When The Pendulum Swings Too Far During Life's Transitions

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Our goal in life is to walk in the balance of righteosness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. However, there are timees when we find ourselves drifting off course and we need to make corrections. 

Irael was in that very place when we find them in 1 Samuel chapter 8. Samuel "The Seer" and one of The Judges of Israel was old and his sons weren't following in the footsteps of their faither. Their character was not like that of Samuel's.

It was coming to a time when Samuel would soon die and his sons would take over the leadership in Israel. The people could see the problem and the solution they recommended was for them to "have a king rule over them like the other nations had" (instead of God being their King).

They were gong to overcompensate for a legimate problem by choosing an extreme alternative situation. This would cause the pendulum of Israel to go into a completely different and further trajectory.

We are all tempted to do the same thing thing. Individually and as collectives as God's Ecclesia, The Body of Christ on a local church level. We choose the model of "the world system" around us as the source of our provision while tacking God's name on as though it was some sort of choice on a menu or a Figure being alloted a portion of our structured time fitting into His 15 minutes (like it or not not). Even if His Presence is absent we still claim "It's so nice to be in His Presnce"... Simply as a means to justify our using His name over our doors or the cross around our neck.

This is meant to be a corrective word calling us back into a place where God is Head of our lives and our gatherings are typified by His undeniable Glory and Power... The Kingdom of God being at hand!

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Shalom to you and your home.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Once again, I want to thank Trevor McMahon for just
the really wonderful job that hedid concerning two podcasts on
1 Samuel, chapter 8.
And before we go on to chapter9, I want to loop back again on
chapter 8 and cover a couple offinal things concerning a

(00:24):
transition that took place inthe time of Israel's change from
having a judge, a prophet, to aking and much like.
In our lives, there aretransitions and when they take

(00:46):
place, we have the opportunityof moving forward the right way
or, unfortunately, we can choosethe wrong way, and in this

(01:07):
instance, Israel made a poorchoice to rush the situation.
They had seen some thingstaking place in the life of
Samuel and his sons.
That was a legitimate concern.
They saw some things in thatadministration that had flaws in
it, and they, meaning Israel,chose to look to the nations

(01:36):
surrounding them and use them asan example, as opposed to the
example that God had laid outfor them in the scriptures.
Literally, they looked to asystem that was actually more

(01:58):
flawed than the one that theywere in, but it looked better.
That's often the problem, isn'tit?
Things around us can appear tobe better.
You know, if you're a marketer,you're going to sell the sizzle

(02:20):
man.
Right, You're going to sellthat sizzle on the steak so that
it makes things look better.
And the nations around Israelhad a lot of sizzle.
There seemed to be things thatwere really going well for them,

(02:40):
and the nations attributed thatto their gods not to the Lord
God, but to their gods when inall reality, the blessings that
they had received were comingfrom God.
Because, you know, the sunshines on the just and the

(03:01):
unjust and the unjust, and sopeople are going to have
prosperity take place in theirland because God is good Not
because they're good, butbecause God is good.
But the nations surroundingIsrael attributed that success

(03:21):
to their gods, and so they madethat sizzle the sizzle of their
gods, look really good, In factbetter than the flawed
administration that Israel wasunder.
When they looked at Samuel'ssons, who would have been his
successor, and thought, man, Idon't know, that's not looking

(03:46):
so good.
And sometimes in our structureof things we can do the same
thing as it pertains to theecclesia or the church of Jesus.
We can look at things and seethat there are problems, and

(04:10):
then look to the world around usand their systems and say, well
, maybe we could just adopt thatsystem and then things will be
okay.
Them, and then things will beokay.
Have a system of a republic ora democratic way of doing things

(04:31):
of the people, by the people,for the people, as opposed to
being centered in on God beingthe leader.
In fact, in 1 Samuel 8, verse 6.
And we're going to read to theend of the chapter.
I'm just going to read it andthen make some comments.

(04:52):
Following Again, the scripturesays but when they, Israel, said
Give us a king to lead us, thisdispleased Samuel.
So he prayed to the Lord andthe Lord told him listen to all

(05:12):
that the people are saying toyou.
It is not you they haverejected, but they have rejected
me as their king.
And they have gone from the dayof being brought out of the
land of Egypt until this day.
They are now saying to you wewant a king.

(05:34):
So now listen to them, but warnthem solemnly and let them know
what the king will do when he'sreigning over you.
And then Samuel goes on to listsome of the things that the

(05:55):
king was going to do in rulingover the people.
He was going to have them buildhim chariots and gather horses.
He was going to put their sonsinto battle, he was going to

(06:18):
cause them to pay a tenth ofwhat they had to him, and the
list goes on.
And they heard exactly what theLord had said was going to take
place.
When they put this king overthem, they said we want him to
be over us, just like thenations around us.

(06:41):
Right, we want him to be overus, not God, but a king.
So when Samuel heard all this,after they heard what Samuel
said, the people said we stillwant this king.
And when Samuel heard this inverse 21,.

(07:05):
When Samuel heard all that, thepeople said he repeated it
before the Lord.
And the Lord answered listen tothem and give them a king.
Then Samuel said to the men ofIsrael everyone, go back to his
town.
They were going to get whatthey wanted Now.

(07:34):
If they had waited as we'regoing to find out later if they
had waited, God had something instore for them that was going
to be better than the kingsaround them.
But they wanted a king, justlike the kings around them.

(07:55):
Get it.
And sometimes we put systems inplace as an overreaction.
Get this, really get this.
We put other systems in placeto govern over us as a body of
Christ, Instead of God being theone overseeing his church, as

(08:23):
Jesus being one, as Holy Spiritliterally being in charge.
We put systems in charge and wevote on people.
Amazing.
We put a system in place thatis just like the world, A system

(08:45):
of either a dictator or arepublic, democratic system
where it's of the people, by thepeople, for the people, and we
call that God.
We say, well, God, you can fitin that, okay.
Instead of us fitting into thekingdom mold and way of doing

(09:06):
things, we say, God, you can fitinto our mold and way of doing
things, we will give you 15minutes.
And if you can't do it in 15minutes, well then, well, we'll
just do it ourselves.
And if your glory doesn't come,we'll have a smoke machine.

(09:26):
And if it's not a powerfulmessage, we'll just tell people
what they want to hear and it'llmake them feel good.
When we put systems in place asan overreaction to the problems
that are sometimes at hand,instead of dealing with the

(09:51):
problems, we overreact and put asystem in place and the
pendulum swings in the otherdirection and we have then a
bigger problem than the one thatwe started out with.
It's my prayer.
It's my prayer, it's my desire,it's our purpose as this

(10:12):
podcast at times to be veryclear, to be very clear in
speaking out and saying wereally don't need to revert to
the ways of the world to dothings.
We can literally wait upon theLord, trust him, just wait upon

(10:39):
the Father's heart to trust himto show us the way, to trust him
to lead us by his spirit, totrust the power of his spirit to
accomplish things that we can't.
So we are involved in somethingthat's far greater than us, as
opposed to us having a systemthat we can control.
But in the end, that systemcontrols us and it proves out to

(11:05):
be a negative thing, not apositive thing.
Now, later, we find out exactlywhat Saul did concerning his way
of doing things versus God'sway of doing things, and in the

(11:27):
end, it cost Saul and his sonhis life, their lives, along
with a lot of other difficultiesin Israel, until they had a
king that was anointed by Godand that was King David.
So we're at once again at acrossroads.

(11:50):
Like many of us in our lives,we're at crossroads.
Some of these things arepertinent to us personally and
some of us they're pertinent tohow we go about doing things
collectively.
Let's not model ourselves afterthe world that sells the sizzle
.
Let's really, if there'sadjustments and change that need

(12:15):
to take place, let's change.
Like Jesus said repent, Changeyour mind, change your ways,
change your direction, becausethe kingdom of God is at hand.
The doors are open.
We can enter in and becomecitizens of that kingdom by the

(12:35):
power of his blood, by himmaking that available to us.
When we trust in him, we placeour faith in him.
He is the door that we enterinto the kingdom through and in
that we have a relationshipthat's right with the Father.
Hallelujah, let's pray, Father.

(12:56):
Thank you once again, God, forwho you are and for how you do
things, and I ask that you wouldshow us your ways, God, in a
clear fashion, and help us makeadjustments where we need them,

(13:18):
Lord, so that we can functionaccording to your ways, your
plan, your precepts, yourpurposes.
God, Ultimately to walk likeJesus, and it's in his name that

(13:40):
we place our confidence, ourtrust.
It's in his name that we sayamen, Amen, amen, amen, amen,
amen, amen.
Alright, folks, we love you andif you have any thoughts,
questions, concerns, we'd loveto hear from you.

(14:00):
You just type in life aroundthe fire at gmailcom and fire us
at email, or type in lifearound the fire and look us up
on the web in the meantime.
God bless you, adios amigos.