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You were so set upon it, that you would have a king; if you will, take him, saith God, and take him with all that shall follow after. So that it was (as one speaks) rather from an angry God than from an entreated one. Saul and Jeroboam were both given in anger.

1. God may have a hand in things wherein men sin exceedingly.

2. Things that are evil may yet have present success.

3. God's gifts are not always in love. Take heed of immoderate desires for any worldly thing.

I. HOW WE MAY KNOW THAT WHAT GOD GIVES IS IN ANGER, NOT IN LOVE. It is a very hard thing to convince men, if they have their desires satisfied, that it is rather from anger than love. Men are so well pleased with the satisfying of their desires that they can be very hardly convinced but that God intends good to them in it

1. When you desire a gift, rather than God in it. When your desires are for the gift rather than the Giver, you can have no comfort that there is love in it.

2. When our desires are immoderate and violent.

3. When God grants men their desires before the due time. They have what they would have, but they have it not in God's time.

4. When God grants us what we would have, but without the blessing. He grants the thing, but takes away the blessing of the thing, He takes away the comfort and satisfaction of it. "They shall eat, but they shall not be satisfied."

5. When that which we desire is merely to satisfy our lusts. We do not desire such and such things that by them we may be fitted for the service of God.

6. When men are so eager that they care not whether the gift comes from a reconciled or a provoked God; it is all one to them (Numbers 11.).

7. When God regards not our preparation for a mercy. Carnal hearts take no great care themselves of it. Let me have it, say they, our fitness matters not. It is your sin and wickedness not to regard the preparation of your hearts for what you have, and it is God's judgment to give it to you before you are pre pared. A gracious heart, when it would have a mercy, is as careful to get the heart prepared for the mercy as to obtain it.

8. When we rest on the means we use, and seek not God by prayer.

9. When God gives us our desires, but not a sanctified use of them. When God gives you the shell, but not the kernel, surely it is not in love. All the good things that wicked men have, are but shells without kernels.

10. When a secret curse attends what we have.

11. When we regard not what becomes of others, so we have our wants satisfied.

12. When God, in satisfying our desires, makes way for some judgment.

13. When men are greedy of things to the disregard of results; when they would have their desires satisfied in a foolish way, never minding what inconveniences may follow, but merely looking to their present comfort.

14. When men seek to have their desires satisfied, merely because they love change.

15. When our desires of further mercies make us forget former mercies.

16. When men desire new things out of mistrust of God.

17. If we seek to attain our desires by unlawful means.

(Jeremiah Burroughs.)

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KJV: I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.

WEB: I have given you a king in my anger, and have taken him away in my wrath.