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Life Lesson
SITUATION - When Samuel retired, Israel rejected his sons as judges and asked for king in spite of God's warning against this. Their request for a king was based on a desire to be like all the other nations.
OBSERVATION - Israel demonstrates that our desire to imitate the world may seem righteous at first, but the final result will be destruction.
INSPIRATION - We need to show how cold, black, hard and ugly we are, to get motivated to stay in that fire. Unless we do, we will never hate sin and fear sin and be repelled by sin enough to stay in the fire. (Says Tozer, "The Holy Spirit is first of all a MORAL flame.") . . .
I see how when liberalism waned and we evangelicals rose to popularity and were listened to, we could have given our authentic message and cried to the world. "Repent! Be radically cleansed of your sin! Received Jesus Christ's PURITY and HOLINESS for your lives!"
But instead, in that time of golden opportunity, we lost our courage. We Madison-Avenue-trivialized our glorious gospel. And we stained ourselves with the world's adulteries and fornication.
We must never weep; we must mourn! We must hate what He hates! Let us ask Him to forgive our unwashed praises before Him, our silliness, our ignorance. Let us see how our coldness, blackness, hardness, ugliness become colder, blacker, harder, uglier--unless in terror we wrench ourselves free and rush to His precious Fire! (From My Sacrifice, His Fire by Anne Ortlund)
Life Application Study Bible,, Max Lucado General Editor, New Century Version, Zondervan Press, page 319 Life Lesson 1 Samuel 8: 1-22 Israel Asks for a King
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