Make Us a King

This was the demand Israel made of Samuel, who, as it turned out, was the last true judge in the original governmental blueprint God had ordained for his chosen nation. The narrative is as follows.

1 And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel.

2 Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abiah: they were judges in Beer-sheba.

3 And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.

4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah,

5 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.

6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.

7 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.

8 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.

9 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.

10 And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.

11 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.

12 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.

13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants

18 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.

19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us;

20 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.

1 Sam 8:1-20

And so Israel entered into what is referred to by Biblical scholars as the “kingdom era.” The kingdom was a period that lasted about 500 years, in which 44 monarchs ruled over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, most of whom were wicked men who did all the evil that God, through Samuel, prophesied they would do. (Is. 55:11)

The kingdom started with the wicked king Saul, who was followed by David, and then by David’s illegitimated son, Solomon.

Then, around 1000 BC, following the death of Solomon, it was divided into northern (Israel) and southern (Judah) kingdoms. Both kingdoms were eventually conquered—first the northern, then the southern—and taken into captivity by the Babylonian Empire in 613 BC., which was subsequently overthrown by the Media-Persian Empire, which was conquered by Alexander, becoming the Greek Empire, and finally by the Roman Empire around 150 BC. The temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, and to this day, the original kingdom, on the original land grant, has never been restored.

The analogy I wish to draw from this is with America and the transition that has transpired here, that has taken the country from the original blueprint, a Republic, under the rule of law, to what we now have: a Democracy, under the rule of dictators.

Yes, I’m talking about the office of the presidency morphing into what is now, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship, or kingship, if you will. The sole reason for the 1776 Unanimous Declaration and the war of independence that followed it, was to extract the American colonies from the yoke of the arbitrary rule of the kings of England. Remarkably, after the British were defeated, the colonists wanted to declare George Washington, the general of the colonial army, king! Washington wisely rejected their pleas, and by refusing to run for a third four-year term, set a precedent for a limiting subsequent presidents to two, four-year terms. (After Franklin Roosevelt broke this precedent, the two-term limit was codified into law in 1950 by the 22nd amendment.)

The Brits still have their Kings and Queens, and while these monarchs are revered by most British “subjects,” they no longer have the kind of power they had in the 18th century. We proudly boast of having no official royalty here in America, but we now have, in my opinion, something much worse; a chief executive who has an unbridled power to wage wars of aggression without formal Congressional approval (There has not been a formal declaration of war from Congress in any of the military conflicts the U.S. has been been engaged since WW II.), a printing press at his disposal to create money out of thin air to fund these wars and everything else conceivable, and now the power to invade the privacy of U.S. citizens, and arrest and detain them without a warrant or due process of law. (See the “USA Patriot Act,” the  “National Defense Authorization Act,” and “The Unitary Presidency” doctrine )

Not even the tyrannical King George had this kind of power.

We have come a long way since the presidency of George Washington, and I believe we are just about at the end of our run of freedom under the original government blueprint laid out by Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin, et. al. Unless we take a 180-degree turn in direction, we are going to end up as Jefferson predicted: serfs on the land our forefathers fought to make free. We can blame no one other than ourselves, because we have, through the abdication of our God-given rights, effectively said: “make us a King.”

Mike Schroeder

Please feel free to distribute this essay as you see fit. Scripture quotations are from the King James Bible.  For further reading on this topic:

Israel: Where does she stand in the Dispensation of Grace?; The Good Ship America; What Price Israel?; Thy Kingdom Come

Notes

Post Script

I think we should indeed seek to live peaceably with all men, and to have a system of government that promotes this, and stand in opposition to leaders and rulers who despise the rule of law and thus promote the opposite of this; division, hatred and class envy. Of course, when I refer to “we”, I am speaking of those who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:13), believeing that he “died for our sins… and was raised again for our justification.”(1 Cor. 15:1-4; Rom. 4:25) His sacrifice made the way for “everyone that believeth ( ” (Rom 1:16) to be reconciled to, and at peace with God. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Have you done this? If not, why not now?