With my retirement on the horizon, we will be wrapping up the Man to Man posts in a few weeks. However, before we do, I would like to take one more opportunity to discuss what it means to be a man of God from one more angle. There are a variety of roles that men hold in the Scripture. Each is modeled for us, both positively and negatively depending on the choices by those who hold these positions. Nevertheless, each role represents a characteristic of manhood that God would have us follow.
The first we will discuss is a man’s role as king. When reading this word, most of us will immediately see it as an opportunity to have power and control. With the right spirit, these characteristics of a king play into biblical manhood. But there is so much more we need to consider. To do this, we need to go back to the Old Testament and consider God’s appointing of a King over his chosen people, Israel.
After these people were led out of bondage in Egypt by Moses and finally were led into the promised land by Joshua, they failed to follow God’s direction and found themselves oppressed by people they should have defeated. When they would cry out to God, He would raise up a Judge, who would follow God’s directive and either through military action or simply wisdom, would bring them back to safety. This usually led the people to also turn back to God.
This pattern continued for many years until the people began to cry out for a king.
In 1 Samuel 8, the people came to Samuel, the last of the judges with this request, So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” (vs. 4-5)
This was not God’s plan, and he expressed his concern in verses 6-9, But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD . 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”
From this discussion, we see an important point concerning our role as king as a man of God. It should never usurp the authority of God in our life or the lives over whom we have responsibility. God must always keep the top seat in our leadership structure. In his warning, he reminds us of the potential for abuse if we fail to keep this priority in place. In verses 10-18 of chapter 8 of 1 Samuel, there is a long list of potential dangers when God’s role of king in our lives is replace with our own ideas of what a king should be. In a word, it leads to selfishness. A king who is more concerned about his own desires, and not focused on leading in a way that honors God will do damage to those over whom he has responsibility.
Even with the warning, God relented and gave them a king. In fact, after the failure of Saul and the establishment of the line of David, God promised that his people would always have a king in the line of David. When Jesus came to earth, he was born in the kingly line of David. This is ultimately proclaimed in Revelation 11:15, The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.”
Since God allowed a king, next week we will discuss what we can learn from the successes and failures of earthly kings to help us understand this role in our lives.