Samuel was growing old and made his sons judges over Israel. But Israel wanted something else instead.
And they had their reasons. Samuel’s sons did not walk in his ways; they perverted justice. Besides that, Israel had a solution – “make for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5). They wanted an earthly king over them so that 1) they could be like all the nations; and 2) so that he would judge them and go out before them and fight their battles (vss.19-20).
Aren’t their reasons “reasonable”? Reasonable to them, yes, but they are not the will of God. Samuel was displeased by their request for a king. But greater yet, God was displeased because “they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). At the direction of the Lord, Samuel told the people the “words of the Lord” (v.10), to show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them. The warning was meant to steer them away from their request that was displeasing to God. But the people “refused to obey the voice of Samuel” (vs.19). The Lord let them have a king.
“Every person’s way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord examines the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2). Israel had her reasons for asking for a king, but they were nothing more than what was right in their own eyes.
The question every man must ask and then answer for what he will believe and practice is this: What way is right in the eyes of the Lord? And the only way to answer it is to go to the Bible, to what is revealed. Moses had told Israel long before, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). In the same manner, in the age of the gospel, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17). That means do what Jesus authorized.
One says, “I have my reasons” for not assembling with the saints. Another says, “I have my reasons” for the sin that he has committed. Another says, “I have my reasons” for why he will divorce his wife when she is not guilty of sexual immorality.
“I have my reasons” won’t work in the home, in the workplace, or at play, but more importantly it won’t work with God. To be sure, we must examine ourselves and look into the perfect mirror of the word. What is right in one’s own eyes is no standard. The Scriptures are the standard by which we must live and by which we will be judged.
-Larry Jones