Notes on the International Lesson.
By J. W. Scoles
ISRAEL ASKING FOR A KING.
WHEN we stop to consider the surroundings of the children of Israel at this time, we can readily see some reasons which would cause them to desire a king. The war-like nations of Canaan were still in the land, and were oppressing them to an unwarranted degree. Samuel was not a warrior, but a man of peace; therefore the Hebrews naturally reasoned among themselves that in order for them to successfully meet and overcome these foes, they must have a ruler who would go out to battle with them, and employ the same tactics used by their enemies. That God designed to eventually bring his people to the point where a king could be given to them appears quite probable; but it is also evident that the king, instead of being a tyrannical monarch, ruling with absolute power as did the kings of other nations, would have been chosen with the entire sanction of God, and would probably have represented the Messianic office of Christ. THE underlying and principal reason, however, for this action on the part of the Israelites, was their pride. They said, "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations." Verse 5. This was the real secret. They desired to walk after the ways of the nations around them. This was the cause of numberless instances of apostasy among them afterward. And this spirit is just as liable to prove a snare to the feet of God's people to-day. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15. IN their eagerness and zeal to accomplish their object, the people did not stop to consider matters as carefully as they might have done. Doubtless few of them thought that in rejecting the services of Samuel they were thereby rejecting the Lord. But it was so. And perhaps we can at this point see the beginning of the gradual withdrawal of the Spirit of God from them, which went on until they were finally left entirely to their own devices, and the counsel of the Lord departed from them forever. MORE than one hundred years before this, the Jews had listened to the evil counsel of Abimelech and had made him king over them. His reign, however, was of short duration and ended so disastrously that no further efforts were made in this direction until the events referred to in the present lesson. By wrongfully clamoring for a king at this time, they were, in their pride and willfulness, depriving themselves of greater blessings than they could possibly hope to receive thereby. If we, in similar manner, persist in desiring things which God is not yet ready to bestow upon us, we likewise may shut away from ourselves the influences which would result in vastly better and more far-reaching benefits to our souls.