways, and keep doing both until we find a combination that works for us. Not every church is going to be built with all the modern technology at the core of its operation. There are still a lot of souls being saved and small churches being built on mostly traditional ways. I thank God for the traditions that he has used to establish his church. It was those traditions that gave us the church that we have inherited from our forefathers!
Old-fashioned preaching of the Word of God, clapping to the music, praising the Lord with your hands raised toward heaven, praising him on the stringed instruments and the percussion instruments has not gone out of style. In fact, it still stirs the hearts and souls of people every day.
We can’t start listening to only what men have to say when it comes to growing a church either. What works for one church will not work for all churches. I still believe that if a church is going to be the church that it should be, we had better allow the Holy Spirit to give us direction and let him build the church. All those who are built solely upon the knowledge and ability of men are being built in vain. That’s what the Word of God says, not me.
Psalms 127:1, “Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it”
The people of Israel kept demanding a man to be appointed as their king until finally God was going to let them have what they wanted. If we want to disobey him, he won’t stop us. If we want to try to build our life with him, he will step aside and allow us to go on. If we don’t want him to be a part of our lives, he simply moves out.
Israel used every reasonable excuse in the book. Samuel was old, his sons were crooked, and besides that, everybody else was doing it, why can’t we?
God then told Samuel to listen to them and not to get too upset with them because they had not rejected Samuel, but they had rejected God. They didn’t want God to be their king; they wanted a man instead. They had rejected God’s leadership all the way through the wilderness. They had no trust in God’s love, or his power to deliver them. This last insult to God’s leadership was simply the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and God would put up with their rebellion no more.
God would not let Israel make this huge mistake without one last warning and one last attempt to get them to turn back to him so He instructed Samuel to tell them just what lay ahead if they continued down this path of rebellion.
Samuel began to tell them just what they were asking for and how things would be. These were words from the Lord God of Heaven to his chosen people to warn them of the future they faced, but would they even hear him? I don’t think they heard one word of it. Their hearts were so filled with rebellion against God that they could not hear his warning.
I know a lot of people who once served the Lord who have gone this same route. They wanted what they wanted and they threw caution to the wind, rejected every counsel of God, refused to heed every warning sign, and then walked away to do their own thing in their own way, and then expected God’s blessings to follow them in their rebellion.
It just doesn’t work that way. We will reap what we sow. If we sow rebellion and disobedience then we are going to reap the results of what we do and God will not hear our cry in that hour until we repent and turn back to him. God cannot, and will not, bless disobedience.
Listen to what God instructed Samuel to say to the people who wanted a man to rule over them:
1 Samuel 8:11-18, "And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day."
Now you would think that anyone with enough common sense to scratch an itch would heed these words of God, but Israel didn’t, and neither do we.
If we follow the wisdom of men, or the lies of the devil, instead of trusting the Lord to lead us, we will come under the full control of those men that we place over us, and under the full control of the Devil as he becomes our master.
We just jump out of the frying pan, filled with pride, self-will, fear and doubt, and jump right into the fire of judgment and slavery.
The people of Israel would no longer control their own family and its destiny. They would no longer own their own land. They would no longer enjoy the full rewards of their labors. They would lose more and more of their freedoms that God had given to them. They would trade the freedom in God for the slave pits of an earthly king. In a manner of speaking, they were choosing to go right back into the slave pits of Egypt only this time, their “Pharaoh” would be a king of their own choosing.
So many people that I have known through the years have followed this same path. They gave up freedom in God to return to a life of slavery to sin. They gave up following the leading of the Holy Ghost to follow the leading of sinful man. They gave up their future with the Living God to live in the past of their dying life of sin, and then to life their eternal future in the regions of the damned and the eternally dying.
The last few verses of this passage of scripture leave us with God’s feelings of loss of his beloved people. It’s as though I can see the Lord as he just hangs his head in sadness, because his people rejected his counsel and chose to keep going their own way. It’s not a statement of hate, disgust or anger. It’s a statement of disappointment in the people that God loved so very much.
1 Samuel 8:19-21, "Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles."
Israel didn’t want to be a chosen nation, a royal people, a peculiar people, who would show forth the praises of him who had called them out of darkness. Instead, they wanted to be a “generic people”. They wanted to be ruled by a king like all other nations. They wanted to be accepted by the world even if it cost them their relationship with God.
Lord, help us not follow in Israel’s footsteps. Help us to keep our trust in you. Help us to desire only to follow the Holy Spirit and the Word of the Lord. Help us to hear your whole counsel and let us remain a chosen generation, and a part of the Body of Christ that will be faithful to the end.
We don’t want to be “generic Christians”. We want to be sold out to your will. WE want to be a separated people unto our God.
AMEN
