Like All the Nations - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2026

The people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."
1 Samuel 8:19-20

Like All the Nations
When they were ready to cross into the land God had promised their fathers, God told the people of Israel that He had chosen them to be His people because He loved them. He wanted them to be "a holy people a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth" (Dt. 7:6-8).

God gave his people leaders: Moses, Joshua, and a succession of judges culminating with Samuel. Samuel was a faithful judge who turned the people back to God after long years of decline and unfaithfulness. God then subdued the Philistines all of Samuel's lifetime (1 Sam. 7). But Samuel made the mistake of making his sons judges over Israel. They were not like him, but perverted justice. With this as their excuse, the elders of Israel asked Samuel to make them a king to judge them like all the nations.

God viewed this as rejection of His rule over Israel, not merely Samuel's rule as judge. He told Samuel to warn them what the king's rule would be like. When they still insisted, saying they wanted to be like all the nations, Samuel took their demand to the Lord. He told Samuel to heed them and make them a king. He tells them later, "I gave you a king in My anger" (Hos. 13:11).

Christians today are God's heavenly people who are told to "seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God" (Col. 3:1). He, the Head of His Church, has given gifted men to lead and feed His people. Yet, down through the ages, the desire to have an official human leadership, like every man-made religion, has been the bane of Christianity, being a rejection of the divine pattern given us in God's Word.

Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.