The decline had continued. The people of Israel continued to walk away from God and even the sons of the leaders were no longer following the ways of the Lord. The time had come and the people were ready to walk completely away from God to create their own nation, with their own king, to be like the other nations around them.
The people of Israel had forgotten God. They had forgotten all that the Lord had done for them. They had forgotten how he had brought them out of slavery. They had forgotten how he had fought their battles for them, causing the opposing armies to go into confusion while they routed them.
No, now they wanted to create their own solutions. They were willing to take on heavy loads, to pay a heavy price, to live in their own way instead of living for the Lord, with Yahweh as their king. The solution seemed right to the Israelites, but it came at a great cost to their freedom as they would now serve a human king, not God as their king.
So the time came that Samuel the prophet summoned all of the people of Israel and told them:
This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’ But you have now rejected your God, who saves you out of all your disasters and calamities. And you have said, ‘No, appoint a king over us.’ So now present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and clans.
1 Samuel 10:18-19
Samuel had already anointed Saul, but they would go through a ritual to show the selection that would be made. Samuel would call the tribe of Benjamin, the clan of Matri, and finally the son of Kish, Saul. But Saul wasn’t there! He was hiding amongst other people, scared and unwilling to be chosen. Not truly acting as the king, and it was noticeable to the people as they questioned him.
In a similar way, Christ calls himself king and has called each of us into his kingdom. We are not to be present nor subject ourselves to human kings, but we are to subject ourselves to Christ as our king. He has paid a price for us, the greatest price, so that we will be his. He is the one on whom we can depend. He is the one that gives us the freedom that we desire. He is the one in whom we have the greatest joy.
But frequently we, instead, give ourselves to another king, the king of the kingdom of darkness. That can take the form of another person, or it can take the form of ourselves. It is a spiritual reality in that we are serving Satan, but the physical manifestation is that we serve man. Yet the only man that is worthy to be served is Christ as he is not only a man, but he is God.