A Tale of Two Kings part one

The tragic story of King Saul has great ramifications for us today, for it is a prophetic allegory of a modern day tragedy – that of the Apostate Church, the tares among the wheat.
The genesis of Saul’s story is found in 1 Samuel 8:5 when the people demanded a king – “Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations”. A desire to emulate and copy the world has led to a corruption of God’s desire for His people. In His government, He rules His people primarily through Apostles and Prophets. In our story here, the king they desire represents the modern day Pastoral system of Church. By rejecting Apostles and Prophets and making Pastors or priests their kings, they have walked in the footsteps of Israel with the same result (8:7) – “For they have not rejected thee (Samuel the Prophet) but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them”.
God goes on to warn them of all the hardships they’ll endure, of how much they’ll suffer because of their desire for a king (8:11-18). “Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel (they refused the prophetic ministry of their day) and they said nay, but WE WILL HAVE A KING OVER US, THAT WE MAY BE LIKE ALL THE NATIONS and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles”.
In today’s ungodly pastoral, denominational system, it’s just the same. The people employ their pastor to judge them, to decide what is acceptable in their fellowship or not, to decide what is sound doctrine and to “fight our battles”. The people are too lazy or immature to learn to do effective spiritual warfare but would rather their pastor do all the work – in essence, removing their obligation before God to grow and mature, instead remaining co-dependent on their pastor their whole lives. Pastors today are often nothing more than glorified nurse maids, milking the babies in the nursery, changing their diapers, but never teaching them how to “grow up into him in all things” (Eph:5:15) and truly making disciples of them. And “my people love to have it so” (Jer:5:31).
Still, God gave them their desire, doesn’t He always give us the desire of our hearts? If we desire to be free of Him, to follow man instead, to put self on the throne of our hearts, He’ll give that to us, though it will damn us forever. If we desire Him then He will give us Himself forever. In chapter Nine, we meet Saul, of whom it is said “and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he” (9:2). He starts out well! Many denominations and churches start out well also, but as we shall see, accepting a man led, man ordained system of being God’s people leads to destruction.