1 Samuel 8:1-9

Discontent with God's methods.

The facts are—

1 . In Samuel's old age his sons, being judges over Israel, abuse their office by accepting bribes.

2 . This fact is adduced by the people as a reason for asking Samuel to make them a king.

3 . Samuel in his grief seeks counsel of God.

4 . Samuel is instructed to yield to their request, while protesting against it.

5 . The conduct of the people is declared to be an expression of the perverse tendency characteristic of their history. The order of government under which Israel was living had received the special sanction of God, and had, also, grown naturally out of their circumstances. Though often sinful and foolish, it had never before entered into their minds to seek, apart from God, a change in the political settlement inherited from the times of Moses. The deputation which waited on Samuel, asking for a king, was not the expression of a sagacious patriotism, or of profound concern for the spiritual interests of the commonwealth, and ultimately of the world; but of a restless desire for what God would give in his own time, mingled with a dissatisfaction with the system which God then was sanctioning ( 1 Samuel 5:1-12 :20, 21). Practically, to Samuel; it meant, We can suggest and we demand now a course more agreeable to our views of life and our aspirations than that you represent. Samuel's pain was acute and natural, and the concession made to the discontented, though apparently a breach in the Divine order, was in keeping with God's usual treatment of men.

I. DISCONTENT WITH GOD 'S METHODS AND TIMES IS VARIOUSLY SHOWN . Men can detect and condemn faults in others which they either do not see or condone in themselves. It is possible for us, in the light of history, to dilate on the sin and folly of Israel while the same temper may be manifested by us in other forms. Discontent with God's methods and times may appear in various relations.

1 . The general government of the world. It is not often said that God has made a mistake in constituting the moral and material universe in such a way that so much sin and suffering should be possible; but the feeling is often entertained that it would have been well if some other course had been instituted. There is more of this feeling lurking in some hearts than is supposed. Men dare not face certain of their mental operations. How far the feeling affects theology, philosophical theories, personal rest in God, and fitness for doing the best Christian work, demands serious consideration.

2 . The manner and form in which revelation has been conveyed to man. Many attacks on the Bible proceed from a discontent with what is conceived to be inadequate to the wants of the world; and in some this feeling has generated the supposed discovery of reasons for discarding the book as a revelation from God at all. The very primitive biographical notices; outlines of tribal history interblended with singular personal experiences; genealogies of uninteresting names; crude ideas and antique customs of strange people—all this in connection with a favoured people, and relieved by streaks of light suited to men of later times, does not seem to be a mode of revelation most likely to survive the advancing intelligence of the world. It is also not the most satisfactory thing for so precious a boon as a revelation to be given in detached portions, to be conveyed originally to men of one country, and to be characterised by a series of supernatural events. Men feel that God has imposed a hard task on them to have to defend and justify what seems open to assault from so many sides. They wish it had been his will to have given his light so unmixed with an ancient human history that the most keen antagonist would be compelled to recognise its presence. To some it really seems as though the form and origin of the contents of the Bible were a misfortune. Of course this discontent, silent or expressed, springs from an imperfect consideration of the real nature and purport of the revelation given, as well as of the inevitable conditions of any revelation that has to be coextensive with the wants of both the first and last ages of the world; and that, moreover, has to be concentrated and verified in a Divine person duly attested by a contemporary evidence harmonious with a chain of antecedent proof. It would be useful to the Church if some one, dissatisfied with the way in which God is affirmed to have made known his will to succeeding ages, would prescribe the right way.

3 . The method of saving men by atonement. That God does save souls by means of an atonement bearing, in some way, an objective relation to his government, as well as a moral relation to men's lives, is so clearly the natural teaching of the Bible that it can only be eliminated by the adoption of a forced, non-natural interpretation of fact and statement. The discontent which some feel with the atonement is the reason for what is manifestly a forced interpretation of language. Entertaining the crude notion that the atonement is a transaction affecting three distinct beings, forgetful of the pregnant fact that it was God in Christ who, by sacrifice, effects redemption, and not considering well that all the pain and suffering, supposed to be imposed for the benefit of another, abide on any theory for the benefit of some one, they prefer a system in which pardon is based on the merits of a moral change brought on by a display of love in the shame and agonies of the cross!

4 . The means of perfecting holiness in character. The long and tedious process by which often the soul advances from one degree of purity to another awakens dissatisfaction and fretfulness. Why should so blessed an issue as sanctification be insured by sometimes loss of property, friends, and health? Is it not possible to secure elevation of character apart from tribulation?

5 . The means used for the conversion of the world. There is not a more common form of discontent than this. The Apostle Peter had to contend with it when he reminded his readers of the thousand years being with God as one day. That a religion demonstrably Divine, destined to be supreme, so entirely conducive to the temporal as also spiritual interests of all men, should be slow in progress and skill is a puzzle to many. Indolence, wild interpretations of prophecy, and latent scepticism are often but indications of a wish that God had not so ordained the constitution of things.

II. The PLEA FOR DISCONTENT IS PLAUSIBLE . The plea of the Israelites was that Samuel's sons were untrustworthy—the sources of justice were corrupt. The argument urged seemed to indicate a love of purity, concern for the moral welfare of the state, a fine sense of national honour, a real advance from the degradation which had acquiesced in the vices of Eli's sons, and an appreciation of Samuel's own character. But men often pay homage to conscience by creating delusive arguments Wherewith to set aside the behests of conscience. This reference to the sons of Samuel was only a pretext; for the evil could have been remedied by demanding their removal. It is clear that the plea was only a cover for a deep aversion, a predetermined plan to get rid of the present system, whether the prophet of God approved or not. Nor is the discontent of men with other of the methods of God without apparent reason. As in Samuel's time, so now, men who cherish or express uneasiness with respect to God's ways in the government of the world and revelation seize hold of some incident, some human aspect, some partial truth that really does not touch the main issue, and make it the cover for an aversion of deeper moral origin. An everlasting universal government has only had time to exhibit its first principles, and yet some transitory phenomenal inequalities are seized on as grounds of dissatisfaction with what must be of immeasurable range and ceaseless development. From scattered incidents of which the circumstances are not fully known, and from forms of representation suited to men not blessed with full gospel light, the discontented draw a plea for a revelation to the individual man apart from Scripture. To a plain, unbiassed mind an objective revelation and an objective atonement are as truly facts as was God's government by judges, and as is his present government of the world in spite of apparent inequalities; but earnest desire to see the world blessed with "true ideas" and "beneficent influences" are pleas for explaining away what is very clear. The plea sounds well; but if men will look deeper it may be found to cover a settled aversion to submit to a ruling not chosen by self. No revealed truth is in moral antagonism with our true nature.

III. The EFFECT OF THIS DISCONTENT ON THE LOYAL IS TO AWAKEN THEIR DEEP SYMPATHY WITH GOD . Samuel was deeply wounded, not by the allusion to his sons, but by the people's evident aversion to God's ways and time. That any one should dare to suggest a variation from what God had approved was to him incomprehensible. He felt that God's method and time must be wisest, best, safest, because they were his. As a true man of God, he naturally seeks counsel from on high. In Samuel's displeasure there was an element of surprise, but his dominant feeling was sympathy with all that was of God. Sympathy with God is one of the natural fruits of piety. It was seen in Caleb and Joshua when the people were averse to the Divine procedure. Jeremiah knew it when wishing that his head were waters and his eyes a fountain of tears. In Not my will, but thine be done" received its highest expression. In proportion as it is strong does the resistance of men to the ways of God cause wonder, shame, and anguish. To such a soul all the works of God are excellent; they shine with supernal glory. Providences dark and painful are even welcomed as parts of the Father's blessed discipline. What men call imperfections are felt to be only dim intimations of some glorious, loving purpose. "Whatever is is right," comes from the heart when the intellect is baffled. This blessed sympathy with God! This belief which no argument can shake! This glorious optimism resting on the fact that the all-wise and loving One cannot but do right! It is not any so called Christian that attains to it. Yet it is the truest philosophy; for it is rest in God, content with his will. "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."

IV. The DIVINE TREATMENT OF DISCONTENT IS CHARACTERISED BY WONDERFUL PATIENCE . No sudden vengeance came on the rejecters of God. Consolation is poured into the heart of the sorrowing prophet; a reference of their conduct to their ineradicable perversity is made, and they are to have their way under protest (verses 7-9). This patience is in keeping with the record of God's treatment of Israel in the seventy-eighth Psalm. "He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again" ( Psalms 78:39 ). The same is seen still. As Christ once "endured the contradiction of sinners," so does God constantly suffer men to raise their voice against his appointments. He is "slow to anger." Calmly he allows men even to deny his existence, to criticise his government, to reject the light of his revelation, to invent ways of their own for securing future blessedness, and to murmur at his means of subduing the curse of sin. In their folly men interpret this patience of God as evidence of the correctness of their position, forgetting that "the day of the Lord" is coming, when men shall reap the fruit of their ways. To the successors of the prophet there is still consolation in the assurance that their prayer is heard, and their honour covered by the honour of their God. Hence the calmness, "the patience of the saints." They often can do little more than "protest" against the unbelief and waywardness of the world. A whole nation on one side and a Samuel on the other does not convert error into truth and folly into wisdom. But none of these things shake the confidence of the few who, in critical seasons, are in deep sympathy with God; for they know, by a varied experience, his vast patience, and are assured that some day feeble men will learn the lesson, perhaps bitterly, that his ways are best.

General lessons : —

1 . The inconsistencies of men in office furnish occasion for developing the latent evils of their fellows (verses 3, 4).

2 . The deceitfulness of the heart is seen in the eagerness with which men endeavour to justify what dare not be plainly avowed (verse 5).

3 . Human history shows how utterly incompetent man is to form a correct estimate of the ways of God (verses 5, 8).

4 . It is possible for our theologies to be framed more after what we prefer than after what is actually the fact.

5 . When the Church of God is distressed because of the aversion to what is revealed, patience and prayer should be combined.

6 . The most sore trial to those in deep sympathy with what Christ has approved is to witness, on the part of his professed people, a desire to escape his appointments for something more congenial to unsanctified ambition.

7 . Every heresy and departure from God's ways is plausible to many, and may seem to be unchecked, but God never vacates his seat of authority.