As you've heard from both Maria and myself a number of times, we have the great pleasure of living right across the street from a couple of just gorgeous and precious little granddaughters. And when you're a grandparent, it seems like the time that you get to watch your grandchildren and watch the things that they learn in their lives, their experiences that they go through and everything, you kind of cherish that a lot more than with your own children. When we're raising our family, it seems like we're so involved with the rat race and all those other things that we don't have enough time to really just keep track of those things and enjoy those things like we do with our grandkids.
But one thing I enjoy about little kids is—and we've been able to watch this with these two little granddaughters—is the phases that they go through. And one of the phases that I think is the most enjoyable is whenever they go through that little discovery stage. You can kind of get the picture looking back how it must have been with Adam and Eve—especially with Adam, as God brought the animals and everything to him, and he named those things. He'd never seen anything like that before.
And we kind of have this experience with these little granddaughters because as they were growing up, even as they were babies, I remember carrying the oldest one on my back in a back-pack and we'd go to the county fair every summer, every August. And it was just really something to be able to watch her as we take her down amongst the animals and get to pet the muzzle of a little sheep or something like that or see the ducks and the chickens and look at something like a draft horse. You know that's a monster to a little kid! And it was just wonderful to watch that.
But I can't help but think about that especially as we went through the Feast of Tabernacles, heard the messages, and everything there. And just the setting and everything about the Millennium, we couldn't help but make the comparison of that discovery period that a little child goes through and what folks are going to experience in the beginning of the Millennium, the beginning of that thousand years, the reign of Jesus Christ. That's probably going to take place, at least that first and second generation for those people who live through the tribulation and go into the Millennium.
So that's kind of where I got the—when Rick asked me what I was going to talk about, it's kind of Feast Leftovers. Well, if we think about that, if we see the things that are going on around us all the time in the world, don't we think about the world tomorrow? Don't we think about the Millennium all the time? We think about that every day just in our day to day life. So this is kind of a carry over from the Feast.
And I know that we've all heard speculations through the years about what the Millennium is going to be like. But if we kind of look at it from the perspective of these new, if I can use the term, Millennium-ites, because that's kind of what they're going be, they're going to live over into that thousand year period. And what are some of the things that they're going to discover? If we thought about that, if we get on that thought train and kind of let that develop a little bit, I'm sure every one of us have just hundreds of things that we'd like to see changed. And again, that's the things that we think about all the time, when we see the things going on around us.
There's Scripture over in Ezekiel 9, I believe it is, where he's told to go through the city and put a mark on the forehead of those that sigh and cry for the abominations that are going on around them. All we have to do is watch the news. The only good news we've had lately is those Chilean miners that got rescued. That was refreshing, although the media made a circus out of it! I did hear a rumor about that one guy that he had a wife and a mistress and wanted them both to be there when he came up. I understand that the wife asked them to leave him down there.
Anyhow, as we think about the things that are going to take place in the Millennium, I'm sure things are going to be a lot different. We can look back on the history of the Church. We all remember. We all have those experiences when the Church kind of fell apart. Things just worked out a lot different that what we thought.
But again, if this idea stimulates the thought process, I'm sure we could come up with a number of things. But when I started my mental list, I thought of at least one thing these folks would experience, one thing that's going to be sure. There's not going to be any doubt at all, they're going to discover—what these new Millennium-ites are going to discover in the very beginning when Christ reigns and when that thousand years begins—there's going to be no conflict in the world. There's going to be none. Of course, they're going to fight Christ initially. They're going to fight His reign, but that's going to be put down very quickly.
But there's going to be and I made kind of a "No List" there, because there's going to be no threats of war. There's going to be no war. There's going to be no governments at each other's throat. There's going to be no war machines—no armies, no navies, no air forces.
No fear of terrorists, which we all live under now—one form or another. You know, we get all these travel advisories. And we even think about it in this country. I don't know how many fly around the country, but that's kind of a little fear in the back of your mind. "Is this thing going to get knocked out of the air? What's going to happen?"
And when you think about that no military, none of those things, none of that great drain on gross national product because when you even look at our country at the expense of that, and the other countries in the world, there's a huge tax burden. And that's what's happening. And you know when you think about that, all of these are the result of one thing—a result of leadership and government in the world.
And even as we go into the, as we start the Millennium, even with Jesus Christ in charge and those spirit beings that are going to be with Him, there's going to have to be organization and structure. So there's going to have to be some leadership in the world tomorrow. There's going to have to be leadership in the Millennium. God does not operate chaotically. He just doesn't do that. In other words, what these new folks, what these new Millennium-ites are going to discover is going to be a complete change in leadership, in rulership and government.
So the title that I've given to this and I've changed it several times! Actually this was a spare sermon that I had for the Feast. So I've changed it a number of times, but anyhow the title that I've given this version of it is Leadership and Government in the Millennium.
And you know I think, in fact, I don't really have to speculate about it all, but I think Jesus Christ looked ahead to this time too. But let's take a look at the way He approached it and maybe get a little bit of different viewpoint—and hopefully His viewpoint—on all this, on government, leadership, rulership, power, authority, all of that. And I'd like to turn to that familiar account over in Matthew 20. And I'll mostly use the New King James. Well, I've been using the American Standard for a lot of study anymore. But anyhow over in Matthew 20, I'd like to read verses 20 through 28.
Matthew 20:20. Then the mother (NKJ)
We know this is Salome.
Matthew 20:20b. of Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him. (NKJ)
We have a parallel account over in Mark 10 verses 35 through 45. And we see that these two sons are James and John. Also then in Mark's account, he leaves out "Mom's name." I think he's kind of maybe trying to kind of shield her from this account. And there's another account of this in Luke.
But in any case, we can see here that there's maneuvering for position, power, and status amongst the disciples.
Verse 21:
Matthew 20:21. And He [Christ] said to her, "What do you wish?" She said to Him, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom."
22) But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask. Are you (NKJ)
And He's addressing James and John because He knows where all this originated.
Matthew 20:22b. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" (NKJ)
And, of course, the reference to baptism here is referring to His death, symbolic of His death, what He would suffer for all mankind.
Matthew 20:22 continued. They said to Him, "We are able."
23) So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, (NKJ)
And again, the "cup" here metaphorically is just used to denote God's wrath, which again Christ would suffer for all mankind.
Matthew 20:23b. and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; (NKJ)
And we know that later on historically that they would suffer as He did. James would be martyred and John would die as a prisoner. But continuing in verse 23:
Matthew 20:23 continued. but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father." (NKJ)
So even here it's kind of important His whole approach to this, because He did not overstep His authority here. He said it wasn't His to give. It wasn't His purpose at that point to make appointments to rulership to power. He was teaching by example and what He was teaching, we have to kind of read this into it, but what He was teaching there is it's not wrong to be great. It's not wrong to have power or authority. It's the behavior of the person when that happens. That's the problem as we'll see as we go further along here.
But finishing up that verse:
Matthew 20:24. And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. (NKJ)
Now as we know from commentators and they're probably correct that what bothered the others more than anything here, they thought they were being beat out of something. They wanted these desirable positions too. And they thought they were being beat out of it.
And we can kind of get in their thinking mode here when we think about the culture and the environment that these folks lived in. Whenever they thought about power and position, they had to look at the power and position that was around them. They were the products of their environment just like we are. They had the Sanhedrin made up of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, if they weren't priests then, they were former priests and that was the ruling class of people. And that's what they were looking at. I guess the equivalent in our society would be the Supreme Court. (I don't know if you saw the nice photo op of the recent addition and everything of Kagan to the Supreme Court. That was kind of a scary photograph to me.) That would sort of be the equivalent of what they looked up to here—kind of a ruling body.
And, in fact, if we look further at the commentaries that tell us that whenever the Sanhedrin convened, it'd be this large body of these individuals with these very visible positions and power. They had the clothing; they had the dress; everything that pointed to their power and authority. And they loved to exhibit these things, as we know. But the high priest, the presiding president over these meetings would kind of form in a semi-circle. And when they did that, they'd have one person on the left and one person on the right. That's what they were referring to here. That's what James and John wanted. That's what Salome wanted. That's what Mom wanted. She wanted to see them on His left and on His right, which meant they were the right and the left hand men, I suppose.
And the Jews love to watch these proceedings. It was kind of like entertainment. I guess I would relate it to something like one of my favorite TV programs is Judge Judy. I don't know if you know what kind of money she makes, but she makes a huge amount of money. I think she makes something like $8-10 million a year just to do that program. So the point being, this is huge entertainment for those folks too. They loved to watch these proceedings.
So James and John and all the disciples were very much aware of what position and power and authority represented in that society. And actually when you think about that, that was the whole value system that they had of that structure. And you can add to that the hierarchical structure of the Roman rule which they were under because they saw that all the time.
Now here's where we get into the rulership and the government thing. Continuing in Matthew 20 verse 25:
Matthew 20:25. But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. (NKJ)
And, again He's not condemning authority, even power and position. But the Greek here, for "exercise authority", means to use privilege over. In the case of the Pharisees, it was tyrannical—the way they ruled over people!
Verse 26:
Matthew 20:26. "Yet it shall be [not] so among you; (NKJ)
If you look up this word "not" in any Greek study, it's a very interesting word, because it's a "positive negative." And what that really means is that there's a space there. There's nothing there. And that's what Christ is emphatically telling these disciples. "You will not do this! You won't rule like this! You won't exercise authority like that. It will not be there." And it won't be there in the Millennium. It just won't be there.
But continuing verse 26:
Matthew 20:26b. but whoever desires (NKJ)
And He's teaching them an important lesson here. He says:
Matthew 20:26b. but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. (NKJ)
He's introducing actually servant-leadership. Now this is an entirely foreign concept to them because they'd never seen this before. There were people in position and authority that should be serving them, but they were obviously serving themselves. So, servant-leadership at all levels is what Christ is talking and teaching about here. He's introducing a godly principle of leadership to these disciples. And again, historically this is an entirely new concept to the world.
We need a sharp contrast here. And I kind of did a little bit of research so we could have a contrast and just look at some of the history of our lifetime. This is pretty easy to do. I recently rented from Netflix—I use Netflix; that might bother some people, but at least I have a choice of what I watch—I rented a series called "The Nazis: The Lesson from History." That's a documentary. It's five hours long! I would highly recommend it, but that's up to you if you can watch those kinds of things. But it was all based on archival records. The history of the Nazis, the history of Germany, and the way they operated is very well documented. And they used live interviews. They interviewed even some of the Nazis that were participants in this.
We have to think about what went on here because one man, one man—Hitler—and he came to power in the thirties as some of us older ones may know. Germany was, at that point, it was national socialist country. And he came to power because he promised prosperity to the German people. That's exactly how he got into power. And, of course, as things turned out, as he went on and on and they grew their industrial base. Everybody had a job. Everybody had a high standard of living and everything, but what you couldn't see going on in the background was he was doing a lot of that with slave labor.
If we think about those 55 million people because of this one individual—and he did some horrible things—I learned from that documentary something that I never heard before, that I never knew before is that the Polish people suffered as much as anybody. One in five poles died at the hands of the Germans.
What they did, they went in and when they conquered Poland, they divided it into districts. And they put district managers over every one of these places. They were SS Officers. These were highly educated, highly cultured individuals. And they ruled these people and it was very cruelly. They talk about inhumanity to fellow human beings—these people were terrible! They even said that they even used some of the militia, the Polish militia, to clean out certain areas.
And what was happening—and this is part of the horror that these Polish people suffered—Germans living in Russia because Hitler's plan was to go ahead and invade Russia. And he literally wiped out everything as he went because his plan was to grow Germany into Russia. And when he did that all the Germans that lived in Russia were coming back. So, they were taking all the homes and the businesses and everything away from these Polish people and moving them out, moving these Germans in.
You talk about oppression and injustice! This went on and on. And they were using some of the militia. And in some cases, they'd literally go in and just murder whole villages, whole towns. Ands some of the militia got to the point they got so hardened—their hearts got so hardened with the brutality—that they would kill children. They would have them shoot children in front of their moms. And some of the soldiers even got to the point where they enjoyed hearing the screaming and everything of the mom. This is abusive, horrible rulership!
One Russian leader actually learned from Hitler. That was Joseph Stalin. He killed like twenty million of his own countrymen. He'd have 1,500 to 2,000 people shot every day. Every day! It's said that when he had a bad day, he'd pick up the phone and he said, "Kill another five or six thousand this week"—of his own countrymen.
And again these days it's easy to do some research on google, but I looked up some other leaders that should have made a difference, national leaders that should have helped to serve people. I don't know whether you've ever heard the "kleptocracy". This is rule by thieves! That's what that means. It's a ruling class of leaders that get rich off the expense of the people they're supposed to be serving and mostly these come from impoverished countries.
I made a short list—and this is a short list! Mohammed Suharto was the President of Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. $15 to 35 billion he skimmed off. And you talk about people that literally starve to death, dying of all kinds of things. And these are US dollars, by the way. And unfortunately for us poor gullible taxpayers, that probably is a lot of US dollars. Our good friend Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines from 1972 to '86. $5 to 10 billion dollars he stole. Sani Abacha, President of Nigeria, 1993 to '98, $2 to 5 billion! And this all goes where? Into Swiss bank accounts? I don't know. Slobodan Milosevic—didn't they just retry that guy again? Take him before the World Court? I'm not sure—anyhow, President of Serbia/Yugoslavia 1998 to 2000, $1 billion. Last one on this short list, John-Claude Duvalier, President of Haiti—now there's a poor country—1971 to '86, $300 to 800 million dollars he skimmed off!
And this is just a sample. You know this is a long list. If you want to do something really interesting to really get a taste for this, go google "political corruption" and "human rights violations" and see what you come up with. It's going to be not only an eye-opener, it's scary.
Okay let's continue here in Matthew 20 verse 27. Christ is teaching them an important lesson about all this. He's telling them how it's not going to be! Verse 27:
Matthew 20:27. "And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—
28) "just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (NKJ)
"Ransom" here, actually if we put verse 27 and 28 together it's talking about the price of redeeming a slave, the price for Himself.
We also, someone reminded me when I gave this message down in Prosser, they reminded me also we have all these representations, all these titles for Christ and one title that He has is Chief Shepherd. And Stuart, I think, one time gave a sermon down in Prosser about the qualities and characteristics of a shepherd. So if we put all these things together, we have an entirely different picture of the leadership than anything that we see in the world today.
Looking at these verses here, this is where commentators kind of explain especially in these latter verses that's it's referring to government within the Church. That is it's religious versus secular government. Some older commentaries like my Clarke's point out that they've used the example and the model of the Catholic Church with its Pope-like figure as the worst example of lording it over and domineering—people that are supposed to be following and believing in Christ.
I have a book at home in my library. It's called The Dark Side of Christianity. You can find that if you want to look it up. But it's about all the atrocities and everything committed by patriarchal religions down through history and it's largely pointing to the Catholic Church. Now I know you think I'm probably going to launch into some kind of a diatribe about Church government, but I'm not going to do that. But I'd be less than honest if I told you that I didn't have some hard spots with some of the things in the past. I was very much a part of that either directly or indirectly. I really believed there was a God's government on earth. I really believed that at one point.
By the way you won't find that term in the Bible. It's just not there. You'll find some references to government, but very few that actually heard Christ and God the Father, the God Family, very few. Oh, you'll find a lot of governor, princes, all kinds of leader things there, but you'll find very few that actually refer to the government of God.
Again, I spent five years in the military and when I came in the Church about ten years later, you know that rank, that class system looked perfectly acceptable to me. I thought I'd kind of fell right into it again because that's part of that. I came out of the services a petty officer, but I didn't realize the damage that that what was going on actually did until much later on.
I was talking to someone recently and they used the reference of "Kool-Aid." You know, "Don't drink the Kool-Aid." Of course, that came from Jim Jones and all the terrible things that happened there. But I made the comment—again this is not a diatribe—I made the comment that to me the "Kool-Aid" in our history was the submission to church government.
Because when we think about that, as we submitted to that, we gave all that power and authority to an organization, which effectively became an idol to us. It was to me. It became an idol to me.
I know some folks might take exception to that. And I'm not trying to offend anyone here, but the fact is that God's government is coming. It's not here yet! It's never been here! But it is coming as we'll see later.
Anyhow, all that other—the diatribes and all that—that's for private discussion if you want to do that. And I don't want to get into that publicly because frankly I hate to see grown-ups get angry, throw things, cry, all of that.
There is a little bit of humor from the past though. I thought of one. We were talking—Rick and I were talking about things from the Feast. And I said, "One thing I'd like to see at the Feast next year is the Feast stickers." Remember those? We'd get those in the mail and you'd get instructions and you had to put them on—wasn't it the driver's side? Had to be on the driver's side front and rear! If you showed up at the Feast and they were on the other side and the wrong person saw it, you might get suspended till the following year. And when you showed up and had them on the right side that would demonstrate your conversion by your submission to the government! I'm just kidding!
We had a lot of fun with that in our house though because we started calling that something when we saw those stickers. We'd be on our way to the Feast and you'd see the bumper stickers. My son, he'd get a big laugh out of that and say, "Oh look, Dad! There's the mark of the Feast!" (Laughter!) I don't think we're going to have bumper stickers! But okay, get back to serious side of it.
Okay we know Hebrews 13:8. "Christ is the same yesterday and today." He's not going to change. And to me, He's doing more here than trying to counter the narrow ambition of a couple of disciples. It goes far beyond that. It goes far beyond any form of church administration that men decide to call "the government of God." It goes far beyond that. And if we stretch our perspective a little bit, I think it's safe how we can just extrapolate how God's going to set up His government in the Millennium. And actually He's comparing that right now. He's contrasting how man governs—and we even do that in the Church—He's contrasting how they govern and how They want Their Family to serve, to lead, and to govern in the Millennium and even going on into eternity, if we think about that. Because God says what? There's going to be no end of His government—no end at all!
Another thing that's always kind of bothered me here is why Christ just didn't point to the example of the Pharisees of what not to follow. When you think about that, that was without a doubt the dominant ruling class at that time. They had their social hierarchy with the greater and the lesser hierarchs through it because that was just the way it was done in Jewish national society of that day. So why not just use that as an example?
The more I thought about that I thought that maybe the reason that He's doing that because Christ had the panorama of all of human history. He had all of that. He could see all of that. His perspective was much bigger, much larger than ours. And we can see that also that structure there, that pharisaical, the Sanhedrin, all that structure came to an end in 70 AD. That just came to an end. So if we take this approach then, what He was teaching transcended historically what was going on there—manmade governments and all that, even those including the ones the disciples found themselves in at that time.
So what kind of Gentile rulership was Christ referring to? What kind of government was He really commanding them not to emulate? Again, He said, "It won't be there." You have to go back in history to do that.
So I'd like to turn back to 1 Samuel 8. This is another familiar account. Back to 1 Samuel 8 and maybe we can get an idea here where Christ's thinking was when He was telling these disciples this. Because Christ could not only see back then, He could see, obviously, where He was at, and also into the future of how things were going to be. He doesn't change. He and God the Father do not change Their approach in anything and especially when it comes to something like this that affects everyone. 1 Samuel 8 beginning in verse 1:
1 Samuel 8:1. Now it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel. (NKJ)
Actually Samuel was the last judge. The Period of the Judges was coming to an end. The Theocracy was coming to a close. A monarchy of kings, rule by kings, was about to take over. (Arnie taught me that one. That's called word assassination!)
Verse 2, 1 Samuel 8:
1 Samuel 8:2. The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges [ruling class in Israel] in Beersheba.
3) But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice. (NKJ)
Very common thing to happen, right?
Wasn't it Abraham Lincoln said that all you have to do is to measure and test the character of a man is just to give him some power, give him some authority?
Verse 4:
1 Samuel 8:4. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah,
5) and said to him, "Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations." (NKJ)
And now God saw this coming, near as I can tell, three to four hundred years before that. Hold your place here in 1 Samuel and go back to Deuteronomy chapter 17. God saw this coming. In Deuteronomy 17 verses 14 through 20:
Deuteronomy 17:14. "When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,' (NKJ)
Now notice they wanted their own in all of this. Verse 15, but God through Moses says:
Deuteronomy 17:15. "you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. (NKJ)
Hmmm! Verse 16:
Deuteronomy 17:16. "But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, (NKJ)
And this is—"horses" and all this are normally used as symbolic for armament and power, war machines, that kind of thing. But continuing verse 16:
Deuteronomy 17:16b. for the Lord has said to you, 'You shall not return that way again.' (NKJ)
Back to the idolatry, the heathenism, and the slavery of a powerful and a cruel Pharaoh. He says, "You won't do that again." Verse 17:
Deuteronomy 17:17. "Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; (NKJ)
Now this was not only to prevent polygamous relationships, which led to idolatry. If we think about Solomon, one of the kings, that's exactly what happened to him. He disobeyed God in all that! But another reason for this was to prevent marriages for political purposes. We could look a lot of other places where God told Israel, "Don't gather lovers to yourself." In other words, "make alliances with other nations." Because He wanted to rule them and He said, "Don't do that."
But continuing in verse 17:
Deuteronomy 17:17b. nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. (NKJ)
Greed! He's telling, "He won't be a kleptocrat."
Verse 18:
Deuteronomy 17:18. "Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. (NKJ)
That's a study method. If you write something down, you won't forget it! Verse 19:
Deuteronomy 17:19. "And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, (NKJ)
So if he did these things, if he actually led the way God wanted him to and if he'd follow godly principles, his motivation would always be to glorify and to honor God in everything that he did. Not to serve himself. Not to oppress people. And also it would keep him humble and not lead to the pride, which the next verse points out in verse 20.
Deuteronomy 17:20. "that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, (NKJ)
He was to remember that he was the king serving the people for God! Not that he was lord and master over others.
Continuing verse 20:
Deuteronomy 17:20b. that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. (NKJ)
So God fully intended for the Israelites to have leaders, but they invariably turned from God's Law and just didn't do as God instructed.
Historically, at least from my sources, I can see that there were forty-one kings over a period of about 470 years reigning over Israel and Judah. I have a list; I found a list on the internet of good and bad kings. And in that list, thirty-two of the kings were bad and some of them were downright evil and wicked. If you do the percentage calc there, you're going to come up with close to 80%, actually 78% were bad.
That's not very good fruits, as Les was talking about. They were just not following God. Of course, they didn't have God's spirit, but they had everything they needed to do what they should have done to lead properly.
If you look at those bad kings—those 78%, nearly 80% failure rate—that translates into suffering and national captivity for the Israelites. And that's what happened to them. If we just think about that today, if the leaders would just follow God's Law at an elementary level, the lies, the mudslinging and all that would stop! The idea, of course, as we well know is that:
Truth is nothing. Perception is everything!
I was reading a little short article in this morning's paper. And it was talking about the political advertisements that we're all being subjected to right now. It says that "It's like mining for gold. There's a lot of fool's gold there, really hard to find any nuggets." And, of course the implication is nuggets of truth. And they aren't there. Just give these little sound bites to create a perception against their opponents.
Back to 1 Samuel 8.
And we know that Gentiles is a generic term for nations. So again, I believe this is where Christ's mind was. He had this perspective and He could look back. And He'd warned them about this and yet, He saw the disciples falling into the same thing. He says, "You won't rule this way. You won't exercise authority like this. You'll follow My example of service in shepherding and set the example yourself." That's what He was trying to teach them.
But again, continuing 1 Samuel 8 verse 6:
1 Samuel 8:6. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge us." So Samuel prayed to the Lord.
7) And the Lord said to Samuel, "Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not [rule] over them. (NKJ)
If you think about that for a minute, humanly they'd rather have—and someone came up with this figure—35 million laws on the books. Every time we get a new wave of politicians, they have to legislate something. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be anything. It can be owls; it can be anything. But they'd rather have that than the Ten Commandments!
Verse 8:
1 Samuel 8:8. "According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also. (NKJ)
What they were doing was they were reverting to the way of man's rule, which is the same as it's been all down through history. Instead of adhering to God's standards and God's holy righteous Laws, man has always reverted to making up his own rules as he goes along, because his basic nature is just what it says in Galatians 5. And just as a reference there, just touch on Galatians 5. Again, don't lose your place here. Where it talks about the works of the flesh which are:
Galatians 5:19b. adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, (NKJ)
Let's see now. What were some of those nicknames for the Oval Office? One of our recent administrations?
Verse 20:
Galatians 5:20. idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, (NKJ)
That's carnal nature in action!
Galatians 5:20b. Selfish [self-serving] ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
21) envy, murders, drunkenness, [reveling], and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (NKJ)
Let alone be leaders in the Millennium! And I think we can all agree in our short life that we've seen plenty of these human characteristics brought out in human governments. If we look at even some of the regimes that exist on the earth today—
I guess it's been a couple of years ago now that I've read a series of articles on the Taliban and the way that they operate in Afghanistan and other countries. They do horrible things. That's a horribly repressive—actually they exercise an authority and a rule and they have a power over the people. They use the power of fear and terror over the countries that they're in.
If we look at them and we look at the other individuals like Hitler, Stalin, the Khmer Rouge, the Chinese Communists, all of those horrible governments, we can get a picture of what Christ was thinking of here because He saw all of this. And again, He's telling them, "You won't operate that way."
But let's continue in 1 Samuel 8 verse 9:
1 Samuel 8:9. "Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior (NKJ)
The New King James says. The King James says "manner," but in modern English, "behavior" is a lot more expressive. Let's talk a little bit about behaviors also. And we just saw those behaviors, in Galatians 5 of human behaviors under human nature.
But continuing verse 9:
1 Samuel 8:9b. of the king who will reign over them."
10) So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king.
11) And he said, "This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots. (NKJ)
And again, that's talking about a war machine there. That's talking about power because how do nations exercise power? How do they develop power? Money and military.
But continuing in verse 12 and notice the "he's" and the "take's" and all of that throughout here. And this is the kind of king they wanted, verse 12:
1 Samuel 8:12. "He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. (NKJ)
It will be his industries. It won't be God's industries.
Again, that's talking about taxes. And we can even look historically. The Israelites were taxed very heavily. That's a big chunk out of our GNP, as it is to all governments.
If we look even at the war in Afghanistan, that broke the back of the Soviet economy. That's what happened to them—Russia. And we're not faring too much better, are we, doing that?
Verse 13:
1 Samuel 8:13. "He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
14) "And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. (NKJ)
His mentality is going to be that of the ruling elite.
I read something recently. And this was kind of interesting to me. It's called "The Inverse Law of Power and the Assumption of Invulnerability." What that really means is: "I can do whatever I want if I'm in power. And you can't do anything to me because of who I am." That's what that means. It's arrogance!
Do you remember when Saddam Hussein was put on trial? And he told the court they had no right to try him! That was his power—actually it's Satanic.
Verse 15—and this gets even more interesting here—verse 15:
1 Samuel 8:15. "He will take a tenth (NKJ)
And that's the same word used for tithe. You can look that up in your Strong's if you like. I'll let you do that. I won't give you the—
1 Samuel 8:15b. of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers (NKJ)
And you've got to think about what's happening here. What he told them was going to happen because this also led to a lot of the problems, the downfall of the Israelites and Judah because he's going to take the tithe. And that means that there's going to be no support for the priesthood. There's going to be no continuing education for people in God's Law, in God's ways. They're not going to be there!
Huh, we can kind of get a parallel of that the way our governments operate. You know, "Get God out of everything!" It's a strategy, political strategy.
Continuing in verse 16:
1 Samuel 8:16. "And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
17) "He will take a tenth of your sheep [again the tithe]. And you will be his servants. (NKJ)
And again, talking about huge taxes here, he's going to take and take and take!
I heard an interview one time on the radio with the son of Roy Rogers, Rusty Rogers. He said at one point, his father was paying 90% in taxes. Ninety percent! I guess some of those laws have changed since then. Anyhow I thought that was kind of interesting but typical of government.
Verse 18:
1 Samuel 8:18. "And you will cry out (NKJ)
When that happens! Just as a reference, Proverbs 29 verse 2 says:
Proverbs 29:2. When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan. (NKJ)
Continuing in verse 18:
1 Samuel 8:18b. in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day." (NKJ)
Historically the Israelite people suffered three captivities in virtual enslavement because they didn't want a Theocracy anymore. They didn't want God ruling them anymore. They'd rather have a human monarchy. What they got mostly was God didn't fight their battles anymore and they suffered.
Verse 19 of 1 Samuel 8:
1 Samuel 8:19. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us,
20) that we also may be like all the nations, (NKJ)
Just like the Gentiles!
1 Samuel 8:20b. and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles." (NKJ)
He'll be our Commander in Chief! Did they envy the national pride of the nations around them? Yeah. And again, they didn't want God to fight their battles. They'd rather have a king, a man. When you think about that, if we look back in the context here, God delivered them from the Philistines. The Philistines were intent on wiping them out! And God delivered them. And still they'd rather have a human. They wouldn't even be where they were if God hadn't cleared the way for them.
Verse 21:
1 Samuel 8:21. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the hearing of the Lord.
22) So the Lord said to Samuel, "Heed their voice, and make them a king." And Samuel said to the men of Israel, (NKJ)
These were the leading mean, the elders. He says:
1 Samuel 8:22b. "Every man go to his city." (NKJ)
And when you think about this, you really have to marvel at the incredible patience of Christ as these things ran through His mind as He was lovingly teaching His disciples all these things about leadership—what their behavior should be, the kind of leaders and rulers they should be. And this is even going to carry over into the Millennium because again, these disciples, remember, are going to rule over the twelve tribes of Israel. He's wanting them to start practicing this now, and again, He had this whole panorama of misrule.
So the question remains, "How's that going to happen?" What's the solution for man's misrule?" And the Bible actually says that's a two-part process. First, Christ is going to have to take over all rule and authority. Isaiah 9 verses 6 and 7, this is one of my favorite Scriptures. This is from the New American Standard. Verse 6 of Isaiah 9:
Isaiah 9:6. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; (NAS)
And this is one of the few places you're going to find this!
Isaiah 9:6b. and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. (NAS)
And, as we know, these are all titles for Christ. Verse 7:
Isaiah 9:7. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, (NAS)
No end of peace! Never in man's history! Who was it? Plato said that "Only the dead have seen the end of war?"
But continuing verse 7:
Isaiah 9:7b. On the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. (NAS)
So it's finally going to happen!
And in 1 Corinthians 15:24, just breaking in on the context there, use this as a reference Scripture. It's breaking in here because chapter 15 is talking about resurrection. It's talking about Christ reigning and putting into subjection everything! But in verse 24, it says in 1 Corinthians 15:
1 Corinthians 15:24. Then comes the end, when He [hands over] the kingdom to [the] God [and] Father, when He [has abolished] all rule and all authority and power. (NKJ)
That's the first part.
The second part is He has to change man's heart! Ezekiel 11 talks a little bit about that in verses 19 and 20 of Ezekiel 11. This again is from the New American Standard.
But the context here is the culmination of national sins starting from the leadership right on down, coming to the point where God executes judgment on and causes punishment by scattering them in captivity. And remember, again, there were three captivities that these people suffered. Now he said that He was going to gather them back to Israel. That only happened in part, as we know.
But God wants to change man's heart and that can only happen one way. Verse 19:
Ezekiel 11:19. "And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone (NASU)
And that's all that hard callousness with which human beings treat each other, the inhumanity to man, especially when he has rule and authority over other men. That's just the way we tend to operate.
But it goes on here to say:
Ezekiel 11:19b. out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
20) that they may walk (NASU)
In other words, live and conduct themselves, behave themselves.
Ezekiel 11:20b. in My statutes and keep My ordinances, and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God. (NASU)
And we have to remember that a lot of these prophecies about the Israelites took place as a type, but they also point to that future fulfillment.
And very last Scripture, Jeremiah 24 verse 7 from the New American Standard:
Jeremiah 24:7. 'And I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. (NASU)
That's going to happen in the Millennium.
So, Brethren, these new Millennium-ites are going to see a totally new and different kind of leadership and government. The government of God will finally reign on the earth. It's finally going to be there.
They're going to see a totally different approach to rulership and authority from the spirit beings serving them. And also, from any human leaders that will be in position during that time.
There's going to be no more corruption, no more injustice, no more oppression, no more of those horribly ugly things that man's government apart from God, under Satan's influence, perpetrate on their fellow human beings.
That time is coming and what a welcome change that's going to be!
Transcribed by kb November 7, 2010