Samuel 8:6-7:“But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD.And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you,for they have not rejected you,but they have rejected Me from being King over them.”
In ancient Israel, God ruled over the people through judges that rendered justice according to the Word of God. But the people were not satisfied with an arrangement that had worked since they became a nation. If you read the story, Samuel was growing old and the office of being a judge fell to his sons who did not follow after the righteous judgments of their father, but departed into sinful acts of greed and evil.
The nation had been built on guiding principles found in their basic doctrines given to them from Mt. Sinai, The Ten Commandments. Israel forgot who was their source of power, protection, and their very lives to prosper and grow. They demanded a king to rule over them, just as the nations about them had over them. God commanded that Samuel warn the people of their rejection of Him, and look to a human ruler to meet their needs of daily living.
Samuel’s Warning Against Kings
1 Samuel 8.9-18:
“Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn themand show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him.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.
And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and someto plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young menand your donkeys, and put them to his work.He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.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.”
After those days, Israel had nothing but trouble. Wars on every side and the peace and safety they longed for, escaped them for years of hard living. Israel reasoned that to give the control to a king, would relieve them of the responsibility of controlling their own lives and following after the ways of their true leader, Almighty God.
A king would protect them, like other nations did, but never realized what they were giving up or what they had become. It was not that God was against them having a king, but the people had become rebellious against the ways of God, and the problem was not them wanting a king, but that they had fallen so far in their spiritual condition, they could not see that the problem was them, not the need for a king. So it is with us!
Voting for a Modern King amongst Us
Can we see this happening around us? Can we apply this biblical story of what happened to another ancient people who abandoned following after the founding principles that formed their nation? The Bible was written to give us examples that righteous living brings prosperity, a gift from God, when the people fear His name and reverence His teachings; by submitting to His righteous rule and embracing His ways by incorporating them into our individual lives.
So was it that this nation was founded upon principles laid as a bedrock in our Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. We’ve had our “bumps in the road” but God has blessed this nation like no other in all of history. We elected our representatives to give a voice for the people who feared God and expected those we chose to guide this nation in the ways of our founding documents forged by men of honor, our founding fathers of this nation intended.
The nation was founded by the people and for the people. Our guiding rule was our belief and foundation in the invisible ruler of this nation, God Almighty. Our faith and trust by historical events pointed to our need, our desire, and our understanding of this principle, “One nation, UNDER GOD!” For two hundred years this is the way it was, but times have changed and not for the better.
A Nation in Decline
Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, this country has decided that we no longer wish to have God rule over us. We have abandoned the founding principles that made this nation great. We have looked to ourselves. Humanist principles have overtaken our once Godly principles based on the bible that the majority of Americans believed in. Fleshly desires of sinful living have dominated our culture starting with dissolving prayer in our schools. Our education system has indoctrinated a whole generation of impressionable young minds that are now the adults who govern this nation. It is said about education from a quote sometimes attributed to Abraham Lincoln:
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”
From this period of secular education, the teachers of our children have infected impressionable minds with sex education, evolution, values clarification, moral relativism, Darwinian evolution, Socialism and Marxism, earth worship, multiculturalism, one-world globalism, Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian territories, and appeasement in foreign policy.
This is the generation that is of voting age that just elected Barack Hussein Obama to another term of at least four more years. This deplorable spiritual condition of our nation is manifested in the electorate voting for a man with credentials that would not qualify him for dog catcher, let alone PROTUS. Joel Rosenberg has noted:
It is stunning to think that more than 6 million self-described evangelical Christians would vote for a president who supports abortion on demand; supported the same-sex marriage ballot initiatives that succeeded in Maryland, Maine and Washington; and was on the cover of Newsweek as America’s “first gay president.”
Did these self-professed believers surrender their biblical convictions in the voting booth or did they never really have deep biblical convictions on the critical issues to begin with?…This is what happens when the church is weak and fails to disciple believers to turn biblical faith into action. Given the enormous number of evangelical Christians in the U.S., this bloc could still affect enormous positive change for their issues if they were to unify and vote for the pro-life, pro-marriage candidate as a bloc….
What will it take to educate, register and mobilize Christians to vote on the basis of biblical principles, and what kind of candidates could best mobilize them? This is a critical question that Christian political leaders as well as pastors must seriously consider. As we have seen, just a few million more evangelicals voting for pro-life, pro-marriage candidates could offset other demographics that are becoming more liberal.
This behooves us to ask us the question, “What has become of the citizens of this nation?” What has developed is an entire generation devoid of biblical instruction or understanding. They know nothing of the founding Christian principles that formed this nation or the blessing of free market capitalism. They forget what the Bible says when it comes to standing with His chosen people (Israel) in the last days. Let’s look at that. Why have we been blessed in the last fifty years other than standing on founding principles that formed this nation?
We stood with Israel from its inception. We nurtured and helped defend their national right to exist. But you speak to a lot of the evangelical members and they only talk of the Palestinian plight of Israeli “aggression.” And no more do we stand with Israel as a majority in our government or our citizenry. Oh, they talk the talk, but their deeds and actions prove otherwise. We talk of still being a “nation under God” but our actions and deeds prove us to be liars.
Cases in Point of National Decay
We have an administration that has from all reported details, lied to about what happened in Benghazi, Libya. As more and more details are brought to light, we discover how we were deceived. I hear reports of gun running headed by our now, deceased Ambassador Chris Stevens, to Syrian rebels through Turkey. Is that right?
I don’t know, but since they lied to us about one aspect, what else are they covering up? Security was obviously lacking. So was it planned, or was it incompetence? It seems the people of this nation could care less to hold those responsible accountable. They should demand answers and punish those who are responsible bordering on treason, if the reports turn out to be true.
We hear about election fraud in Florida and the major portions of the all the swing states to give the election to Obama. Voting irregularities of fixed voting machines that are programmed to give a 51-49% voting edge to whomever they choose. Political analysts who projected a landslide based on historical demographics of past elections and somehow they got it all wrong? The people should be up in arms to hear these stories of a perversion of the national right to vote and have it mean something. Our God given right to vote our beliefs may have just been stolen by dark forces.
We have a debt of 16 plus trillion dollarswith no sign of fiscal sanity and the reported “fiscal cliff” looms in our near future. Our economy is divided into the haves, and the have nots. Rich against poor, black against white, ethic group against ethnic group. We stand on the edge of financial ruin. Europe is burning with Greece, Spain, and Italy all fearing economic collapse. The world has impending financial collapse imploding upon itself. The people should be invading Washington D.C. demanding fiscal sanity. This is our money being wasted.
We have a Middle East crisis with looming war between Gaza and the IDF, with players of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and their benefactor Iran, just itching to get in the fight to remove Israel from being a nation. Could this be the precursor to Psalm 83:2-4?
“For behold, Your enemies make a tumult;
And those who hate You have lifted up their head.
They have taken crafty counsel against Your people,
And consulted together against Your sheltered ones.They have said,
“Come, and let us cut them off from beinga nation,
That the name of Israel may be remembered no more.”
Or Isaiah 17:1-3?
“Behold, Damascus will cease frombeinga city,
And it will be a ruinous heap.
The cities of Aroerareforsaken;
They will be for flocks
Which lie down, and no one will makethemafraid. The fortress also will cease from Ephraim,
The kingdom from Damascus,
And the remnant of Syria;
They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,
Says theLordof hosts.”
Neither of these prophecies have been fulfilled. Damascus has been a city inhabited for over 5,000 years and a confederacy of these nations determined to destroy Israel has never taken place. A feared outbreak of war in the Middle East leading to another world war engulfing all of us gives the masses a fear that cannot be remedied except through the power of a man. This should give each of us pause to understand the prophetic closeness of the coming of the Son of Man again to end mortal man’s rule and set-up His own kingdom that will never end.
Returning to our own home country, we see a nation devoid of love of one another. Crime is rampant as looting and evil grips the northeast after hurricane Sandy destroyed many lives and their feelings of security. Still we look to a man to save us. Also, voters embraced same sex marriage in a number of states, legalizing marijuana in others, fraud in elections, and our borders pouring illegals into this country with some, no doubt, with intent to do the citizenry harm.
Energy prices soaring only to get worse. Financial ruin awaits everyone who is suddenly out of a job and can’t find work. Unemployment at a false low of 7.8% will most likely soar in the coming months. Evil is at the door of every American living today. It waits to engulf us, but most go merrily along without a care in the world. Obama will fix it. Really?
This is the man who has repeatedly circumvented the clear constraints of the U.S. Constitution with edicts and executive orders, thus bypassing the legislature who are the lawmakers,and guardians of the purse strings. This is the man, who threatens by UN agreement to take away our Second Amendment right to bear arms. This is the man who constrains our ability to be energy independent by bowing to the environmentalist at the EPA.
This is the man who spends and wants to tax the masses till the buffalo on the nickel bellows in pain. We are fast approaching financial insolvency and the collapse of our economy. Millions will die from starvation or the streets will be filled with rioters. Martial law will be enacted and many will be imprisoned for being scared and hungry. And this is just a partial list of the Obamination that inflicts our country. This is the same path that many dictators have taken to control the masses, thus making themselves in effect, king. All hail, the king?
Oh, we yearn for a more simpler time, when American was the home of brave, land of the free. America started on the right foot, but see how far we have fallen?
James Madison said:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind of self-government; upon the capacity of each andall of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.
A great start for this country, but what have we done? We have turned our backs on God, and I fear that He has turned His back on us, as a nation.
Do we think that it was coincidence that the largest perfect storm to hit the United States called “Hurricane Sandy” was pure global warming, as the pundits want to suggest? I believe God has given us wake-up call after wake-up call. 9/11/2001 was such a call. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy most likely, were wake up calls as well. It seems that God is trying to get our attention. Are we listening? Appears not, as we need a king to rule over us. We need someone to fix what ails this country.
We put our trust in a man, that the media says “gives them a tingle up their leg.” We want a messiah, a deliverer, or anyone who can solve our problems for us. We want a modern day, King Saul. We want free health care, we want free “Obama phones,” we want food stamps and any and all government handout systems that will relieve us from self-reliance and getting off our duffs to have God provide. What? God provide? It seems we threw Him out long ago. Don’t look to God in your present condition. Look to Obama!! Yeah, right!!!
We don’t even know who this man is or his background. We don’t know where he came from with certainty. We just go right on trusting our modern messiah. So we went to the polls and at least 47% of Americans on the welfare dole, voted for this man. The rest was by hook or crook, as the powers that be aren’t going to give up without a fight, or a plan to steal it right out from under our noses.
King Obama
It has been reported that this administration is the most divisive, non-transparent, and narcissistic of any modern presidency of our time. Look at his record, or the lack thereof. Barack Obama stands openly for the things that God is against. He takes great pride is doing so. He campaigned with these things as the reasons why you should vote for him and re-elect him to the office of president. The first time he ran for president he was largely an unknown entity, and he used great guile and deceit to become elected.
But when we all went to the polls this month to again decide to vote him in or not, he was a very well-known candidate. My question is, why? Because the problem is not that we elected again an unqualified man to lead this nation, as our prince, but the problem is “We the people.” Look in the mirror, folks. Do you see the problem? It’s an unbelieving society. We are so far removed from the teachings of the bible, if the founding fathers were resurrected, they would surely shake their head in dismay and disbelief.
I have changed my mind about the future of American, as I fear that we are so far removed from God that we will never find our way back. The corner has been turned, and there is NO coming back. Pray all you want for this nation, but I see the judgment of God coming to our shores and covering the land like a cloud. To administer judgment, God has a historical habit of using men to enact His penalty for rebellion against His Laws, and His way of life. Coupled with that, expect more natural disasters, environmental upheaval, and untold destruction. Islam and their evil cohorts smell our weakness and they will only get stronger, as we get weaker. The only thing holding back complete annihilation is that God’s church, His true church is in the way. When I say, true church, I don’t mean that modern social club that sits in Sunday services thinking on anything and everything that is of this world and its pleasures. As it was in the days of Noah and Lot, our Lord’s statement in Luke 17:26-30 warns:
“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and thefloodcame, and destroyed them all.
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”
Jesus warned that there will be no messiah, until the true Messiah, the Lord of Hosts will break through the clouds and proclaim, “Come up hither.” When Jesus calls for His church to be removed, then my reader, “All hell will break loose.” No false messiah, no Obama and no mere man will be able to save this nation from utter destruction. America will have gone the way of ancient Rome, destroyed.
Why is the nation of America not mentioned anywhere in the Bible? I believe she will be decimated to the level of a third world country or invaded from without or from within. The principles that we rebelled against that were God given will matter not in the least to what’s left of this nation at that hour.
Judgment in all its wrath will be raining down all over the world, and this nation SHOULD, and will possibly receive the greatest condemnation as it had so much, and gave up even more when so many turned their backs on their only benefactor that insured their greatness and their posterity, God Almighty.
This nation that poured untold amount of missionaries into other countries in days gone by, printed millions of copies of God’s Word to be distributed worldwide, and professed to be a Judeo-Christian believing nation, has abandoned it all. It will be a judgment sorely deserved and awful to watch.
Election Is Over, America Lost
Men and women of conservative political persuasion lament the outcome of this past election. Maybe God would have given us more time by electing a president Romney, but from where I stand, God has said “NO.” I believe there is no more time. When will this judgment start in earnest? I believe the introduction has begun. The first act of impending judgment awaits its beginning with the opening of the First Seal of Revelation 6:1-2:
“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”
This is the beginning of the wrath of God, or the revealing of the Antichrist, the one who sits on the white horse. How close is this man to be revealed? It would be safe to say that this man is alive today. Many have hypothesized that Obama could be this man. Is he? We can’t say for sure, as he doesn’t fit a lot of the requirements and attributes of the infamous anti-Christ. But one thing is certain, Obama is anti-God, anti-Bible, and anti-Christian no matter what he mouths in words, as his deeds betray him.
We have nationally elected by whatever means a man devoid of Christian principles and biblical foundation for governing in righteousness or at least in honesty and truth. BUT with all the doubts and failings in this president, WE THE PEOPLE ignored all that and elected him anyway. It will come back to haunt us all. It spells the spiraling death dive of a once great God fearing nation to its shame.
When the hour comes upon you and judgment begins to fall, who will you look to? Will you hold out your hand to Obama (or any sitting president if it should go to another man or woman to fill that office) or will you raise your hands to heaven and pray to your only hope, God Almighty through His Son, Jesus Christ?
If that man who is spoken of in Revelation chapter 6 rides upon the scene and you wonder what all the commotion is about when some report disappearance of a bunch of people all over the earth, then what will you be thinking? Will you be thinking that God is my source of deliverance or will you be voicing, “All hail, the king?” Most likely according to Scripture, the latter will be your only choice and your only thought. Help from the king? Don’thold your breath. Death and destruction is probably your future. When that happens:
1 Samuel 8.18: 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.”
But there is a better choice. A choice for eternity, a choice for life:
2 Corinthians 6.2:
“For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
For Jesus said in John:
Jesus said to him,“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Hebrews 9.27-28:
“And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”
Don’t make the mistake that Obama or any other mortal can make your life meaningful or solve your earthly problems. Look to Jesus who is our source for eternal life. Don’t look to an earthly king, but to the Lord of lords, and King of kings. Don’t wait another day. Time is running out.
This is Pastor Mike Taylor, praying God’s salvation comes into your life. If you have need for counseling, prayer or just a listening ear, send me an email: realteam1999@sbcglobal.net, or visit me online at www.churchofgod-usa.org .
God bless you, until we meet at Jesus’ feet.