When The Pendulum Swings Too Far During Life's Transitions

Our goal in life is to walk in the balance of righteosness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. However, there are timees when we find ourselves drifting off course and we need to make corrections. 

Irael was in that very place when we find them in 1 Samuel chapter 8. Samuel "The Seer" and one of The Judges of Israel was old and his sons weren't following in the footsteps of their faither. Their character was not like that of Samuel's.

It was coming to a time when Samuel would soon die and his sons would take over the leadership in Israel. The people could see the problem and the solution they recommended was for them to "have a king rule over them like the other nations had" (instead of God being their King).

They were gong to overcompensate for a legimate problem by choosing an extreme alternative situation. This would cause the pendulum of Israel to go into a completely different and further trajectory.

We are all tempted to do the same thing thing. Individually and as collectives as God's Ecclesia, The Body of Christ on a local church level. We choose the model of "the world system" around us as the source of our provision while tacking God's name on as though it was some sort of choice on a menu or a Figure being alloted a portion of our structured time fitting into His 15 minutes (like it or not not). Even if His Presence is absent we still claim "It's so nice to be in His Presnce"... Simply as a means to justify our using His name over our doors or the cross around our neck.

This is meant to be a corrective word calling us back into a place where God is Head of our lives and our gatherings are typified by His undeniable Glory and Power... The Kingdom of God being at hand!

Chapters

• 0:00 Israel's Poor Transition Choice
• 3:18 Looking to Flawed Systems
• 5:15 Samuel's Warning About Kings
• 9:13 Modern Church Systems vs God's Way
• 12:57 Kingdom Crossroads and Prayer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:38

Once again, I want to thank Trevor McMahon for just the really wonderful job that he did concerning two podcasts on 1 Samuel, chapter 8. And before we go on to chapter 9, I want to loop back again on chapter 8 and cover a couple of final things concerning a transition that took place in the time of Israel's change from having a judge, a prophet, to a king and much like. In our lives, there are transitions and when they take place, we have the opportunity of moving forward the right way or, unfortunately, we can choose the wrong way, and in this instance, Israel made a poor choice to rush the situation. They had seen some things taking place in the life of Samuel and his sons. That was a legitimate concern. They saw some things in that administration that had flaws in it, and they, meaning Israel, chose to look to the nations surrounding them and use them as an example, as opposed to the example that God had laid out for them in the scriptures. Literally, they looked to a system that was actually more flawed than the one that they were in, but it looked better.

Speaker 1: 2:41

That's often the problem, isn't it? Things around us can appear to be better. You know, if you're a marketer, you're going to sell the sizzle man. Right, You're going to sell that sizzle on the steak so that it makes things look better. And the nations around Israel had a lot of sizzle. There seemed to be things that were really going well for them, and the nations attributed that to their gods not to the Lord God, but to their gods when in all reality, the blessings that they had received were coming from God. Because, you know, the sun shines on the just and the unjust and the unjust, and so people are going to have prosperity take place in their land because God is good Not because they're good, but because God is good. But the nations surrounding Israel attributed that success to their gods, and so they made that sizzle the sizzle of their gods, look really good, In fact better than the flawed administration that Israel was under. When they looked at Samuel's sons, who would have been his successor, and thought, man, I don't know, that's not looking so good. And sometimes in our structure of things we can do the same thing as it pertains to the ecclesia or the church of Jesus. We can look at things and see that there are problems, and then look to the world around us and their systems and say, well, maybe we could just adopt that system and then things will be okay. Them, and then things will be okay. Have a system of a republic or a democratic way of doing things of the people, by the people, for the people, as opposed to being centered in on God being the leader. In fact, in 1 Samuel 8, verse 6. And we're going to read to the end of the chapter. I'm just going to read it and then make some comments.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Following Again, the scripture says but when they, Israel, said Give us a king to lead us, this displeased Samuel. So he prayed to the Lord and the Lord told him listen to all that the people are saying to you. It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. And they have gone from the day of being brought out of the land of Egypt until this day. They are now saying to you we want a king. So now listen to them, but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king will do when he's reigning over you. And then Samuel goes on to list some of the things that the king was going to do in ruling over the people. He was going to have them build him chariots and gather horses. He was going to put their sons into battle, he was going to cause them to pay a tenth of what they had to him, and the list goes on. And they heard exactly what the Lord had said was going to take place. When they put this king over them, they said we want him to be over us, just like the nations around us. Right, we want him to be over us, not God, but a king. So when Samuel heard all this, after they heard what Samuel said, the people said we still want this king. And when Samuel heard this in verse 21,. When Samuel heard all that, the people said he repeated it before the Lord. And the Lord answered listen to them and give them a king. Then Samuel said to the men of Israel everyone, go back to his town. They were going to get what they wanted Now. If they had waited as we're going to find out later if they had waited, God had something in store for them that was going to be better than the kings around them. But they wanted a king, just like the kings around them. Get it.

Speaker 1: 8:36

And sometimes we put systems in place as an overreaction. Get this, really get this. We put other systems in place to govern over us as a body of Christ, Instead of God being the one overseeing his church, as Jesus being one, as Holy Spirit literally being in charge. We put systems in charge and we vote on people. Amazing. We put a system in place that is just like the world, A system of either a dictator or a republic, democratic system where it's of the people, by the people, for the people, and we call that God. We say, well, God, you can fit in that, okay. Instead of us fitting into the kingdom mold and way of doing things, we say, God, you can fit into our mold and way of doing things, we will give you 15 minutes. And if you can't do it in 15 minutes, well then, well, we'll just do it ourselves. And if your glory doesn't come, we'll have a smoke machine. And if it's not a powerful message, we'll just tell people what they want to hear and it'll make them feel good.

Speaker 1: 10:15

When we put systems in place as an overreaction to the problems that are sometimes at hand, instead of dealing with the problems, we overreact and put a system in place and the pendulum swings in the other direction and we have then a bigger problem than the one that we started out with. It's my prayer. It's my prayer, it's my desire, it's our purpose as this podcast at times to be very clear, to be very clear in speaking out and saying we really don't need to revert to the ways of the world to do things. We can literally wait upon the Lord, trust him, just wait upon the Father's heart to trust him to show us the way, to trust him to lead us by his spirit, to trust the power of his spirit to accomplish things that we can't. So we are involved in something that's far greater than us, as opposed to us having a system that we can control. But in the end, that system controls us and it proves out to be a negative thing, not a positive thing.

Speaker 1: 11:47

Now, later, we find out exactly what Saul did concerning his way of doing things versus God's way of doing things, and in the end, it cost Saul and his son his life, their lives, along with a lot of other difficulties in Israel, until they had a king that was anointed by God and that was King David. So we're at once again at a crossroads. Like many of us in our lives, we're at crossroads. Some of these things are pertinent to us personally and some of us they're pertinent to how we go about doing things collectively. Let's not model ourselves after the world that sells the sizzle. Let's really, if there's adjustments and change that need to take place, let's change.

Speaker 1: 12:55

Like Jesus said repent, Change your mind, change your ways, change your direction, because the kingdom of God is at hand. The doors are open. We can enter in and become citizens of that kingdom by the power of his blood, by him making that available to us. When we trust in him, we place our faith in him. He is the door that we enter into the kingdom through and in that we have a relationship that's right with the Father.

Speaker 1: 13:29

Hallelujah, let's pray, Father. Thank you once again, God, for who you are and for how you do things, and I ask that you would show us your ways, God, in a clear fashion, and help us make adjustments where we need them, Lord, so that we can function according to your ways, your plan, your precepts, your purposes. God, Ultimately to walk like Jesus, and it's in his name that we place our confidence, our trust. It's in his name that we say amen, Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. Alright, folks, we love you and if you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, we'd love to hear from you. You just type in life around the fire at gmailcom and fire us at email, or type in life around the fire and look us up on the web in the meantime. God bless you, adios amigos.