Games That Fools Play | Part 2

King Saul is a cautionary tale of what happens to those who we need to put our face in this book.

We need to open our hearts to the Lord and say, Lord, keep me and Lord, guard me. No man ever got a better start than did King Saul. When we first meet King Saul in the Bible as a young man, he's handsome, he's winsome, he's courteous, he's humble, he's thoughtful. But as we continue through the Bible, we find him as he becomes a bitter, envious, murderous, wicked old man. What a strange man is Saul. But you'd better listen carefully, because the thing that happened to Saul could happen to any man, woman, boy, girl here tonight who names the name of Jesus. Saul started down the road that ended in self-destruction, and I want you to notice the five steps that he took.

The first step is what I call self-determination. What was it that Saul did that wasn't all that bad? As a matter of fact, it sounds pretty good. He was offering sacrifices to God. He was praising God. He was worshipping God.

But here's what he was doing, ladies and gentlemen. He was running ahead of God. He was acting by self-will. He was acting by self-determination.

Not only his self-determination, but his stubborn disobedience. Because a self-willed man not only runs ahead of God, but after a while he starts going in the opposite direction from God. Now I want you to turn to 1 Samuel chapter 15 for just a moment and look in verse 2. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he did wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt.

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. This was God's commandment to Saul. God said to Saul, I want you to utterly destroy the Amalekites. Well, let's see what Saul did. 1 Samuel chapter 15, look in verse 20. Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

But the people took of the spoiled sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Hath the Lord his great delight in burnt 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, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

Now that's very important that you just note that. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now his was a half-hearted apology. It was an apology with an explanation. It was an apology with a blame on somebody else.

It really wasn't his fault. It all sounded so good. It sounded so reasonable. It sounded so sensible. It sounded so logical.

It sounded so economical. What had happened was this, that God said, I want everything destroyed. I want the beast destroyed.

I want everybody destroyed. Samuel comes up and says, Did you obey the voice of the Lord? Oh, he said, Yes, I did. Well, then Samuel said, What are all these cows over here I hear mooing? What are all these sheep I hear over here bleating? Oh, he says, Well, those, yes, well, I'll tell you about those, Samuel. They were such nice sheep and such fine cows.

I saved those. You see, I'm going to sacrifice them to the Lord. And what about King Agag, the king of the Amalekites?

Oh, yes, well, you know, it's nice to have mercy on a few people. And he pled so eloquently for his life, I just spared Agag. Now he had it all reasoned out. He had an alibi. He had an excuse. He was going to do wrong that he might do right.

It's never right to do wrong to get a chance to do right. But he had somehow the idea that the end would justify the means and that somehow he could stubbornly rebel against God. First of all, his self-determination. And his self-determination turns into a stubborn disobedience. Now I want you to notice he's not finished yet. I want you to notice now that the tide begins to quicken.

The pace starts to flow. Because when a man first of all is self-determined, then after a while he becomes stubbornly disobedient, and then he moves into swift degeneration. Look in chapter 16 and verse 14 and see what happens to this man now. The Bible says, But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. Now sin is sweeping him along.

Now he's caught up. Now God's Spirit has left him. Now an evil spirit has come upon him. Do you ever remember reading there in the book of Ephesians the Bible says, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give a place to the devil?

What does that mean? It means when we have unconfessed, unrepentant of sin in our lives, we have given the devil a beachhead. We've given the devil a campground. We've given the devil a foul nest in which he can hatch his eggs. We have given the devil a place in our lives.

That's what Saul did. First of all, the Spirit of the Lord was upon Saul, but Saul started out with his self-determination, then his stubborn disobedience, and then his swift degeneration was such that God's Spirit left him, and in that vacuum an evil spirit possessed him. Was this a demon spirit? We're not quite sure whether it was a demon spirit or not. You say, Well, how could a demon spirit come from the Lord? In the Hebrew way of thinking, everything that happens, happens because God has allowed it to happen. And, dear friends, that just simply means that God has allowed judgment to come upon this man, very much in the same sense in the New Testament. Because they receive not the love of the truth, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. And God allowed this man to be opened up, if he's talking about an evil spirit, a demon spirit, perhaps it's talking about a malevolent spirit.

I mean like a demented mind, like a man who has lost his mind, lost his insanity. It can mean a destructive spirit, but something terrible and something horrible happened to this man as God's Spirit forsook him and an evil spirit came upon him, and it was God's righteous and just judgment that this thing should happen to him. I want you to notice now how he's picking up speed on his downward trail, his self-determination, his sinful, stubborn disobedience, his swift degeneration. He has gone, first of all, from ignoring God to disobeying God, and now he begins to fight God.

About this time you'll find him as he's getting jealous of David, and he starts to fight David. But David was God's anointed, and when he was fighting David, he was fighting God. And here's a man who's meant to be serving God, and he's literally fighting God, but it's not over yet. After his swift degeneration, we see his spiritual depravity. Turn to 1 Samuel 28 and look with me in verse 7 and see what happened to this man now. He's a bitter old man now. He's a desolate old man.

He is a confused old man, and he wants some information about a battle. And what does he do but go to a witch? Now he begins to traffic with evil spirits. And look, if you will, in chapter 28 verse 7. Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there's a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. This woman was a witch, and I needn't take time to tell you that whole sad, sordid story of how this man who had the Spirit of God upon him, how this man who had been given a new heart, how this man who was so handsome, so tall, so humble, so gifted, this man was such a wonderful commission from God, this man who once had a word from heaven is now trafficking with the demon spirits of hell. He is now going to a witch for séance. He has gone from ignoring God to disobeying God, from disobeying God to fighting God, and from fighting God to actually cooperating and fellowshipping with the devil. Samuel knew it would happen, and that's the reason that Samuel warned him of witchcraft when he said that stubbornness is as witchcraft, because when a man is rebellious and disobedient, he commits the same sin that the devil sinned, and he does the same thing that the devil did, and he puts himself in company with the devil and opens himself to the occult. But let's see the final thing in this man's downward plunge, not only his spiritual degeneration as he traffics with demon spirits now, but finally his self-destruction.

Look, if you will, in chapter 31 and verse 4 as we continue to study. There's a battle this day, and I want you to use your imagination. As your eyes sweep the battlefield, you come to the tragic figure of King Saul. You can still see him because he's still tall, head and shoulders above everyone else, except there's no one else hardly for him to be head and shoulders above. His men have fallen by his side. His army is in retreat. His wonderful son Jonathan and his other sons have been slaughtered by the Philistines, and now this man is standing out there in full view of the enemy.

He knows that the end is coming. He doesn't want to die at the enemy's hand, and so I want you to notice what happens here as we read in 1 Samuel chapter 31 and verse 4. And Saul said unto his armor-bearer, Draw thy sword and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me.

But his armor-bearer would not, for he was so afraid. Therefore Saul took up a sword and fell upon it. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword and died with him. So Saul died. He died by his own hand. He died defeated. He died really intimidated by the enemy. He died intimidated by demon-possessed people, the Philistines. He died in such a way as to bring shame upon the nation that he was meant to be king over. No wonder, no wonder it is said of Saul that he played the fool. No man ever had a better start.

No man ever ended more tragically than this man Saul. Now I want to close this simple message by making some applications to your heart and some applications to my heart. And believe you me, I've made these applications to my heart. The first thing I want you to learn is this, that circumstances cannot make you and they cannot break you. Don't go around complaining because you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Don't go around complaining because other people are more handsome than you. Other people are more wealthy than you. Other people are more beautiful than you. Other people have better opportunities than you.

Don't complain about that. Listen, sometimes a man has opportunity, but he doesn't have ability. Sometimes man has ability, but he doesn't have opportunity. Saul had both ability and opportunity. He had opportunity of a million, and he was a man in a million. And yet he failed ignominiously. David didn't have those kind of opportunities. As a matter of fact, when they were looking for someone to be the next king over Israel, nobody even thought of little David. He was so insignificant, he was out there just a shepherd boy taking care of the sheep. He wasn't the kind of a guy that was head and shoulders above everybody else, but he, not Saul, became Israel's mightiest king because he had a heart for God. I'd rather have a heart for God than all the opportunities and all the wit and wisdom and handsomeness and wealth put together. Do you have a heart for God?

I want to tell you something, friend. Circumstances cannot make you, and circumstances cannot break you. You may have every advantage in this world, and play the fool, you may have very few advantages and be used of God, for God has not chosen the mighty things of this world. God has chosen the weak. God has chosen the foolish.

God has chosen those that the world despises, and God uses them. There's a second thing I want you to learn, that whoever you are and where you are, you cannot be successful without obeying God. I don't care who you are, you're not smarter than God. You'd better be careful that you don't run ahead of God. You'd better be careful that you do not stubbornly disobey God. I want to tell you that there is only one alternative to obeying the command of God, and that is disobeying it.

And I want to tell you that when you disobey God, especially when you disobey God with your eyes wide open, especially when you commit presumptuous sin, you put yourself in danger of being possessed by an evil spirit. Now, that brings up a theological question. Somebody says, Brother Rogers, do you believe that a Christian can be demon-possessed? No. Do you believe that a Christian can possess a demon?

Yes. I do not believe that the devil can ever possess that which belongs to God. But I do believe that God's people can open themselves to demonic influences, and they can be harassed and obsessed and perplexed by demon spirits because they have given a place to the devil. Now, I want to tell you, in God's work, there is no substitute for obedience. And I got to thinking about this, and I said, Dear God, I have not been as obedient as I ought to be to the things that you've shown me, and Lord, I want to be more obedient.

There's a third thing I want you to learn. I want you to learn, ladies and gentlemen, of the horrible power of sin. Don't think of sin as a small thing. Sin will take you further than you want to go. Sin will keep you longer than you want to stay, and sin will cost you more than you want to pay. Now, you fear sin. You treat sin as you would a hissing rattlesnake. You treat sin as sin would treat you. Oh, where are the people today who have a holy fear of sin? How we ought to be afraid of sin. Saul at first just dabbled in sin, and then Saul was destroyed by sin because he started down a road that seemed so small and so insignificant, just simply his willful, selfish disobedience, just his self-determination, just not waiting on God, running ahead of God, then running against God, then fighting God, cooperating with the devil, and then destroyed by the devil. Down, down, down he went.

I want to tell you something else I learned as I thought about this. That just because you're successful now doesn't mean that you're always going to be successful. Saul was successful for a moment. He had his times of glory. He had his times of praise.

He had his times of adulation, and so may you. You may be living high, wide, and handsome, but the seeds of destruction may be there. It may be that God would say to you already that you've done foolishly, and at the end of your life, you're going to say, I've erred exceedingly.

I've played the fool. The apostle Paul said in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 9 and verse 27, he said, I keep my body under, lest when I preach to others, I myself should be cast away. I tell you, I've known some preachers, and some of the saddest things I've seen are preachers who were once mighty men of God who died as alcoholics, who died as divorced men, who died as castaways. There was a man who preached from this pulpit many years ago, one of the most gifted, one of the most eloquent, one of the most handsome men that the Southern Baptist Convention has ever known. That man became a self-willed man, and he went down and down and down and down, and he ended as tragically as King Saul. Never in my life have I seen a man who was more gifted than this man. Never have I seen a man who ended more pathetically than this man.

I want to tell you something. I expect to meet him in heaven. I expect to meet Saul in heaven.

I've tried to figure it out. I want to say sometime that Saul must have been a lost man. No man could have done what Saul had done and been a saved man, but yet I see in the Bible where the Bible says that the Spirit of God came upon him, that he prophesied that God anointed him, that God made him another man. He was a man that had an experience with God, and yet he trafficked with sin. He played with sin. He dabbled with sin. He was destroyed by sin. That's what the apostle Paul was saying. He watched myself. He said, I keep my body under, lest after what I preach to others, I myself should be a castaway.

That means something useless, something that cannot be used, a relic. I want to say, dear friend, that none of us, here's the last lesson, none of us, none of us is immune to the power of sin, to the deceiving power of sin, to the deadening power of sin if you are self-willed rather than Spirit-filled. Are you? Self-willed. That's what happened to Saul, just self-willed and then stubborn and then disobedient and then fighting God and then cooperating with the devil and then self-destructive, terrible, horrible, tragic. You know what we need to do? We need to get clean and stay that way. That's what we need to do. We need to wake up every morning and look into the face of Jesus. We need to put our knees on the floor. We need to put our face in this book. We need to open our hearts to the Lord and say, Lord, keep me and Lord, guard me.

Never a man started better than Saul. Don't say it couldn't happen to me. Well, maybe today is the day that you would like to fully commit your life to Jesus Christ. Would you pray this prayer with me from your heart? Father in heaven, I thank you that you sent Jesus to do what I could not do for myself. Jesus was totally holy and righteous without sin and he gave himself on the cross and rose again to new life so that I could be forgiven, so that I could have a relationship with you. And right now, I turn away from anything else other than Jesus. I trust him fully for my salvation. Come into my heart.

Change me from the inside out. Help me to walk with you from this day forward. In Jesus' name, amen.

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We can't wait to hear from you today. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of this message in its entirety, call 1-877-LOVE-GOD and mention the title Games That Fools Play. This message is also part of the insightful series Live Like a King.

With that complete collection, a dozen powerful messages, call 877-LOVE-GOD or order online at lwf.org slash radio or write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. As you look closely at your life today, is there any unconfessed sin in your heart? Are you ignoring any instruction from God or daring to run ahead of his will?

Carefully pray for forgiveness and guidance. Don't play the game fools play. Be sure to join us next time for more from Adrian Rogers right here on Love Worth Finding. A Facebook friend wrote on our wall recently and said this, thank God for the preachers like Adrian Rogers who faithfully deliver truth without wavering or watering it down. It is straight from the Holy Word of God.

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