Acts 13:20-23
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
20 All this took about 450 years.
“After
this, God gave them judges(A) until the time of Samuel the prophet.(B) 21 Then the people asked for a king,(C)and he gave them Saul(D) son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin,(E) who ruled forty years. 22 After
removing Saul,(F) he made David their king.(G) He testified concerning him: ‘I have found
David son of Jesse a man after my own heart;(H)he will do everything I want him to do.’(I)
23 “From this man’s descendants(J) God has brought to Israel the Savior(K) Jesus,(L) as he promised.(
As you may recall,
the 450 years and the word “this” refers to the captivity in Egypt, the freeing
from Egypt and the wandering in the desert.
Now the Israelites want a leader so God gives to them judges, then a
prophet, and then ultimately what they had been begging for, a king. I would challenge each reader to go back and
read the accounts of these in your Bible.
The starting point would be Judges as this is an account of all the
Judges that God appointed. You will see
that there were struggles and strife under the leadership of man. We tend to forget that man is not perfect and
by “man” I mean humankind. For some
reason we think we know best but our ways are not God’s ways. He can see the full picture and we can merely
see the here and now. We can speculate
the future but our God knows the future.
As we read on we
see that God appointed a King through Samuel the prophet. You can find the account of the Israelites
insisting on a king in I Samuel 8:4 – 22.
God warned them through Samuel that a king would not always serve in the
best interest of the people but they insisted anyway that they have a king so
God granted their desire.
Once again the
people of Israel looked towards man rather than God to be their help in times
of trouble. In fact they even forgot to
teach their children about Him during the good times. Once again God granted their desire and
allowed them to have that which they asked for.
Putting that into perspective for us today I have to wonder how many
time God will grant my desires just because I ask Him enough or just to show me
the results of trusting man over Him.
Each time we look to another human as the savior of the world, we are
looking for trouble to come. Hitler came
to mind when I thought of this. In the
beginning things sounded pretty good with him yet he deceived and caused many
Jews to be killed.
Who are we holding
as King today? Is it our Lord and Savior
or do we still look at man to fulfill our satisfactions? That is a question for each of us to answer
on our own. If we allow the Lord and
Savior to be our King, there is nothing that will separate us from His
love. We will always know that we are
safe in His care and that He loves us.
As you seek Him
today remember that we should not fear nor should we depend on any human to be
our ultimate leader. Mankind will fail
because of our sinful nature, simply, none of us are perfect. God sent the only perfect leader into this
world and His name is Jesus. If you know
Him, allow Him to be your One and only leader.
If you do not know Him then I urge you to meet Him today.
Seeking Him with
all my heart,
Sheila
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