They Won't Listen To Me

Read:

1 Samuel 8:4-20

“They Won’t Listen To Me”

If you are a parent I am sure you will agree that kids don't listen well, particularly in the early years of their lives. Am I right? I don’t know what it is. I can remember when I was a kid and my mom and dad told me to do something, or better yet, not to do something I became more curious in what would happen if I did or didn’t do it. What’s that saying? Curiosity killed the cat. It didn’t kill me but it certainly got me in a lot of trouble. I feel like a child’s disobedience has a lot to do with curiosity and negative influence. Kids see certain role models acting a particular way and they marvel at what their life would be like if they lived that lifestyle too. Sometimes they will seek that lifestyle even if they have to disobey parents and/or authorities to do it. And, it drives parents crazy when they do it. We just don’t understand why in the world kids would want to disobey when we give them everything they need. We give protection, nourishment, education, love, and the list goes on. But, but for some reason they just don't listen. I mean what do parents know? They’ve never been kids before, right? 

Often times when a parent realizes that their child is not going to listen, they seek other routes of instruction. One particularly is through another influence such as an aunt, uncle, grandparent, teacher, preacher, or friend. It might be suggested, “They won’t listen to me; but they will listen to you.” Have you ever said that? I can remember when I was younger and a parent of a friend of mine told me, “Will you try to talk to him? He listens to you better than he does his mom and I. See if you can talk some since into him.” I knew there had to be problem when the parent was asking me to influence them. 

Yes, talk some since into them. They listen to you better than they listen to me. The prophet, Samuel was given some instructions that sounded much like that. The Israelites were in good hands. They were in God’s hands. God was the King of Israel, the King that led them out of Egypt. God was the ruler and protector of the people. But, fear was starting to grow in them. There were other countries that began to notice the growth and wealth of Israel. Since Israel had no human king to govern them and only judges and prophets to direct them, other countries saw them as vulnerable. The Philistines acted on this temptation and failed. They could not defeat Israel. Why did they fail? Because God protected Israel. This should have been a lesson to God's people. But, fear still raged in many of the elders of Israel. They saw other countries with large armies of men and weapons. They were going to war and defeating other countries and they were gathering land and expanding. The other countries had wealthy systems of governance and slaves and land used for making money. The Israelites also noticed that these other countries worshiped particular deities, other gods, and they were very strong and wealthy. So, needless to say, many of them forfeited the worship of Yahweh to worship other gods. Israel was different from other countries because God wanted them to be different. But, the people of Israel did not want to conform to this different way of governance. They wanted to be like others: wealthy, powerful, militant, and feared by their enemies. They wanted a new king. 

Samuel was a prophet, judge, and a leader for Israel in his older age. The Israelite elders assembled and approached Samuel for some guidance on a matter they had been contemplating. They decided that they needed a King to rule over them like the other countries had. They trusted Samuel’s judgment so they asked him to appoint them a king. But, they were not fooling him. He knew what was going on. He knew they were losing their trust in God. So, he prayed to God for direction. Essentially God said, “It’s obvious they will not listen to me; maybe they will listen to you. Comply with them and appoint them a king. But, before you do, warn them and tell them what they are getting into.” 

Samuel told the elders, “I will get you a king and he will govern you this way: your sons will be soldiers and they will be killed in war. If they do not become soldiers they will be slaves making the weapons and plowing the kings fields. He will take your daughters and they too will become slaves for the king. The king will take your best fields and your land for himself. He will make you pay taxes. He will take one-tenth of everything you own and share it with his officials. He will take your best livestock, your workers, and you will become slaves.” Whether they believed Samuel or not, they still wanted a king. Samuel went on to appoint them a king as the Lord requested him to. 

As it would seem, the Israelites might have made some bad decisions. They were God’s children, the chosen people of Jacob. Yet, they did not always obey God. From what we can gather by these inspired writers, the Israelites seldom obeyed God. They were just as good at making mistakes as anybody. They were as good at it as we are. 

We all know that we, the people in our context, in our culture, Christians, Americans, twenty-first century humans, boy…we can make some mistakes. No one person, government, community, religion, group, here, there, or anywhere else is free of some good mistake making. Right? What’s even funnier is how we don’t like to admit it. If we make a mistake and we find a way to hide it you better believe we’re going to do it. If we make a mistake and we can find a way to cover it up, we’ll do it. We don’t like to admit that we are wrong. When we can’t cover our mistakes we’ll just make excuses that we couldn’t help it. I mean we are just humans right? 

Let me explain… Christ followers know what the mission of Christ is. Christ followers know how to be obedient. We know what is good and bad, love and hate, pious and evil. We get those things. Even if a person has never read or studied the Bible they know a little something about living Christ-like. We know it's really not that hard to understand. But, people still fail at it. We read the parables in the gospel writings that describe Jesus’ commandments such as the King and the least of these, the Good Samaritan, the Lost Sheep, loving your neighbor, and we know these stories. But, do Christians live these stories? Not always… We make the mistake of not living the Christian standard and if nobody notices it, we hide it. If they do, we make excuses. “I am busy.” “I don’t have time.” “I just don’t care much for those people.” “My contribution will not help.” “It’s too dangerous.”

It’s pretty obvious that we do not listen to God. We do not live out what we know are God’s commandments. God gives to us, God shows us, God blesses us, God leads us, God forgives us but we still seek other means of fulfillment. It is quite familiar to the Israelites of Samuel’s day. They were led by God, blessed by God, delivered from slavery by the hands of God but they still sought out other means of fulfillment. 

So, God says, “If they won’t listen to me, maybe they will listen to each other. Maybe the ones that listen to me will be inspired by the ones that do not.” Have you ever thought about that? When you see another person that is being disobedient do you avoid them and think about how you are different from them; or do you inspire them to be different? I feel like God calls us to Samuel’s position. Some people do not know God. There are others that know God but do not live like they do. Then, there are some that know God but do not know God’s commandments. Perhaps our role is to inspire those who will listen to us and not God. Even though the Israelites wanted to change their ways away from God, God did not want to do it. God basically told Samuel to try and talk them out of it because they were doing well without a king. 

Perhaps God wants to use you to inspire a Christ-centric ethic in your community. When people will not obey or listen to God, perhaps they will listen to you. Perhaps there is a time that people are not standing up for someone but God needs you to inspire them to do it. We are servants of Christ; we are the hands and the voice of Christ today, inspiring people for Christ. 

Or, perhaps there is a voice speaking to you right now, trying to influence you. Perhaps it is God’s voice speaking through someone else when you will not listen to the Spirit. Perhaps you are like the Israelites being manipulated by desires of the mind, trying to follow what seems to be the right way by the worlds standard; but it is not right by God’s call. I have been there. I have heard God speak to me through other people and I really did not want to listen. It was not what I wanted to hear but, it was God’s voice. God speaks to us through people and God speaks to people through us.

What does God want you to hear? That voice maybe shouting through people all around you. It might be God’s influence on you through another person. It might be a friend, relative, preacher, teacher, parent, spouse, coworker, your kids, and list goes on. Or, maybe God needs you to be the voice of the Spirit. Maybe God is saying, “They will not listen to me, but they will listen to you.” Perhaps if we act as God’s voice and listen to God’s voice we might avoid some very bad decisions.