People, including the people of God, are often pulled towards the Strongman to fix societies woes that they themselves can not fix. They look for an earthly rescuer, a savior, often someone unsavory and lacking character that often will betray them later. People are often willing to give up much for it and overlook the ends justifying the means.  We are all guilty of this to some extent.

However, this is not God’s best direction for us. It’s an issue of faith and trust. Just like in the garden of Eden with the fruit. And it’s a personification of the golden calf. “God, where are you? I don’t see you. You’re not fixing this thing I don’t like. I’m going to find someone that can and will, right now.” It’s priotizing the present over eternity.    

A good example was when Isreal wanted a King. They knew this displeased God. And God warned them they were giving up freedom for security. In the end, God gave them a King, but stated they weren’t going to like it. God gave Israel exactly what they asked for—an earthly king who would seek his own.

Why was asking for a king wrong? The Lord was to be the ruler of Israel. God led the people through Moses and Aaron, and then through priests and judges raised up to govern the people. In Samuel’s time, the people began to worry about who the next leader would be, since Samuel’s sons did not follow the Lord. Their request for a king was a rejection of God’s way of leadership over them. 
 
Another reason it was wrong to ask for a king is that the Israelites did so in order to be like “all the other nations.” God had created Israel as a unique people. He was their leader. When the Israelites wanted a king like other nations had, they were rejecting their unique, set-apart position as God’s people. The nation whose God was to be the Lord alone was envious of the nations who followed false gods.  Christians as well, as Isreal’s spiritual successors grafted into the branch, are to be different. Early Christians were so radically different, what they practiced was often called “the way” and Christian itself means “little Christ.”

There are Leaders that God rises up but these Leaders arrive on the scene differently and have different characterics, though they too are flawed people. There’s a lot more to write on this and for me to sort through to figure out my own thoughts and feelings, so this will not be the last post on this subject.

HOSEA 13:9 “You are destroyed, Israel, 
    because you are against me, against your helper. 
10 Where is your king, that he may save you? 
    Where are your rulers in all your towns, 
of whom you said, 
    ‘Give me a king and princes’? 
11 So in my anger I gave you a king, 
    and in my wrath I took him away. 
12 The guilt of Ephraim is stored up, 
    his sins are kept on record. 
13 Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, 
    but he is a child without wisdom; 
when the time arrives, 
    he doesn’t have the sense to come out of the womb 

“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. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you” (1 Samuel 8:7–8).   

Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations (1 Samuel 8:5). 

No! But there shall be 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 (1 Samuel 8:19-20). 

1 Samuel 8:10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men[a] and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”