I have been working my way through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. He was present in Berlin in the 1930s as Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party – also known as the Nazi Party – came to power. Drawing from his front row seat before, during, and after the war, Shirer produced an extraordinary book with a compelling perspective.
In the aftermath of World War I, Germany was reeling from humiliation, poverty, and shattered national pride. The German people looked for someone who could restore strength and dignity to the nation. The church, rather than pointing people back to Christ, too often fused faith with nationalism. Sermons echoed patriotic rhetoric, and pulpits offered blessing to political dreams of renewal. As Hitler rose to power, promising destiny and revival, his message sounded strangely familiar to ears already tuned to hear the gospel of Germany first.
Soon, the German Christian (Deutsche Christen) movement emerged, eager to baptize Nazi ideology in religious language. They recast Jesus as an Aryan figure, stripped down the Old Testament, and pledged allegiance to Hitler as though he were God’s chosen deliverer. What began as a longing for stability and identity ended with the church welcoming a counterfeit messiah. In the end, they received exactly what they had asked for—a leader in their own image, not God’s.
Israel faced a similar temptation centuries earlier. As we’ve discussed earlier, the people grew restless under God’s rule through prophets and judges (1 Samuel 8). Looking at the surrounding nations, they began to clamor for a king:
“Appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have” (1 Sam. 8:5).
Despite Samuel’s warnings that a king would draft their sons for war, take their daughters into service, and claim their fields and flocks, the people insisted. They were convinced that security, stability, and identity could be found in a strong human ruler rather than in the unseen reign of Yahweh.
God’s response was telling. He instructed Samuel, “It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (1 Sam. 8:7).
Still, God allowed them their request. It is a sobering reminder that sometimes God’s greatest judgment is letting people have what they want. When desires are rooted in fear, pride, or misplaced trust, they can lead straight into bondage. Israel wanted a king – and God gave them one.
Enter Saul, the tall, handsome Benjamite who looked the part of a king. By every outward measure, he embodied the people’s hopes: commanding presence, military promise, and a figure who could rally the nation. At first, Saul seemed a fitting answer. He led Israel to victories over their enemies and united the tribes under his leadership. Yet beneath the surface lay cracks that would soon split wide open.
Saul’s heart was not fully aligned with God’s, and his reign became a tragic case study in the dangers of getting exactly what you ask for.
Saul’s downward spiral began with impatience. When Samuel was delayed in arriving to offer the burnt offering before battle, Saul took matters into his own hands, performing the priestly role himself (1 Samuel 13). This was more than a small slip; it revealed a pattern of self-reliance and disregard for God’s order. Samuel confronted him: “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure” (1 Sam. 13:13–14).
Already, the cracks in Israel’s first king were showing.
Things worsened when Saul spared, against God’s command, King Agag and his livestock, justifying his disobedience as an opportunity to make sacrifices (1 Samuel 15). Samuel’s words still echo as a prophetic indictment: “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. 15:22).
Saul’s partial obedience was, in reality, disobedience. His rejection of God’s word led God to reject him as king.
The rest of Saul’s reign is a portrait of decline. Consumed by jealousy of David, he hurled spears at his loyal servant, hunted him through the wilderness, and descended into paranoia. His leadership became less about shepherding the people and more about protecting his own power.
Eventually, in desperation, Saul even sought out a medium, turning to the occult for guidance when God no longer answered him. By the time he fell on his own sword in battle against the Philistines (1 Sam. 31), Saul’s story had come full circle: the people who demanded a king “like the nations” received one, and it ended in disaster.
Yet God did not leave His people without hope. Out of Saul’s failure, He raised up David, “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14). Unlike Saul, David’s reign pointed forward to the true King who would one day come – Jesus the Messiah. Where Saul grasped at power, Jesus humbled Himself. Where Saul disobeyed God’s word, Jesus fulfilled it perfectly. Where Saul’s reign ended in death and defeat, Jesus’ reign triumphed through resurrection.
The stories of the German church and of Israel in Samuel’s day remind us of a sobering truth: when people reject God’s rule in favor of leaders who promise security, identity, and greatness, they often get exactly what they ask for – and live to regret it.
Whether in ancient Israel or 20th-century Europe, the temptation remains the same: to trust in human strength over divine kingship. The tragedy is not just in the rise and fall of flawed leaders, but in the rejection of the only King who can truly deliver.
Practical Theology Today 