Now, behold, the king walks before you; and I am old and gray-headed; and, behold, my sons are with you: and I have walked before you from my youth to this day.
So Samuel says, "Look you've done an evil thing in asking for a king. That you might know how wicked it is, God's gonna show you a wonder. I'm gonna ask God to send thunder and rain upon your wheat harvest."There in the sight of the people God sent thunder and rain. So as the thunder began to clap around them, and the rain began to fall, they said, "Oh we've sinned, we've done wickedly. Pray that God not destroy us."Now it is interesting, they aren't really repenting. The repentance means a change, a true repentance they would've said, "Oh get rid of Saul. We'll let God serve us or reign over us. We'll serve God." That would've been repentance. But theirs is, "Oh we're sorry, but we still want our king."Now there is a difference between sorrow and repentance. The Lord requires repentance from sin, not just a sorrow for sin. So often we have a sorrow because of the consequences of our sin, but we go on doing it. God wants repentance, that is a turning away from the evil in our lives. God requires repentance.So they said, "Pray that we will not die."Samuel said to them, "You're not gonna die, but just make sure that you don't quit serving the Lord, for if you do, you're gonna start serving other gods, vain things, which cannot profit or deliver."Now he declared this because he knew the nature of man. You've got to serve somebody. If you are not serving God, you're going to be serving some vain thing that really can't help you or deliver you, that is really no profit to you. We look around the world today and we see the vain things that men are worshiping or serving. But you cannot serve God and mammon. They are mutually exclusive. If you forsake serving the Lord, because you've got to serve somebody, you're gonna start serving vain things, which when your time of trouble and peril arises, they'll not be able to profit you or to deliver you.