Kingdom 101: Making Preparation for the King Pt 2
Let us continue. The children of Israel wanted to be like other nations. But keep this in mind, the Lord God wanted a people set apart for Himself (meaning Holy). Nevertheless, the Lord God gave in to their request and instructed the prophet (representative) Samuel to anoint Saul as their King of Israel. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, 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 to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also. Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.” So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. Because the nation of Israel rejected the Lord God in favor of an earthly king, the time still wasn't right for the Kingdom of Heaven to be revealed.
It would be a long succession of kings after King Saul. I must say, after a promising start, Saul disobeyed the Lord God to the point at which God rejected him as king. It was because of Saul's disobedience in offering up an unlawful sacrifice. So Saul said, “Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me.” And he offered the burnt offering. Now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him.
And Samuel said, “What have you done?”
Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, then I said, ‘The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord.’ Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering.” And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” In essence, Saul failed to trust God. He lacked the backbone to obey the man of God (Samuel) Well, God then chose David, a man after His own heart, to be king in Saul's place. And Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all the young men here?” Then he said, “There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep.”
And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he comes here.” So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!” Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
David was a good king and a mighty warrior who loved the Lord God. He was also a poet and a worshiper of his Source and Creator, whose songs comprise the bulk of the longest book in God's Constitution (the Bible), the Psalms. David was the first to informally combine the functions of priest and king. He worshiped and wrote worship songs, but he also administered government wisely and peaceably. Now a model of the Lord God's Kingdom was beginning to emerge. Then David went and did it. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and compounded his disobedience by trying to cover it up. It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.”
He arranged to have her husband, Uriah, killed in battle. From then until the end of his life, trouble follows David's steps. After the death of Solomon, David, wise and capable son and successor,the kingdom that they had built, split in two parts, as ten tribes rebelled against the house of David. But the time still was not right for the Kingdom of Heaven to be revealed.
We will continue this again in my next article.
I Samuel 8:6-10, 13:9-14 16:1:13 II Samuel 11:1-11
~~W.R. Luchie
continue to part 3
