Advanced Level, Block 6, Week 54: Wanting to Be Like the Nations

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Advanced Level, Block 6—Struggling with a Kingdom

Week 54
Wanting to Be Like the Nations

Point to Emphasize: Do not desire to live like those who are without God.

Reference Reading: 1 Samuel 8:1-22, footnotes 51, 71; 9:15-17; 10:1, 17-26, footnote 11

Memory Verse: For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God, and Jehovah has chosen you to be a people for His personal treasure, from among all the peoples which are upon the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 14:2)

Story Sample

Samuel was now quite old and he would not have many more years to live. The children of Israel knew that his sons would not be like their father in caring for the priesthood or in speaking for God. Instead of looking to Jehovah for what He would do once Samuel passed away, they asked for a king. They said to Samuel, “Appoint now for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5). Samuel was displeased with their insistence on having a king. God was their King. They did not need to be like the nations and have a man as a king to look after them. God was looking after them and taking care of them. Samuel prayed and Jehovah spoke with him. He told Samuel that since they were rejecting Him as their King, Samuel was to listen to their voice and anoint the man as king that He would show him. He also told Samuel to warn them concerning the practices of the king that would reign over them.

So, Samuel warned the people. He told them that the king would take their sons and use them for himself in his army. He would also make them plow his ground and reap his harvest and make all his instruments of war. This king would take their daughters and make them serve in his kitchen and his court. He would take the best of their fields, vineyards, and groves and give them away to his own servants. He would also levy a kind of ‘tax’ on them by having them give a tenth of everything—seeds, harvests, servants and best young men, donkeys, and flocks to be his. So, to live like the nations really was a miserable life.

Let us go over that again and see how much this king would cost them. How would that impact their life? [Have the children draw up a list of the items. Discuss what an impact this would have on families if it were to happen today; you would be broke, having no belongings; your pool would belong to the king, your flowers, your car, your children would be taken for service. The king would just take it.] Now, I ask you, does that sound like a good deal to you? NO! It was not a good deal and that is why Jehovah warned His people what a king would cost them and how it would affect their living. And most of all, they would lose God. And they would lose all the blessing of being God’s people. But the people would not take the warning. They only wanted to be like the nations. They wanted a man to rule over them.

I know at your age, you are not thinking about forsaking God or about having a king rule over you, BUT you may already want to be more like the nations, more like the people who are without God. There may be books that you think you really want to read, but your parents say, “No.” There may be certain entertainment shows or movies that you think you’d like to watch but your parents say, “No.” Maybe there is a computer game that you think you really want to play but your parents say, “No.” Maybe it is a new style shirt or top that you think you really want but your parents say, “No.” Maybe you think that you don’t need these kinds of restrictions, that you should be able to see and read and play and buy just like “everybody” else. This is to want to be like the nations. Those people don’t care about God so to them everything is good. But your folks do care about God and they are for living a godly life, not an ungodly one, like the people around us.

We need to consider the warning that Samuel gave. If we are God’s people, we should be different from the nations, different from the people without God. If we choose to live like the nations then we lose God and the blessing of being His people, knowing Him directly.

This might be a good time to talk with your parents about the way your family lives and why your parents make the family rules and put restrictions on you. Maybe you would see that these rules and restrictions are really a safeguard so that we don’t become like the people who don’t have God. No one wants to see others having a miserable life, a life not knowing God and His people.

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