Samuel retirement Speech

July 18, 2017

1 Samuel 12: 1-5

Do you recall your retirement speech?  I do, and much time and thought went  into it.  After 41 years with a great company and being part of a team that worked well to earn and keep our customers, I had so many people to thank, and I also needed to share with the younger employees what I saw in the future for them. 

But I was not a person of title, I was in sales, and unlike Samuel, I never was the leader, or the person that a nation looked to for direction.  It would be easy to read the wrong thing into Samuel’s farewell address, so let us recall why he said much of this.  You remember his mother Hannah ask God for a son and promised she would give him back to the Lord as a child.  And how she took Samuel to Eli the priest, and he lived and served under him while just a child.  I bet you recall Eli’s sons were the priests in title only, but God called them worthless men.  They took what was only to be given to God, and used it for themselves, and they used the women at the temple gate to have sex.  

Now when Samuel got married and had sons they also were called worthless men, and the people rejected their leadership.  But Samuel took this on a personal note and God reminded him, that it was not he they rejected, but God’s rule.  And so God said let them have a king, and God picked Saul.  So now Samuel is giving his farewell talk.

“And Samuel said to all Israel, “Behold, I have obeyed your voice in all that you have said to me and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walks before you, and I am old and gray, and behold, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my youth until this day. Here I am; testify against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against me, and I will restore it to you.” They said, “You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man's hand.” And he said to them, “The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.” And they said, “He is witness.”

Today I was involved in a conversation, and the man said he was from Arkansas, and an ex-president’s name came up, and he asked the question, why do we hold them to a higher moral requirement than ourselves?  It is a simple answer, because God does!  That does not excuse our actions, but leadership is always held to a higher level, and we should expect it.  Today the measuring bar is so low and we see Washington filled with people that are immoral at all levels of government.  It makes one wonder, could any of them say what Samuel has said, and how would the people answer?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice