1 Samuel 8:22

"And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king." 1 Samuel 8:22 .

A most awful communication this to make on the part of the living God. There are some compliances which indicate the deepest of all differences. God gives men the request of their heart, and sends leanness into their soul. They who rejoice in answers to prayer should recall the nature of the prayer itself, and ascertain thoroughly that the prayer was founded in wisdom and expressed a real necessity of the life. Where our prayer expresses nothing but whim, prejudice, passing taste, or changeful mood; or where it is inspired by a spirit of selfishness, the answer to it is the most tremendous condemnation which even God can inflict upon the suppliant. Answered prayer is in itself nothing; we must first know what the prayer is, and having discovered the nature of the prayer we should be able to estimate the value of the answer. All king-making is child's play. The people asked for a king as they might have asked for an idol; it was no spirit of loyalty that was rising in them towards monarchical institutions; it was simply the play of a fickle spirit, the action of a soul that was devoid of all moral permanence in its elections and pursuits A king elected so easily and so superficially may be thrown off with equal facility. It is the same with the election of friends. They who make their friends easily, dispose of them easily. It is the same with learning, with discipline, with all manner of high pursuit; "easy come, easy go," is a proverb which may apply very fittingly to them. The king was made at God's command, in the sense of God's permission being given. It does not therefore follow that the king was of God's choice. A fatal thing it may be for a man to have his own way; for the moment it is pleasant, for the moment the man may congratulate himself upon the happy issue; but all things are to be tested by the end. When once the heart goes roving after new sovereigns, it is impossible to tell how the fickleness may culminate. The love of change grows by exercise of choice. He has attained the highest point of discipline who accepts the highest ordinations of providence and waits for God himself to open new doors and create new opportunities. Whatever we change, we must never change the kingship of Jesus Christ. All other kings whom he may send to reign over us intermediately must be left to his control and discipline; he sets up and he puts down, and all his providence is an exertion on behalf of the fullest and deepest interests of his kingdom. Man is fond of creating institutions. Such creation gives an opportunity for the exercise of his inventive faculties to make a new toy, to establish a new order, to invent a new decoration, to bring about the setting up of a new throne; all these are the infantile exercises of the human mind. He only is right who says, The Lord reigneth, and by virtue of his sovereignty he will control all under-reigns, and bring all the forces and ministries of life to co-operate in the outworking of a divine dominion.