Original Entry: April 28, 2007
Pascagoula, MS
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles." 1 Samuel 8:19-20
Chuck Swindoll in his book, Living above the level of Mediocrity wrote something I have not forgotten in over 20 years; “The majority is usually wrong.”
In the late 1990’s I gave a message with the premise that if you want to live for Jesus, never owned a Bible, or even knew what a follower of Jesus believed just do is the exact opposite of what the majority does and you are pretty close to following Jesus. At that time I had a sweet little red- headed, freckled-faced eighth grade girl who deeply desired to live for Jesus. She made the radical decision that she would do the exact opposite of what she saw others doing to see if what I was saying was, indeed, accurate! Whenever I had the youth group sit she would stand, when I asked them to stand she would sit, and when I asked them to be quite she would-you know. I am not sure how log her experiment lasted, but she lived as a committed follower of Jesus through her teen years.
As a pastor I try to stay in contact with as many of my ex-students as possible through the social media. One day this gal, then in her twenties, added me to her network of friends and posted a picture on her wall. When I clicked on her page the pictures were of her as a contestant in a Hooters swimsuit competition. Even though her entry in this competition was for a fundraising event it seemed to me that somewhere after high school she had chosen to follow the majority and stray off the path of Christ.
The context of the above quote by Swindoll was meant to admonish readers to follow Jesus, make their own choices, and choose to swim against the current. One of a man’s greatest struggles is the fight against being polluted by society. God sends men boldly into the world but does not want them to be polluted by the world (Philippians 4:8). Finding a healthy balance between these two worlds is a great struggle for men.
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1-2).
If a man is going to be in error while following Christ let it be on the side of Christ and not culture, the minority not the majority, against the current rather than with it-every time.
Israel wanted to go with the flow. Israel wanted a King.
Up to this point in God’s story the Lord had gone before Israel to fight as their King. Up to this point God had been faithful to deliver Israel as they walked in obedience to Him. However, in this section of Scripture we read that the nation of Israel wanted to, “be like all the nations” (20). Worse than this, they chose to follow a man and not the Lord to “go out before us and fight our battles” (20).
They would no longer be a theocratic (God-centered) nation but compromised for something far less.
Essentially, their decision was to exist with the majority instead of having the courage to possess a unique identity as a nation. It was a choice to take the wide road instead of the narrow path. It was a choice to walk the worn pavement instead of the road less traveled.
So many men claim to follow Jesus but live in a man-centered paradigm. They put their trust in their pastor instead of their God. They place their lives in the hands of modern culture instead of the Word of God. They allow their society to define them instead of the Spirit of God. They pursue the earthly things of those around them instead of the eternal things of God.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (1Corinthiasn 4:18).
They live in the majority.
They are unrecognizable.
They are anonymous.
They are boys in men’s bodies.
