NEWS

Donald Trump, and some of his followers, are having fun with the idea of him becoming a king
some day. I believe, however, that this is the time for a lesson from biblical history.

After the great leader of ancient Israel, Moses, died, there were judges who led the new nation
under God’s direction during the conquest and early settlement of the Promised Land.

It seems that Samuel, the last of the great judges, kept hearing complaints from the people
about wanting to have a king, like the nations around them had. He kept taking these
complaints to God, who finally relented, but basically told the people, “You may have a king,
but you will not like it.” And God gave him some very scary examples of what would happen if
they persisted; (see I Samuel 8:4-22.)

Ultimately, after 60 years of strong and faithful leadership under the kings David and Solomon,
they had to endure hundreds of years of weak faithless kings who were absorbed in
consolidating their own power and wealth and did not obey the God who had formed them.
Eventually, the country was overrun by foreign nations, and Israel was wiped out.

They did not exist as a nation from 586 BC until the United Nations adopted a resolution in
1948 AD recreating them as an independent nation. That was a period of some 2,400 years!

I pray that we are not at such a point in our land, and that we learn the biblical lesson about not
allowing the country to have a king. We are called again to act as a nation that endures under
our God — and not anyone else.

Rev. Tom Steensma
rural Defiance