Saul's Pride and the Fall from Grace: Lessons from the Old Testament

Well, let's go ahead and get right into our Bible study here this evening.

We've been tracking through First Samuel for quite some time now, and we've made it to 1 Samuel, chapter 15.

And if you have your Bibles, let's go ahead and open up to First Samuel, Chapter 15.

As we've studied the man who is named Saul here in the Old Testament, we've seen that over time, Saul has really turned himself over to a heart of pride, a heart of selfishness, and he's turned himself over to disobedience, in contrast to the obedience that God called him to follow as a king of Israel.

And So here in 1st Samuel chapter 15, we're going to see what we would say is really Saul's defining moment in which shows his prideful character.

And so what happens here is that God speaks through Samuel and gives a message to Saul.

And, and we'll see in the first three verses, verses 1, 2, and 3, the command that was given to Saul from Samuel, but ultimately from the Lord.

If you remember, Samuel is the prophet who God uses to speak forth his word to the people of Israel, and particularly to the king.

Then that's named Saul here.

And so verse one, Samuel also said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people.

And so there is a reminder here from Samuel to Saul that, hey, remember, it was God who told me to anoint you as king over his people.

So it wasn't Saul's people, it was God's people.

And really, throughout all of Saul's leadership, it was always to be that Saul was a steward over God's people.

It was never supposed to be Saul's people, but Saul definitely personalized it to himself, and that showed his prideful character.

And so there's a reminder there of what already happened.

Then it says, now therefore, hearken thou unto the voice of the Word, words of the Lord.

So there is a challenge here.

There's a challenge to hear the Word of God.

And certainly that's important.

All of us in our lives are called to hear the Word of God either through preaching or teaching or even studying his Word.

But then there's a second part always to when we hear from the Word of God, and that is to apply the Word of God to our lives.

Sometimes we'll pray that, hey, we hope that the Word of God is presented and heard and applied.

The reason being is because if we just hear the Word of God and we don't apply the Word of God, it really isn't going to take any application in our life.

And so Saul here is challenged to hear the word of God, but also to apply it.

Verse 2.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel.

And so what we see here is really a reminder to Saul about what has happened in the past.

And that would be that Amalek, these people, the Amalekites, had done some really bad things to the people of Israel throughout history.

And so it says here that God remembers what am did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt.

And so if you remember a little bit about the Old Testament history up to this point, the Israelites were traveling from Egypt to the Promised Land.

And there were some times in which they were very weak in their travels, and AMC was waiting for them, and the Amalekites came and attacked them in their weakest state.

So God is reminding Saul that he hasn't forgotten about his people and he actually remembers what the Amalekites have done.

And there's going to be judgment there.

And actually God was going to use Saul for that judgment.

God was going to use Saul to do his work.

Verse 3.

This is really the command.

He says, hear this and do this.

Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

And so the Bible tells us here that the call for Saul was not just to go in and partially take out the Amalekites.

The call for Saul and for the people of Israel was to go to the Amalekites and take them out completely, wipe them out completely.

This speaks of a total victory that the Lord is calling him to do.

So anytime God calls us to do something for him in obedience, he calls for complete obedience.

Not half obedience, not just partially following him.

He calls us to completely commit to him.

And so God could have judged the Amalekites in many different ways, but what he does is he calls for Saul to be a part of his work.

And that's always a blessing.

It's always a blessing when God calls us to do his work because he can do it on his own, right?

I mean, think about Sodom and Gomorrah.

I mean, God just sent down fire and brimstone from heaven.

Certainly God could have done this at this point, but with the relationship that the Israelites have with the Lord, he calls them to be a part of this.

And so he wanted not only to judge the Amalekites, but at the same time test the obedience of Saul and the people of Israel.

And so this was a test of obedience.

God wanted to see the judgment happen, and ultimately he always will have the judgment happen.

But he's calling Saul to be a part of it.

And so the question is not just, hey, are you going to follow me?

But are you going to follow me completely?

And so that is the call.

That is the commandment.

But what we see next is very important because what we're going to see happen is that Saul takes the initiative to attack the Amalekites, but he does not completely take out the Amalekites in complete obedience to the Lord.

So what we're going to see in verses 4 through 9 is the compromise that was made.

So we.

So we have a command given from God.

And all of us can understand that God gives commands to his people through his word, through his, and.

And through, in this case, through the prophet Samuel.

But now the challenge is, is are you going to follow it completely?

And if we don't follow it completely, we have something in our life called compromise.

And so let's say, for example, the Bible says for us to do something, particularly in our lives, whether it be to follow something or not to do something.

And we say, lord, I see that, and I'll do that partially, but I'm not going to completely commit to that.

Well, the biblical definition of that very action is compromise.

And so what we see happening here is Saul is going to compromise what God has commanded him to do.

So look at verse number four.

With me and Saul gathered the people together.

Okay, good step, right?

That's the first step that he should do.

He gathers the people together, and we see that he's a capable military leader.

We just saw that in chapter 14.

He had a lot of victories.

And so Saul had a lot of strength.

Saul had a lot of leadership ability.

And so he brings them together and it says, and they numbered them into lame, 200,000 footmen and 10,000 men of Judah.

And Saul came to the city of Amalek and laid wait in the valley.

So he does something very strategic here.

He waits, and he eventually says, okay, we're gonna attack.

Verse 6.

And Saul said unto the Kenites, go, depart.

Get you down from among the Amalekites.

So actually, what we see here is that there's these other groups of people called the Kenites, and they are not the object of God's judgment.

So what Saul basically does in his mercy is he says, hey, you Guys, better get out of here before we attack the Amalekites, because we're coming to wipe them out.

So he tells them to get away from the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them.

And so we see here at this point, Saul has at least some intention to go destroy the Amalekites.

And so somewhere between here and the end of this chapter, we see a measure of compromise in Saul's mind.

And we're going to see later on why Saul doesn't completely wipe out the Amalekites.

And it's a selfish reason, as it usually is, but he does show some level of mercy to these people, the Kenites.

And he says, for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.

So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites, and Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest, assure that is over against Egypt.

And so right there we see that he begins.

And he begins the obedience to wipe them out.

But then verse eight is the compromise.

And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive.

If you remember, he was called to wipe out everybody.

And that would include the king.

Now, we.

We do know through other passages of scripture later on that it wasn't just the king that he spared, because there's going to be other people later on that are going to be of the line of the Amalekites.

And so if that be the case, we know that it's not just the king that he spared.

The king is noteworthy here for the story, but we do know that there are other Amalekites that got away from them.

And we see that that is a mark of his disobedience.

So he takes the king, the king of the Amalekites, Agag, and says, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

But Saul said.

And.

But Saul and the people spared Agag.

And then what else did they spare?

The best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings and of the lamb and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them, but everything that was vile and refuse that they destroyed utterly.

So what we essentially see here is that Saul attacks the Amalekites and he makes a judgment call.

He says, God said to wipe out everybody and everything, all of their animals, everything good and bad.

And what he does is he makes a judgment call to say, yeah, but we could spare this king and use that as leverage.

We don't really know specifically all the things that Saul was thinking about.

But we do know that he makes a decision to spare the king.

And we see that he makes a decision to spare the best of the animals that the people of the Amalekites had.

And so God commanded Saul to bring complete judgment to all the people.

And we see that Saul makes a compromise here.

He spares the king and he spares the best of the animals.

Now he wipes out the things that he thinks that he can afford to lose.

You can see that there at the end of verse nine, it says all those things that were vile and refuse, all those things that didn't bring any value to him.

He.

We went ahead and took those out.

But the things that he thought could bring him some sort of material value, he kept.

So.

So he's making a very materialistic, selfish judgment call on whether or not to follow God.

He says, I'll follow God to this extent, but I'm not going to follow God completely.

And so in the normal sense of the ancient world, in that time, the armies were freely permitted to plunder whatever they could take.

And so what Saul is essentially doing is just acting like the world.

He's doing what everyone else would do.

And we know that God calls his people to be distinct.

God calls his people to be in a different way, apart from the world, and to do the things that he calls them to do.

We see that from the Old Testament, and even in the New Testament, God calls his people, his followers, to be different, to not follow the ways of the world.

But Saul is just doing what everyone else would do.

And so they were very careful to keep the best for themselves.

And so we can imagine that they were, you know, happy that they could find some sort of spoils to war.

And.

And we see that this isn't apathy.

This is an obedience.

This is just direct disobedience to the Lord.

They dishonor God by not following his word and his plan for this.

And so we see the compromise here with Saul and the rest of the people of Israel.

And I think that that's important to note because now we're going to get to verse number 10, because Samuel is going to come and he's going to confront Saul, and we're going to see a condemnation.

So it started with a command, and then the command was followed with a compromise.

And then from the compromise, now comes the confrontation and condemnation from ultimately the Lord.

Even though Samuel is the vessel that God uses for giving the condemnation to Saul, it's ultimately from the Lord.

So verse number 10 and we're going to go all the way down to verse number 23, because what we're going to see is this confrontation.

And.

And Saul somewhat tries to justify himself.

He tries to give a lot of reasons, he gives excuses.

And ultimately we're going to see that he cannot wiggle his way out of the judgment that God brings him for this disobedience.

So look at it with me.

Verse 10.

It says, Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, it repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has turned back from following me and hath not performed my commandments.

And it grieves Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night.

Now we're going to stop right there because there's a lot to unpack just with those two verses.

First things first.

God reveals to Samuel the compromise that Saul performed there with the Amalekites.

And so Samuel is having this opportunity to respond to the word of God, and Samuel is grieved.

And that should really be for all of us.

Anytime we are aware of somebody's spiritual compromise, it should bring us to a place of grief.

It should bring us to a place of brokenheartedness.

It should bring us to a place of compassion and need for the Lord.

And so Samuel is certainly grieved, and we see that he prays to God all night in understanding what the next steps are.

But there's a very interesting statement here in verse number 11.

It says, it repenteth me, God speaking to Samuel.

It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king.

And so at a cursory glance there, it could almost look like God is recognizing that he made a mistake.

Now we know that God doesn't make any mistakes, and we know that God doesn't change his mind.

And so.

So how can we rectify this statement to say that it repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king?

Now we have to understand that the Bible is written to us and it's written to the people that were reading it.

And.

And we are humans.

And so it's hard for us to quantify the feelings and the understanding of God.

And so it has to be put in a way in which we humans can understand.

Now I can't understand the mind of God.

It's beyond me.

The Bible actually tells us that his thoughts are beyond our thoughts.

His ways are beyond our ways.

So though we can partially understand God's emotions because he obviously created us in his image, we can't completely understand how God even processes complete emotions.

We don't know that.

But what we do know in this case is that it broke God's heart for Saul to turn his back to him.

Now, theologically speaking, did God know that Saul was going to do that?

Well, I certainly believe God knows the future.

God's not hindered by time or space.

And so God already knew that Saul would turn his back against him and not be the king that he wanted him to be.

But we also see God's brokenheartedness over Saul's rebellion.

And this shows a beautiful picture because I think a lot of times we think about, if.

If God is completely in control, then he's the one that's.

That's turning all the screws.

He's the one that's doing everything and actually forcing Saul to do these things.

But at the same time, we see a responsibility for Saul to make his own decisions.

And then we see that conflict that, that ultimately, that we can understand that God knows what Saul would do, but ultimately still was brokenhearted over this relationship that he has with Saul.

And so this is the use of what, basically we see God explaining himself to us in human terms.

And so we already know that God had, before this point in 1st Samuel, chapter 13, that God had sought a man after his own heart.

So God already knows that David is the next king.

We already know that.

But as these things unfold, God's heart is not emotionless.

We don't believe God's up there like a robot and has no emotions.

And so he's not sitting there going, well, this, this event happened.

So I just checked this off the box.

And now next check comes.

Well, certainly we know that Saul's disobedience hurts God in some way as a, as a, as a father is hurt when his child rebels.

And, and so we, we certainly see that in this passage.

And this is the closest way that I think that we can come to understanding that conflict that God has when a child of his returns or, or rebels against him.

And so we see that ultimately God is.

Is in a place of brokenheartedness over Saul's rebellion.

But then we also see Samuel, and he's grieved.

And I think that's a really important note to see as well, because what breaks our heart should.

What ultimately is what's breaking God's heart.

You know, oftentimes we're brokenhearted over things that really don't matter.

And, and I heard a phrase recently, it was like, lord, it was a prayer, actually.

It's like, lord, what breaks your Heart, Let it break my heart, Lord.

Whatever you're having those emotions about, Lord, help me have those emotions.

And I think that applies to a lot of areas of our life.

You know, looking at the lost and the need for the gospel to be presented to them.

It's, you know, it's really hard for us to mirror the desires of God when we have no heart for the loss.

Why?

Because we see throughout all of scripture, particularly in the New Testament with Jesus is preaching, he speaks over and over again about the need for those people to come to him and find salvation.

And if we sit callously and, and hard hearted against those that need Jesus, we certainly don't have the mind of God, we don't have the heart of God, and we're not brokenhearted over the things that he's brokenhearted over.

So I think that there's a great lesson there even in verse, verse 11, that we see that Samuel is brokenhearted over this situation.

And, and no doubt Samuel has a lot invested with Saul.

I mean Samuel was the one that anointed Saul.

Samuel was Saul's advisor.

And so there's a lot of personal conflict probably as well within the life of Samuel.

So we see that, we see this condemnation beginning to come towards Saul and this confrontation that needs to happen.

Verse 12.

And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel saying Saul came to Carmel.

And behold he set him up a place and has gone about and passed on and gone down to Gilgal.

So here in this case, Samuel wakes up and he knows that he needs to discipline this disobedient king.

And he finds out from the Lord that Saul, he was not broken hearted over his sin.

Now how do we know that Saul was not brokenhearted over his sin?

Well, we see in verse 12 that Saul built, as we see here, he set up a place.

He says that Saul came to Carmel.

Behold, he set him up a place and is gone about and passed on.

Now that might not sound like anything, but if you understand what that's actually saying there, Saul wasn't greed over his sin because he was pleased with himself and he set up a monument for himself.

That's what that means there, that he set up him himself a place.

He basically sets up a remembrance stone for what he did there in that battle.

So in his mind he has complete victory.

So Saul's not over there brokenhearted and repentance and dealing with conviction because he disobeyed God.

Saul is actually celebrating what has happened.

He's actually thinking that he's done the right thing.

And.

And so Saul isn't grieved over his sin.

And we don't see any shame.

We don't see any guilt, we don't see any conviction.

We know that he disobeyed God, but he doesn't feel that sense of.

Of repentance in his heart.

And we'll see that God does eventually bring a man after his own heart with the man named David.

And again, we know that David's not perfect.

We know that David makes a lot of mistakes.

But when David is confronted with sin, you guys know this.

When he's confronted with many different sins, but particularly the sin with Bathsheba, David is brokenhearted over it.

He doesn't celebrate that sin, though he tried to hide it and conceal it for a while.

That eating away of conviction in his heart eventually with the confrontation of Nathan, allowed him to come to a place of complete restoration with the Lord.

And so he set up a monument.

This shows us that Saul, Saul was not a humble man.

In contrast to humility, he was a prideful man.

And so what we're going to see here is that ultimately God is going to come down and judge him.

So Samuel came to Saul, verse 13, and Samuel came to Saul.

And Saul said unto him this.

So this is again, this is another indication of why and how we know Saul's heart is not where it needs to be.

This is not out of ignorance.

This is.

This is not out of humility.

Ultimately, we see that he is just brazen in his rebellion to God.

So Saul says to Samuel, blessed be thou of the Lord.

I have performed the commandment of the Lord.

Now, there's really two things that he could be saying here.

He could either be saying, I, I thought I did it, and I'm just ignorant to what God wanted me to do.

Well, I don't think he has that excuse because God was pretty explicit in what he said.

It wasn't unclear.

Wipe everybody out.

Or he could be living in denial, or he could be living concealing this sin.

But regardless, he comes up and he says, look, I've done what the Lord commanded.

So this would be indicative of somebody in our culture today that knows what the Bible says, knows that they didn't follow it exactly, but still proclaims that they're following God.

And we've seen that a lot in our culture today.

You know, I know the Bible says this, but our culture, you've heard this.

Our culture says this.

So I think I'm obeying God.

I'm obeying God on my Terms, essentially, is what Saul is saying.

And I think that's what we hear from a lot of people within our culture.

I obey God on my terms.

And so, yeah, I don't follow it exactly the way that it's written.

I, I know it's not complete obedience, but it's okay because I feel comfortable with it.

I feel good about this.

This is the way that, that I have an understanding with God.

And so that's what Saul is doing here.

He says, I've done it.

I, I've, I've committed myself to the Lord.

I've, I've followed this.

And so Saul's heart might have felt good about what he did.

But we also know in the New Testament, the Bible says that we can live in rebellion for so long that we can live with a sense of a callousness on our hearts.

We can have a seared conscience.

So we could actually be doing things against God, but feeling good about it because it makes us feel better.

And remember, our conscience always appeals to our highest authority.

So God created every human being with a conscience.

We know that.

But as a human being, our conscience appeals to our highest authority.

So if God is my highest authority, it's the Holy Spirit that's dictating my conscience, and that's a good thing.

But if I'm my highest authority, or my pleasure, or my satisfaction, or my, my praise, if that's my highest authority, what's going to make me feel good about my conscience is things that benefit me.

And so we don't really see Saul's conscience at all really being offended here.

And that's, and that's, that's a very bad place to be, that he's in complete rebellion to the Lord, but yet he feels good.

Blessed are you, Lord.

He says, look what I've done.

I, I performed the commandment of the lord.

So verse 13 is very telling about where Saul is.

He's, he's self deceived.

And I think that that's a very dangerous place to be.

And I think that's where a lot of people are in this world today.

Hey, I go to church.

I might even be, you know, I've even heard people that say, well, I'm a, I'm a clergy.

I'm, I'm a pastor.

So I'm doing everything for God.

But the Bible doesn't say that having outward signs and titles cause us to be spiritual.

Going to church doesn't equate spirituality necessarily.

And so there's a lot of people that are self deceived.

Just like Saul.

And so does he really believe that he followed God's commandment completely?

I think so.

I think possibly he has justified himself to say, you know what?

I've done what God said, and it can make sense to me.

And so you would say, how could he be that deceived?

Well, I really do believe that pride leads us to self deception.

I think that when we have the lens of pride over our eyes, instead of a gospel centric lens, we can see through our viewpoint and always justify the sins that we commit.

But yet when we see it through the gospel viewpoint, we see that everything that we do outside of the word of God is a sin and we have to come back to a place of repentance.

So I believe that Saul is seeing this action through the lens of himself, and therefore he's able to deceive himself whether he knows it or not.

He's trusting his heart, which again is wisdom that's given with worldly, you know, worldly systems.

Worldly people will say, follow your heart.

But the Bible tells us something completely different.

The Bible tells us that our heart will deceive us, that at its core in the flesh, our heart is wicked.

And so if Saul is following his heart, he's following all the wrong things.

And we know that that certainly might be the case.

And so he says, look what I've done, verse 13.

And then we see the confrontation.

And you would think it would be at first, you know, Samuel is a very interesting biblical character.

If you don't know what he's about to do in this passage, get ready.

Okay?

But.

But Samuel comes and he confronts.

He doesn't even really confront Saul yet.

He's walking up and Saul says, hey, blessed be God, I followed all of his commandments.

And then.

And Samuel just asks a question.

And I think this question is telling.

I think sometimes, sometimes all we need to do is ask a question to get that person to start thinking about what they've done.

And Samuel said, what meaneth then?

This bleeding of the sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen, which I hear.

So Samuel just turns around and says, oh, you did it.

Why do I still hear sheep?

Why do I hear the oxen?

And that's a valid question because part of the commandment was not only to wipe out the people, but it was to wipe out all of their livestock.

Now that might not sound like important to us, just like it didn't sound important to Saul, but at the same time, when God says something, whether it makes sense to us or not we're called to follow it.

And so Samuel asked this question.

He says, why have, why do I hear this?

And so the livestock that God told him clearly to be killed, to wipe out, he says, I, I hear them, what's going on?

And so now we see the beginning and really the justification of, of, or at least he tries to justify himself here in verse 15, Saul does verse 15.

And Saul said they.

So the immediate thing that Saul does is he begins to blame somebody else.

And we see that a lot with the life of Saul.

He sees a confrontation.

And instead of thinking about it from his perspective of his responsibility as the king, and as the king, he was responsible for the army that he was leading.

He says they have brought them from the Amalekites.

So it is a deflection.

The first series of excuses that Saul gives are essentially blame the people, not myself, blame others.

And so he says they have brought them from the Amalekites for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen.

So we see that he blames them and he gives their reasoning.

He says it's them that want to do this.

Even though we know that he was all part of this, he was complicit, he was leading, but nonetheless he blamed somebody else.

And so he says it's, it's them.

And then he actually tries to spiritualize it.

He tries to even make it sound good by putting a religious spin on it.

Which again, that's what we see with people that are self deceived, that are living in rebellion to God, even, even if it is rebellion to God, they will try to spin it and it'll be religious rebellion, like, well, yeah, but I'm doing it for the Lord.

We're doing this for God.

We're doing in the name of God.

He says here at the end of this verse, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God and the rest we've utterly destroyed.

And so here he blames the people, not himself.

And then he will basically say, hey, look, it's.

We're doing this for religious reasons.

This is fine.

We kept the good ones for the Lord, even though that's what not, that's not what God called him to do.

He said this.

We have a spiritual reason for what we've done.

And that's how far somebody can get when they're living outside of a relationship with God, that they can actually say that the sin that they're openly committing against God is something that's glorifying him.

You would say, I can't believe that there would be people in our society today that believe that.

Folks, you can see interview after interview, confrontation, sermon after sermon of people actually justifying what God clearly says is wrong in Scripture and saying, yeah, but God is love.

And so for us to love somebody, we have to agree with this.

We have to not only agree with it, but affirm it.

And then we actually have to in some ways join in with it.

No, the Bible says that anything that God clearly lays out is, is never, never going to be something that he wants us to do in scripture.

If it's something that he negatively paints in Scripture.

So what does that look like?

Well, that looks like this.

If I'm being led by the Spirit, I will never contradict his word.

If someone says, well, the Spirit led me to do this.

Well, if the Spirit leads to do something that is contradictory to what's clearly stated in the Word of God, that's not the Holy Spirit leading somebody.

It possibly could be another spirit, it could be an evil spirit leading someone.

But the Bible never says that the Holy Spirit will contradict himself.

We even know that the Bible says that God cannot contradict himself.

He cannot deny himself.

Therefore what the Bible says is what goes.

And we cannot give any religious spin to any particular sins that we might like in our lives.

And so that's exactly what Saul is trying to do.

He's trying to over spiritualize it.

So in his pride and even in his self deception, this makes sense to Saul.

It makes sense in his worldview, it makes sense through his perspective.

But we know that it doesn't make sense to the Lord or to Samuel.

And we're going to see that Saul is going to be condemned for this.

And so he gives excuses.

And I also wanted you to see something very interesting here in verse 15.

I almost didn't catch it when I read through it the first time and even the second and third time.

But, but read verse 15 again with me, at least the last part.

He says, he says, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God.

He doesn't say my God.

He says essentially in everyday English, he said, we did all this for your God, Samuel.

And we see that there isn't that personal relationship with Saul and the Lord.

He's walking outside of the bonds of the Word of God, the will of God, the way of God.

He now is even going so far to say that we're doing it for your God, Samuel.

Not.

Not my God, not our God, but your God.

And I really do believe that that was an indication of where Saul's heart is.

When.

When someone can be so detached from the Lord that they're not even willing to personalize their relationship with Him.

You know, I know that, you know, we're.

We're talking to the Wednesday night crowd, or we're talking to people that predominantly are Christian, have been Christian for a very long time.

But I think all of us to some degree know somebody, or even ourselves have gone through a struggle in our life where we feel detached from God for whatever reason.

And oftentimes when we feel that division or when we see that division with people, it's predicated upon a divide with a relationship between God because of un.

Un unconfessed sin really is what it is.

And a lot of times people know what's right, but they don't want to get to the place of being right.

Therefore, there's that division and there's actually sometimes blame, like, well, God's forgotten about me.

God's left me alone.

And there's a blame on God for something that we should take responsibility for in submitting ourselves to Him.

And so at this point in time, we see really the spiral of Saul's disobedience to the Lord.

Verse 16.

So here comes the culmination of the condemnation, the judgment to.

To Saul.

Then Samuel said unto Saul, stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night.

And he said unto him, say on.

And Samuel said, when thou, when thou was little in thine own sight, was thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel?

And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel.

So there is a little bit of a reminder again for Saul where he was before and where he is at now.

God had given him specific commands.

And when Saul was just a humble person, he was given a great opportunity by God to be a great leader.

Everything that Saul had in his life at this point was given to him because of the grace and mercy of the Lord.

Saul did not deserve this.

And that phrase, when you were little, in your own eyes, it speaks of when this was a time before.

He was prideful.

He was humble.

He started out humble.

And in his humility, God brought him this opportunity.

And he had this amazing opportunity to lead his people.

But at this time, he's turned his back against this way of thinking.

And now he's big in his own eyes.

And now God has pulled away from him because of his rebellion.

So he says, here verse 18.

And the Lord sent thee on a journey and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.

He's reminding him of the command and then he reminds him of the compromise.

And now he's going to give him the condemnation.

Verse 19.

Wherefore then did thou not obey the voice of the Lord?

But this fly upon the spoil and did us evil in the sight of the Lord.

So here it is, he's laying out for him.

He says, you, you did not obey.

You did what you thought was best.

And verse 20.

And Saul said unto Samuel, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.

So even here I, I think that, oh, you would think at this point, this is, this is Saul's opportunity to fall before God.

And he's had multiple opportunities to do so.

God is giving him every opportunity to repent.

God is giving him every opportunity to plead with him for mercy and grace.

But he's like the, the child or the adult that is unwilling to admit that they've been, you know, messing around in the cookie jar and they've got cookies all over their face, right?

Like he's got all the guilt upon him.

He is guilty as ever.

But he says, yeah, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me.

So, so he says, no, no, I've, I've done it.

I've, I've done what you've called me to do.

And so Saul insists that he's innocent.

And, and he's like we said, he's so self deceived that he's now saying, I've obeyed the voice of the Lord.

But then in the same breath, in the very same breath, while he says, no, no, I've obeyed God.

And then look what he says in that very same sentence.

He says, I've obeyed the voice of the Lord, verse 20, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me and have brought Agag, the King of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

So right, while he's saying he's obeyed God, he admits what he's done against God.

He's so self deluded that he doesn't even understand where he's wrong.

He admits his sin in the middle of his statement of saying that he hasn't sinned.

And, and so he still doesn't see it.

His pride has clouded his discernment.

His pride has clouded really all of the things that God has called him to do in his life.

And at this point in time, he has really gone to a place where he can't even see the truth right before him.

And so he describes that he didn't obey the voice of the Lord.

And so the fact that he says, I brought Agag the king, but I've utterly destroyed the Amalekites, shows he did not understand what God called him to do.

Or he did understand and he's just in complete rebellion.

And then again, let's see what he says here in verse 21.

He says, but the people took the spoil.

Again, blaming again.

He never takes responsibility.

And by the way, God certainly wants us to obey him in every case.

But God also understands our shortcomings as humans and understands that when we fall short, there is a proper way of response.

And we've seen this over and over again throughout our own culture today, is that when we're confronted with the truth, the true test of someone who's following God is when we're confronted to admit it, to confess it, and to turn our hearts over to the Lord.

Say, lord, I need you first.

John 1:9.

If we confess our sins, he's faithful just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Folks, the mark of a growing Christian is not perfection.

The mark of a growing Christian is recognition where we have gone astray and the humility to come back and plead for God's forgiveness.

But Saul doesn't do that.

Saul blames.

Saul looks to everybody else other than himself.

And so he says in verse 21, it was them, the chief of things, which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilead.

So he repeats himself, you know, I, I struggle to see Saul in a good light, even though I, I don't want to be too judgmental.

You, you just see Saul here so lost and so, so empty, so self focused that he misses the whole point and so he blames the other people.

He insists that he's innocent.

He makes a statement of a half truth which is essentially a whole lie.

And really what we see is that the one who should be taking responsibility and leading the other people by example is blaming the other people that he's supposed to be leading as examples.

And, and he's looking at them as the example and saying, well, the reason why there's sin is because of them.

It would be like me looking at my children and my children not doing the right thing and me sinning with them and then going, well, it's my children's fault that I'm not leading them right.

Instead of me taking the responsibility to say that it's my responsibility to lead.

Saul is missing the point completely of what God has called him to do.

So verse 22.

And Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight and burn offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord.

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams.

What is he saying here?

Well, Samuel is telling Saul his problem that even if you wanted this to be a religious experience, God isn't as worried about the outward show as he is the heart.

God, if.

If we want to say, you know, there's a lot of people that say, well, I want to worship the Lord, what does he say?

Here is worship, verse 22.

Hath the Lord is great delight and burn offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord.

The greatest proof and the greatest manifestation of our worship is our obedience, because that's what that shows our love the most.

You know, I think a lot of times within our culture, and probably even back in this culture, the.

The.

The sign of worship was whatever was the loudest, whatever was the most grand, whatever was the most ornate.

And we even see that today.

You know, there's people that are dressed head to toe with gold trimmings.

And, you know, there's a whole idea.

Well, that's true worship.

But what we see here is that God isn't as concerned about what's going on on the outside as he is the heart.

Because if the heart is in the right place, the actions will be in the right place.

Our worship will be authentic.

But our worship can be so empty if our heart is not aligned with God in obedience.

So I could sit here all day and praise God's name through song, and I can.

I can preach the word publicly and boldly.

But if my heart is in disobedience to God, all of those utterings of worship are in vain.

It's our heart that he wants.

And actually, Jesus quotes this very same passage in the New Testament to the Pharisees, and he says, you guys have it mistaken.

It's not all about your outward signs that you think people think you're worshipful.

It's about your heart.

And so God desires the heart.

And that's exactly what we see, is that the Lord has great delight, yes, in burnt offerings.

But if you're not obeying, then there's no point to what you do.

And so religious observance without obedience is empty in the eyes of God.

We.

We know that oftentimes we try to fill the void with just going through the motions.

I've been there, I, I, I've said, you know what?

I, I don't feel like I want to do this.

I'm going to do this anyway.

And sometimes there is a, there is a benefit to that because sometimes we don't feel good about our lives.

Well, we're still supposed to worship, but it's the bigger picture.

So I'm not just talking about those hard days where it's hard to worship, because I know there's days that it's hard to worship the Lord, but it's those days in which we're lying to ourselves and saying, you know what, if, if I just do this, everything will be okay.

It doesn't matter what's going on on the inside.

Jesus talked about this with the Pharisees.

He, he says, basically, you're whited sepulchers.

You're pretty sepulchers.

Now, we don't often think about sepulchers being pretty.

You think about like, that's holding a dead body.

But actually, even if you're over there in, in the Israel, in the Middle east, they have these really nice, like white sepulchers.

They're like stone and they're ornate and all that kind of stuff.

And Jesus was saying, that looks nice on the outside, but on the inside you're like rotting bones and flesh.

And, and the picture of that would be that those are people trying to do things on the outside.

So that's out Saul here, he says, saul, God wants your heart.

He wants your bodies.

A living sacrifice.

That's Romans, chapter 12.

And so we could see, someone can do sacrifice after sacrifice.

They can go to church every single day of the week.

They can crawl on their hands and knees, up steps.

But if there's not a heart of obedience, that's all empty and it's all vain.

And so essentially that's what the lesson is here is he says, saul, it's not about giving burnt offerings.

It's about your obedience to the Lord.

Verse 23.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

That's, that's some strong words there.

I mean, I think everybody, hopefully everybody recognizes the evils of witchcraft.

And actually in our world today, there's people that deny that that's all even real.

But the Bible speaks to witchcraft and the evil nature of those things.

And I think all of us can understand the dangers of that.

And often we elevate certain sins above others.

But what we see here is that Saul, through the, through his rebellion is essentially doing these things.

As he says.

It's.

It's.

It's as of the sin of witchcraft and sub.

Stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

So sometimes what happens, what we do and what Saul's doing is he justifies certain sins.

And he says, well, at least I'm not doing this.

At least I'm not practicing witchcraft or idolatry.

And what the Lord is telling Saul here is that, yeah, your rebellion is.

Is as bad as witchcraft.

Your.

Your.

Your stubbornness is.

Is as idolatry.

And so when we fall into the trap of thinking that, well, at least I'm not doing that, these other sins, though, are okay, we're getting to a place where.

It's a very dangerous place because we're getting to a place where we begin to justify or lessen the sins of rebellion to the Lord.

And so we see this.

This condemnation and we're ultimately seen.

And I believe what.

What we can title as.

I. I think the.

The consequence.

I think that's the best way to.

To understand it.

There is a consequence here.

So there's a command, there's a compromise, there's a condemnation.

And then eventually the consequence of this verse, verse 23, he says, for the rebellion is as sin as witchcraft.

The stubborn stubbornness is iniquity and idolatry.

And because thou has rejected the word of the Lord, so we see the heart of the sin of Saul.

I mean, obviously it's pride, but to tangibly put a title on his sin, it's rejecting or rebelling against the word of God.

So he says, because of your rejection to the word of God, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

So Saul loses the blessing that God had given him through mercy and grace because of his rebellion.

Now we know that we don't lose our salvation.

And so if we fall into the trap of rebellion in our life, there's certainly consequences.

Though I think that what we see is that as a believer, if we do live in rejection to the word of God, there are certainly blessings that God can take away from us, that if we would have followed him in obedience, that God would give us in.

In his grace.

And so we see that he loses the opportunity to.

To find this being king.

Now we would think at this very point, okay, that means Saul loses it and David's king tomorrow.

No, it.

Actually, I think it's like 25 years that it goes on after this.

So this speaks of a delayed judgment against.

And this is his mercy and grace.

This is God's mercy and grace that he would hold back even upon that.

Verse 24.

And Saul said unto Samuel, I've sinned.

And so, so now Saul is going to recognize his sin to some degree, but we're even going to see that it's going to be a really weak effort for repentance here.

And.

And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and thy words.

Because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

He still, he says, he goes, yeah, I sin, but it's because of those people.

He's still deflecting.

It's, it's.

It's almost like an apology to say, like, well, I'm sorry that I offended you, even though I didn't do anything wrong.

It was, it was you that it was the problem.

So, so he's basically just saying, yeah, I've sinned, but it's all their problem.

Again, it's another deflection.

So Saul's statement begins with.

It sounds like a genuine confession, I've sinned.

But then Saul refuses to own up to his sin and take the responsibility.

He blames other people, and he says that they made me do it.

It's like today, we.

We can't say any.

The book of James tells us this.

There's nobody that we can blame about our sin other than ourselves.

We can't blame Satan.

We can't blame our friends.

We can't blame our family.

We can't blame our upbringing.

We can't blame our government.

There's a lot of places that we want to blame for the sins that we commit in our life.

But what we see here is that there's no one else that we can blame other than ourselves.

Verse 25.

Now, therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord.

And so he says, it's.

It's the fear of people that made me sin.

Now, that very well may be the case.

The Bible does tell us that the fear of man is a snare and is, as much as Saul was a great military leader and we would think a bold, you know, strong man, he was very limited because of his fear of man.

Throughout his whole life, it was always about what the people think.

And if you're always concerned about what the people think, you're eventually not going to do what God tells you to do.

And the fear of man is a snare.

It is a trap.

And so the fear of man gripped Saul so much that he wanted their approval, that he wanted their praise and therefore caused him to get to this place where he isn't repentant.

So, so instead of dealing with the deeper issue of his pride, of his.

Of his fear, of his rebellion, of his stubbornness, as it was mentioned here, Saul just thinks that he could fix everything by just saying, I'm sorry, like, just pardon me, please forgive me.

And.

And we know that God will forgive when we come back with truly repentant hearts, but God isn't going to forgive us if we just come to him with a selfish intent.

Well, I just want to get away from.

Because now what it is, is he just wants to get away from the problem of losing his.

His crown.

Now he sees how serious it is, and now he's trying to backpedal.

He's trying to find everything that he can, and Saul will say anything that he can do to get out of it.

And so a word or a few sentences is not going to fix.

It's going to be a heart issue.

It's a change of heart.

And so obviously we know that God sees the heart better than anybody and God knows the heart of Saul.

And therefore, when we come back next time, we're going to look at God's response to Saul's empty confession.

Basically.

Now, if someone came up to me now, I have to be very careful when I say this because we cannot see the heart.

So, like, let's say someone comes up to me, they've done wrong to me, and they ask me for forgiveness.

I can't look at them and go, well, I don't think you mean it, so I'm not going to forgive you.

And you say, I don't know, because isn't that what God does?

Well, God knows the heart every time.

But you look in the New Testament, you remember Peter asked Jesus, well, how many times am I supposed to forgive?

And he says, seven times seven was the picture of completion.

He's like, seven times I have to do it.

And then Jesus in his picturesque language says, no, seven times 70.

And he doesn't mean, you know, seven times 70, then stop.

What Jesus is saying is that we have to have the heart of forgiveness because we don't know their hearts.

So we have to take for what's said.

Now, we also can be very discerning on actions, and we have to understand that there's limitations to that.

But what we see here is that God doesn't just reject Saul because Saul's messed up before.

God is going to reject Saul's empty apology because God knows his heart.

And.

And so what I want us to understand is that there is a balance there, to understand that we are not God.

Even though he's our greatest example, we cannot see the heart.

So next week we're going to look that God does reject Saul's plea to keep the throne because we know that it's really just a selfish plea.

It's not a brokenhearted plea.

And we're, we didn't get to it.

I wanted to get to it tonight.

But we're going to see what Samuel does because Samuel goes ahead and makes things right.

And it's definitely different than what we would expect our culture today.

And by the way, we'll talk about that.

We're not called to do what Samuel does in this passage that was working under the old covenant, we are now under the new covenant.

God tells us to, to work in a different kingdom, a kingdom that is not material kingdom that is eternal.

But, but Samuel, in the right way, in obedience to God, really does take care of the situation and certainly will come back next time to hear more about that.

Well, we'll go ahead and stop there.

I wish we had more time, but time has run out here this evening.

Certainly First Samuel and Second Samuel are some of the most entertaining, engaging passages of scripture.

And we don't want to just like passages because they are entertaining, but it does definitely help the storytelling when we get to these stories that are, and I, I shouldn't call them stories, I should call them historical accounts, but these historical accounts of really action packed situations and, and if anyone ever tells you that the Bible is boring, I know what they probably mean because, you know, I, I do agree that when you get to the genealogies, it can be a little bit challenging to track those, even though there's a point to those.

By the way, there's a, there's an awesome point to the genealogies when we get to the New Testament.

But there are, I think, more passages of scripture that are not boring.

And I think that these are some of the ones that I just feel like jump off the page for us.

And we want to do that.

We want to see these not just as stories that we tell kids and tell adults, but real historical accounts of real people going through real struggles that we in similar ways face today.

But certainly God is still at work and we're thankful for that.