First Samuel 24. Before I came to Beacon, I worked temporarily as a route driver, as a vendor, and in each of our box trucks we had a system that would track our speed, our location, and then they would beep, this annoying triple sound beep when we would get either too close to the inner lane or too close to the shoulder. One day I was asked to ride with another driver and help him out and while riding with him I noticed that he was driving extraordinarily fast, unusually fast, and his truck never beeped at him. So I decided I was going to ask him why this wasn't an issue like it was with mine as far as the beeping went. He told me that he crawled under his truck and unplugged the system and that he could help me in doing the same thing and I decided against that.
In essence what he wanted to do was he wanted to get rid of the one thing that was stopping him from behaving in a way that was going to get him in trouble with admin and he was going to provide me a way into that kind of world too if I wanted to enter it. And this isn't unusual, this removing of the governors in life. It's not unusual for route drivers, it's not unusual for human beings in general. In Romans chapter 1 and 2 we are told that God has given us a moral governor. We call that our conscience. These consciences according to the Apostle Paul are God's way of restraining evil in us as our consciences remind us of his law which he has placed on our minds. The thing is we can sear those consciences and when we do this we dive deeper into sinful rebellion against God and he allows us to have what we want and hardens us to his voice. So we want to cultivate a tender conscience. We want a conscience that pricks us when we sin.
We want a conscience that drives us to righteousness in the Lord and righteousness in living before the Lord. As we turn to 1 Samuel 24 today we find ourselves near the climax of the David-Saul controversy. In summary what's happened thus far is Saul has rebelled against the Lord, he has disobeyed God's order to kill the Amalekites, to slay King Agag and to refuse the spoils of war.
Now he did go to war but he did not kill the king and he did not leave the spoils of war on the battlefield. Well when Samuel hears of this Samuel makes his trek to go and to greet Saul and when he does he lets him know, Saul your disobedience to the commands of the Lord have forfeited your right to the throne. This takes place in 1 Samuel chapter 15. Samuel informs Saul that he will be anointing another as king.
Now fast forward to 1 Samuel 24 where we're at this morning. Saul now knows who the anointed one is. It's David. David is the man. David has been set in the sights of Saul. Saul has convinced himself and been convinced by other voices that David is the enemy, that Saul must kill so that way he can hold on to everything that he believes belongs to him. And throughout this drama it's really remarkable Saul nearly captures David time and again and David always escapes.
David always escapes. In this chapter Saul is fresh on David's scent again and while he and his army of 3,000 men are marching he temporarily pauses to go and use a bathroom in a cave. And it just so happens Saul that the bathroom that you are going to use is the bathroom where David and his army are hiding. As we look at David's encounter with Saul today we will learn that cultivating a tender Christian conscience leads us to a life of integrity and trust in God's providence. Furthermore as we look at Saul's life we will find a warning against the dangers of searing your conscience and rejecting God's word. As we examine this passage I pray that we will find ourselves inspired to nurture a tender conscience towards the things of God. And that is accomplished we will find through a steady diet of God's word, a diet of prayer, of repentance and rest in God's way. So as we seek to cultivate a tender conscience today I want us to see first and foremost that a tender conscience is an informed conscience.
A tender conscience is an informed conscience. As Saul slips into this cave David's men cannot believe their eyes. The man who has hunted us like a beagle on a rabbit's trail has just wandered right into our presence and he's completely vulnerable.
And these men know two things. They have chosen to side with King David and if King David wins this power struggle we are set for life. And if King David loses this power struggle we will lose our lives for treason.
And so it's really not hard to exactly understand why they want to go ahead and eliminate the threat. If we take Saul everything's over. David ascends the throne as the anointed of God and life will be relatively easy for us from here on out. With that in mind again it's easy for us to understand in verse 4 why they look at David and here's what they tell them. They say, Then the men of David said to him, This is the day which the Lord said to you.
Behold I will deliver your enemy into your hand that you may do to him as it seems good to you. They are trying to persuade David to recognize this as a as a God given opportunity to end the war. However as David sneaks up on Saul instead of cutting off his head David sneakily cuts off a corner of Saul's robe. And David's response to that behavior is remarkable because what we find is that David's conscience is pricked. The word that we find there for him being struck in conscience is a violent term.
It's a war term. The spirit has waged war against the conscience of David. It has struck him and wounded him deeply in his conduct against the Lord's anointed.
He is nailed by the spirit with overwhelming conviction. But before we get into that, before we look at why David is so convicted, I want us to be reminded first about something that we see in verse 4, which is that we often need and regularly need to be reminded to be on guard against bad counsel. The counsel of the men of David is bad counsel. David's men say all things that we look for in counsel as good reformed Christians. They try to apply the scripture and they even make reference to God's sovereignty.
However not all counsel that is given to us is good counsel simply because it's flavored with Christianese. In verse 4 these men are convinced that this is the fulfillment of God's promise to deliver the enemy into the hand of David. However the only place that I can find this promise given to David, unless it's just simply not recorded, would be 1 Samuel 23 verse 4.
Let me read it for you. It says, God tells David, I will deliver the Philistines into your hand. The Philistines into your hand. And so it seems to me that these men are putting two and two together. They're thinking, hey the Philistines are our enemy, Saul's our enemy and so this must be it.
God's calling Saul a spiritual Philistine and he's delivered Saul into our hand and so in the providence of God this is our way to get out of this. And this is just simply bad counsel. And just like David we too need to be on guard against bad counsel in our lives. The proverbs are right and full of wisdom. And one of my favorite proverbs is as it informs us that there is wisdom in the counsel of many. In any big decision I make in my life I've got about four men that I always go to.
They're all older than I am of different economic backgrounds and life backgrounds, blue and white collar that I go to for different perspectives on a situation. However, while they might grant perspectives for us to consider, the only place that we can find infallible wisdom is in the Word of God. And so we must be on guard against bad counsel even from fellow believers. Remember the life of Job. Job has lost everything. Job has lost nearly everyone who is special to him. And this is a righteous man. And Job's looking for counsel. Job's looking for comfort in the words of his friend.
And here they come trotting down the way. And one in particular that I kind of have in mind is Eliphaz. Eliphaz has all the right words to say. He's got about three sermons that he really wants to deliver to Job.
And he has a short temper when it comes to Job. Each sermon grows more and more aggressive. And his final sermon to Job is, I don't know what sin you're guilty of, but I'm going to list off a bunch of them and just go ahead and assume you're a wicked man. And the reason your life's falling apart is because you're a sinner and you won't repent and God's pouring wrath out on your life because of how sinful you are and you're prideful to think that God owes you anything different. Sounds like pretty decent Reformed preaching. But when the Lord comes to visit Job, what does he say to Eliphaz? God has judgment against Eliphaz because you have falsely represented me before my servant Job. And so we need to be discerning because not all counsel that is given to us, even counsel that sounds like good Reformed counsel, may not always be fitting and discerning counsel for us to receive at various times. That's why the Proverbs tell us that a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and pitchers of silver.
It is overwhelming in value and greatly prized to be possessed. Think about the Lord and his temptation in the wilderness. The Lord has fasted for 40 days and here comes Satan. And Satan is a brilliant lawyer as it seems that they're depicting him in Zechariah chapter 3. He comes wandering into this wild courtroom and he begins to speak to the Lord. He begins to use scripture against the Lord except his hermeneutics all messed up, right? He's misinterpreting and misapplying the word and the Lord, the writer of the law itself, discerns the misquoting and misapplying of the law and he refuses the snare that Satan is setting. There may be people in your life who have you in a spiritual chokehold and they may be quoting scripture.
They may be binding you up in these things. But we must be careful in discerning in how we handle the word and we must be careful in discerning in receiving how others are interpreting the words for our life because we need to know that not everyone who speaks the scriptures to you is handling them and applying them properly and so we must be discerning in the counsel we're receiving because even bad counsel can come from Christians, even well-meaning Christians, even pious Christians. We need to be on guard against bad counsel. Now I'm not telling you to not have confidants and men that you go to for wise counsel and women that you go to, ladies, for wise counsel. However, we must be reminded today that there is only one source of perfect wisdom for us and it is God's word, God's word properly interpreted and applied. And this leads me to our second point which is that a tender conscience is an informed conscience and that means that we must be transformed by God's word. This is Paul's summons to us in Romans 12, chapter 1 and 2, or excuse me, Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. Paul calls us not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And how are we renewed? Day by day, except in a steady contemplation and consideration of God's word. It's through a steady diet of God's word. Now in 1 Samuel 24, as David cuts Saul's robe, he's convicted.
Why? Because he is reminded that he is not to raise his hand against the anointed of the Lord. And it seems to me that David, this is not a command that's explicitly stated until later in David's life, but it seems to me that David is thinking of stories such as Numbers 16. You may remember, we're in the middle of the Moses saga and some men have raised up against him.
Their names are Korah, Dathan and Abiram. And as they rise up against David, God separates all of Israel from their tents, he calls an earthquake to prop open and he swallows them whole. David, being a wise interpreter of Scripture, understands the implications of the word. You don't mess with those whom the Lord has anointed. You don't mess with those whom the Lord has anointed.
Well, as I read this text and this engagement with David, I kind of found myself thinking, David, of all the things to feel bad for, I mean, of all the things that you could have cut in this situation, cutting his robe is probably something that wouldn't have torn my nerves up too severely. He's been chasing you all over creation, we know that he's descending into madness, we know he's rebelling against the Lord, we know he has false counselors that are advising him, we know that you have been anointed by Samuel, we know that you are the one called to the Lord and righteous. David, you've taken the high road, there's no reason for you to be so convicted in conscience. But he is.
He is. And as I looked into this more and tried to understand David, I think I can see where he's at. David's conscience is pricked because David in this act has rendered Saul out of compliance with the law. In Deuteronomy 22, God has commanded Israel that on your robe you have four corners and they are supposed to have tassels that are hanging off of them, they're called the tzitzitz.
And these are supposed to remind you of the law of God and that we are a consecrated people to obey the law of God and to walk in righteousness. David has cut the corner off of Saul's robe, and this may be a prophetic sense to say that Saul's been in rebellion against God's commands anyway, but he has rendered Saul as far as it's concerned ceremonially or at least out of compliance with the law, but furthermore there's more here. The primary way that Saul was distinguished as king is by wearing a kingly robe. This robe that he has on has now been cut by David and is now rendered unwearable. And so it seems to be agreed upon that David has symbolically rendered Saul's rule invalid. Or to put it simply, David has indeed raised his hands against the Lord's anointed. And him knowing the law, it has struck him to his core. I have sinned or I have raised my hand against God's anointed. And there's a lot to learn from this. David could have soothed his conscience and said, like all of us would have said, I could have done a lot worse. There's no reason for you to be feeling this bad.
Give yourself some slack. You could have done a lot worse. David could have seared his conscience. He could have said, look, I've got counsel from a multitude of men and we're all in unanimous agreement.
If I go ahead and cut his head off, it's all over. It seems that David is behaving unusually to us until we understand that this is a man who is steeped in God's word and is sensitive to how his life lined up with it. And beloved, we are called to consume God's word, to obey God's commands. However, you and I cannot obey what we do not know.
And we are a privileged people. We live in the information age. I would say that in the history of the human race, there is perhaps no generation that is more ready to be condemned for their ignorance of God's word than we are. Five hundred years ago, the thought of all of us having access to the scriptures and being able to do a Google search and access a myriad of verses just with the touch of a thumb is unfathomable to them.
And yet it seems as though the church's knowledge of the scriptures is worse now than it's ever been. We cannot obey what we do not know. And we've got no excuse not for being steady consumers of God's word. So this is a great reminder for us that a tender conscience is an informed conscience. If you want to be tender to what the Lord is pleased with and displeased with, the Lord says, I have already told you and it's in my word. And so a tender conscience is an informed conscience. And I want to give a little bit of counsel for those of us dealing with loved ones with tender consciences.
We all want tender consciences. But when you begin to counsel those with tender consciences and they're regularly pricked and you're not exactly where you ought to be, you can grow rather disgruntled with regularly walking with them. We need to be really careful with the counsel that we give to those who are struggling with a pricked conscience.
They may be concerned with an understanding of their failure as a parent, as a spouse, as an employee. And one of the things that we're going to be tempted to do by default is to say, look, man, just give yourself some grace. Just give yourself some grace. But we need to understand that God uses a wounded conscience to drive us to himself as we're wounded by our sin. And the only true balm to a wounded conscience, which is grieved by sin, is the gospel. And so when you're going to counsel someone with a wounded and grieved conscience, we should ask ourselves, is the counsel that I'm about to give this person going to point them to Jesus, or is it going to soothe them in their failure? If you're struggling with a burdened conscience, the way that you soothe it is not saying, but I'm doing so much better than them. If you're in sin, you're always going to be able to soothe your conscience by comparing yourself with people who you deem less spiritual than you. But the gospel gives us only one metric to measure ourselves by, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ who is perfect.
And that same perfect standard reaches his hands out to you and offers himself as the balm for your wounded conscience. So we're Christians. And when we're dealing with people with wounded conscience, the Christian message isn't give yourself some grace. That's antithetical to the gospel. The Christian message is run to the one who is the dispenser of grace. You are wounded in conscience and rightfully so.
And God says, come to me. I have the balm of Gilead. My gospel is sufficient for you. So if you're pricked and living in sin, praise God for it. But you need to be careful in seeking for a balm that is not found in the Lord of glory. That is not a healing balm.
That is a searing work. Look to the Lord who gives grace to wounded sinners. So a tender conscience is an informed conscience.
Second, a tender conscience is a resigned conscience. As Saul makes his way out of the cave, David kind of does the unthinkable. I'm sure his men are just miffed at what David is doing. David sneaks up.
They're thinking he's got his sword and he lops and it's the robe and he comes back. And then Saul gets up and leaves from using the restroom and David pops up and just decides to come strutting out of the cave himself. We know David has a few hundred men, but Saul's got 3,000 of Israel's finest with him. He is pulling from all the tribes and they are with him. David comes walking out of the cave behind Saul. I want us to notice the wisdom that David displays in verses 12 through 15. I mean, just brilliant.
There's so much here. I don't have time to look at it all, but he says, Let the Lord. Now David is trying to tell Saul, look, you have no enemy in me. People have been telling you that I am your enemy. I honor you as the Lord's anointed and I let it fall to the Lord, how this is navigated. He says, Let the Lord judge between you and me and let the Lord avenge me on you, but my hand shall not be against you. As the proverb of the ancients says, wickedness proceeds from the wicked, but my hand shall not be against you. Now notice David says, After whom has the king of Israel come out?
Who did you pursue? A dead dog? A flea?
David is kindly rebuking Saul for a misappropriation of government funds. You're chasing a shepherd. You're chasing a shepherd, a young man throughout Israel trying to kill him. I'm just a heart playing shepherd and I'm not your enemy.
Therefore, he sandwiches it in again. Let the Lord be judged. Saul, leave this to the Lord.
Leave this to the Lord and let the Lord be judged and judge between you and me and see and plead my case and deliver me out of your hand. David isn't interested in taking this into his own hands. He's not going to kill the king and be guilty.
He's not interested in winning a debate. Instead, David, having been convicted of trying to take matters in his hand in the cave, displays a repentant heart. He displays the heart of a man who is resigned to God's will. There are perhaps no greater times for a Christian to look like Christ than when we have an opportunity to take matters into our own hands to satisfy our sinful lust for vengeance instead of doing that to resign ourselves to the will of the Father. When Jesus was in the wilderness, Satan tempts the Lord and says, Look, you don't need to go to the cross.
You can bow the knee to me and you can have the crown now. And Jesus resisted, resigned to the will of the Father. Now it says at the end of that that Satan fled until a more opportune time.
And when was that? That was with Peter. Peter comes and stands before him and says, You're not going. You're not going to the cross. And what does Jesus say?
Get thee behind me, Satan. When Jesus is being interrogated by Pilate and Jesus won't answer him, like a sheep before his shearers is dumb, Pilate looks at him and says, Do you not know, basically, it would behoove you if you would talk to me because you're standing before the guy who's got the power of your life in his hand? And what does Jesus say?
You would have no power lest it was given to you from on high. Jesus is completely resigned to the will of the Father. And Peter picks up on this and he applies it to slaves. In 1 Peter chapter 2, you're more than welcome to turn there and I will read it for you. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 18.
Peter is applying Jesus' resignation to us. He says, Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable. If because of conscience towards God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully, for what credit is it if when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable to God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his footsteps.
And he cites this text. Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return, when he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we having died to sins might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. That's a powerful, powerful passage. We're quick to apply that to employees, and I think there's great application there, but when we understand the dynamic of the life of a slave beneath a master, Teeter says, look, when you get beaten at work, when you get critiqued at work because you're doing something wrong, you should expect it to happen.
You shouldn't be doing wrong. But he says, when you were beaten unjustly, and you suffer wrongly, and you do it with patience before God, when you think to yourself, this should not be happening to me, and it's not right, Teeter says, when you rest in the providential hand of God, God is pleased, for you look like the Lord as you resign this righteous indignation to the Lord. A lot of people, I think, we get upset with that, and it's not a sin to be angry, but emotions are really bad compasses, and anger in particular has a tendency to be tainted with a sinful desire for blood, lust, or vengeance, but, beloved, there is no one more quickly provoked to wrath against those who sin against you than the Lord, and the Lord's anger is just, and the Lord says that he will not let the wicked go unpunished, and so he says, trust me, trust me. As Peter thinks on the Lord's patient suffering, he encourages those suffering unjustly to do good and suffer well, knowing that God is glorified as we suffer faithfully like the Lord did.
Now, suffering is not easy, and it's really hard to make suffering sound attractive while you're going through it, but I do think that this text still offers us some comfort. You see, in 1 Samuel 15, I want to give you some track with me here. 1 Samuel 15, Samuel is going to visit Saul, and he's telling Saul, because you've sinned, you've lost the throne. When Samuel turns to walk away, Saul falls on his robe and tears Samuel's robe, and Samuel says, that's right. Just like you tore my robe, so too is God tearing the kingdom from your hand, and he's going to give it to your neighbor one more righteous thing. It's fitting, then, that David tears Saul's robe, and he walks out, and he holds it before Saul, and Saul says, you will surely be king, for you are more righteous than I.
A man by the name of M. Daley Denton highlights this. He points out the fact that this tearing of the robe symbolizes the loss of a kingdom, and then I want to invite you to turn with me to John chapter 19, please. John chapter 19.
This is just a beautifully encouraging pastoral thought on this idea of the torn robe. John chapter 19, verse number 17, the Bible says, this is Jesus, and he bearing his cross went out to a place called the place of the skull, which is called, in the Hebrew, Gogotha, where they crucified him, and two others with them, one on either side, and Jesus in the center. Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Then many of the Jews read this title for the place where Jesus was crucified was near a city, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Therefore, the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, but he said, I am king of the Jews.
Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garment and made four parts to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam woven from the top in one piece, and they said, therefore among themselves, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be that the scriptures might be fulfilled. They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing, they cast lots.
Therefore, the soldiers did these things. As Daley Denton puts it, when we look at the untorn robe of our Lord, we can't help but to be reminded that this is David's son, the fulfillment of God's promise that you will have a son who will sit upon your throne without end. And where Saul's torn robe said, you are losing the kingdom, Christ's untorn robe is an enduring testament that no one will strip Christ of his throne, but his kingdom endures forever. And when we suffer, when we suffer as Christians, we are reminded here that we suffer in line with a king whose kingdom will not fail, and what does he call us? Joint heirs. He calls us joint heirs of this kingdom. When you suffer unjustly, let your conscience be pricked when you are tempted to sin, and let your conscience be soothed that you are reminded in the midst of your suffering, I stand in line with the suffering king whose kingdom will not end.
It will not end. Beloved, as your conscience convicts you when you're in the middle of sinning against the Lord, rest in his grace, repent of your sin, and be reminded that we resign our wills to a good and gracious king. Now before we move on to look at the dangers of a seared conscience, I want to quickly look at cultivating a tender conscience.
This is my third point. A tender conscience is a cultivated conscience. How do we cultivate a tender conscience? A reality that we must accept is that if we are not actively seeking to cultivate a tender conscience, if we are not actively seeking to maintain a tender conscience, then we are sliding towards lethargy and hardness of conscience. This is why Paul says in Acts 24, he talks about it being a striving work, a striving work for a clean conscience. So if that's the case, how do we nurture a tender conscience? Let me give you four things from the scriptures quickly.
First, you can nurture or cultivate a tender conscience first by contemplating the resurrection of the dead. Listen to Paul. Paul is brought before Felix, and here's what Paul says. The Jews are trying to condemn Paul. They're bringing him before Felix, and he says, I have hope in God, which they, he's pointing at the Jews, which the Jews themselves also accept.
What's his hope? That there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and both of the unjust. This being so, I myself also strive to have a conscience without offense towards God and men. Paul says, one of the catalysts towards me striving for a clear conscience is the fact that I know there's going to be a day where we stand before God.
Where we stand before God. Beloved, when we have eternity in mind, we will cultivate a heavenly mindset and a conscience that is tendered towards sin. This doesn't mean that we are trying to prepare ourselves for that day as though we are going to earn our salvation. No, our sins have already been dealt with in full at the cross, but instead as believers, we need to have that day in mind because nothing done for the Lord, we are told, is in vain.
And we will be rewarded on that day. Second, we develop a tender conscience by consuming the word. Now, I've already discussed this, but in passing, I will say that if we are seeking to cultivate a tender conscience, we must stop grieving our consciences by repetitively immersing ourselves in wicked content like we are a lot in Sodom. It is the beginning of Pride Month. Years ago, it was relatively easy for us to speak against homosexuality in the public square.
However, we are victims or products of what's called jamming. It's this thing, in essence, where in media they begin to pair those who have issues with homosexuality with bad characters. And so in your mind, subconsciously, you are equating those who are against homosexuality with those who are bad individuals.
And so you kind of feel your hairs stand up on your spine when you speak against sodomy. And what we see is as we consistently immerse ourselves in a culture which celebrates sins such as homosexuality, we begin to find our conscience seared to that rebellion against the Lord. If we are going to have our consciences tender, we have to be careful about immersing ourselves in the pull of the things that God hates.
And we have to be consuming the scriptures. Third, call on God to search your heart. Psalm 139 verse 23, the psalmist cries out for God, God, search me and reveal any sin in me. Search me and reveal any sin in me. Now, one of the reasons that we pray this prayer and we feel that God never shows us any new sins may be because we refuse to confess the pet sins that he's been revealing to us repetitively over years. And that leads us to our fourth point which is if we're going to cultivate a tender conscience, we must confess sin in our life.
1 John chapter 1 verse 9. Beloved, keep a short account with sin. Walk to the Lord regularly to confess your sin. Regularly bring it before the Lord.
Confess it. Repent of them depending on his grace. Many of us allow too much time to pass before going to the Lord to confess sins because Satan is effective. And if you're like me, in the past I used to struggle with, especially as a young Christian, I would fall into a sin and my devotion time would come around and I couldn't possibly go into my devotion time. I couldn't possibly pray because what kind of hypocrite would I be if I went before the Lord as though everything was fine and continuing to sin the same sins.
And so Satan would tempt me to, as it were, restrain myself from the presence of God until I kind of cleaned myself up before I could walk into his presence again. And that's contrary to the Gospel. The Gospel's not forsake sin and come to Christ. The Gospel's come to Christ who gives grace that we might forsake the sins that he has forgiven by his blood. Confess your sins. Instead, he invites us to himself, confess your sins, receive grace, enjoy restored fellowship. These are the ways that we can cultivate a tender conscience.
But lastly, let us move on to consider the warning that we see in Saul, which is a seared conscience and a false repentance. In 1983, there was a flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Bogota, Colombia. It ended up crashing in the Three Mountains and it killed all 181 people on board. When the black box was recovered, the tape revealed that the computer system responded to a low altitude that the pilot was flying at. And you can hear on the tape the computer screaming, pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up. And then he responds, shut up. And he cuts it off and continues flying because he thinks that the computer system is malfunctioning.
And he never corrects. And he crashed the plane in the Three Different Mountains and killed everyone on board. When we sear our consciences, we numb them to the pain of rebellion against God.
And we set ourselves on course for catastrophe for catastrophe. This is what we see in the life of Saul. We see it first in Saul's life because he has a futile rejection of God's word. And second, we see it in Saul's life because there's a false repentance. When Saul is confronted by Samuel in 1 Samuel 15, Saul refuses to accept his fate and he begins to descend in the madness as he fights to retain his kingdom.
The king who once stood in honor and power is now eternally known as one who is prideful and rebellious, who has stiffened his neck, whose rule ends in shame. He refuses to receive the word of the Lord from Samuel. That the kingdom is not going to be yours, it's going to someone else.
Proverbs 29 verse 1 says, He who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. Is there something in God's word that is spoken to you but you refuse to heed its warning? Are you harboring a secret sin thinking no one's going to find out? Are you refusing the bow of the knee to the one that you have been calling, Lord, and you find yourself stiffening up hoping that that nagging feeling, which is your conscience, is going to go away?
Beloved, I say this with all sincerity. If your conscience is pricked and inside you just find yourself saying, I wish this would just go away, I'm going to wait it out until it goes away, it would be the wrathful judgment of God for him to rescind that nagging bit away. Repent of your rebellion, run to the Lord for grace, Saul thought that he could reject the word of the Lord and hold on to everything but that's not how it went for him and that's not how it's going to go for us either. Hell on earth is not going through hardship.
Hell on earth is when God delivers us up to the sins and the sinful desires of our wretched hearts. Let's look at Saul's false repentance. We see his rejection of the word, which is manifested throughout the latter half of 1 Samuel, but let us also look at Saul's false repentance and that scene here, when David confronts Saul in this passage, Saul emotionally responds as a broken man. I mean, we see it. He's weeping and we see him crying out, my son David.
That's the first time. Saul does not like to call people by their first name and the reason they call people by their first name is it elevates them to an equal status with the king and so David speaks to him, my father, my father and Saul finally responds, my son David and then he lifts his voice and he cries to David and he says in verse 17, you are more righteous than I and that's what I want you to highlight in your mind here because that's important. I want us to dial in on that phrase, you are more righteous and when Saul says this phrase here, he is quoting Judah. Judah in Genesis 38 verse 26.
Let me give you the breakdown. In that story, Judah has a son. His first son's name is Ur and Ur marries a lady and her name is Tamar but he's a wicked man and he dies and so Judah gives her to his second son who is supposed to fulfill his obligation in providing a son for his dead brother that his name may go on and he does not fulfill it and God kills him too. Well, Judah finally looks at her and he says, okay, here, I'll tell you what, I've got one more son, he's not an adult yet but when he comes of age, I'm going to give you to him and he'll take care of you as his own but you go live with your dad until then. Well, while she's living with dad, she sees years past and she sees Judah and she sees Judah's son and she knows he lied to me.
He did not give me his son or give me to his son like he told me he would. And so here's what she does, she dresses up and she cloaks her face and the text says that Judah, when he saw her, thought that she was a harlot because she cloaked her face and so he goes and lies with her and she concedes and she takes, he gives her a few sureties, his staff and a few other things. Well, months pass and she's about to be stoned to death for fornication until she pulls these things out and reveals Judah, you're the one and what does Judah respond to her? You are more righteous than I.
He's convicted because his sin against her put her in a a season or a place where she was led to deceive him sinfully herself. And so he says you are more righteous than I in his repentance and what we find in Judah's life is he never touches her again. Well, in this text Saul looks at David and says almost repentantly you're more righteous than I and you're going to be king and I recognize that.
And we go that's wonderful. Isn't that beautiful? Saul is so emotional here. I mean if we had played six verses of Just Eye As I Am and had an altar call Saul probably would have walked an aisle in this text.
He's given he's given everything that we're looking for. Saul's emotions seem genuine. The tears seem genuine. But we got to remember even Esau sought repentance with tears and was denied. Was his repentance genuine?
And it wasn't. We see two chapters later he's already trying to kill David again. This is not a genuine repentance. There's a Puritan who's rarely known. His name's Timothy Carrillo he wrote a book called The Duties and Blessings of a Tendered Conscience.
Listen to this. He says all sinners are not equally resistant to authority and correction. Some will lend an attentive ear to serious admonitions and just when they have been instructed they will smite their thigh but these promising appearances come to nothing. So he's saying not all of them are going to reject you they're actually going to hear you out and when you call them out on it they're going to give you all the signs that you're looking for and then they often come to nothing.
He says they seem flexible to good but when the next temptation comes that consent was withdrawn and revoked as Saul seemed to be convicted of the innocence of David sometimes and yet soon after pursued him as a traitor. What Timothy Carrillo is describing here is one of the hardest realities that pastors have to come to terms with which is not all tears are telling the truth. We see tears a lot. You see tears as a child is born and we rejoice. We see tears at a funeral. We see tears over a genuine repentance and then the hard ones are the ones where we come to a man and we confront him in his sins and he gives tears almost too good to be true and you find yourself encouraged that maybe this is genuine repentance and it's not.
And it's not. They might seem genuine. They might cry at the right time.
They may say the right words that you want to hear but as soon as temptation comes around everything they tell you is going out the window. Dr. Jim Neuhauser, he's a counseling professor at RTS Seminary where I go. He's the only Baptist on staff. God has not allowed all of his servants to bow the knee and he gives seven signs of false repentance and four of them come from the life of Saul.
Here they are. He says first, false repentance is self-focused. Second, it hates the consequences of sin and we find this with Saul. Saul is not disgusted that he sinned against God. He's disgusted that his sin is going to result in him having the kingdom taken away.
Third, it criticizes the disciplinary process. Four, it is an unchanged heart with no fruit. Five, they impatiently demand trust and restoration.
Six, they are self-protective and seven, they blame others for their sin and this is what we see of Saul in 1 Samuel 15. Why did you not leave the spoils on the battlefield where it was the men and you're going to lose the kingdom because of your sin and it's not I've sinned against God, how could I do this? It's I'm not losing my kingdom. This is a false repentance.
If this is you, the system is screaming pull up because you're heading for catastrophe. You might have your friends fooled, you could have the church and the elders here fooled but God is not fooled. God is not fooled. He sees you actively trying to sear your conscience and eventually he's going to deliver you up to what you're asking for and when he does, he's going to give you enough rope to hang yourself. So please, hear what the word of the Lord says. Throw yourself on his grace seriously. Beg him for strength to repent of your sin and to see it as he does.
As we think on 1 Samuel 24 today, the Lord has given us a fresh warning to consider for our lives and may he apply it to our hearts by his spirit. For the believer, God is not fooled by our sins. For the believer, God invites us to cultivate a tender conscience and a sensitive walk with the spirit and this is supported by prayer, scripture and the confession of sin. For that person whose conscience is plagued with past reminders of sins, Jesus invites you to come to him for the forgiveness of your sins. Hebrews 9 14, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through God offered himself up without spot to God, how much more shall he cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. You don't have to bear the weight of your sin anymore. You don't have to find yourself plagued with a wounded conscience.
You don't have to fight to numb it with alcohol or pornography or pills. Christ has come, he says, not to call the righteous but to call sinners in repentance. And if your conscience is pricked this morning, as you recall that you have sinned against the most high, that is a grace of God to you.
For that person who knows that this is for them and you are actively seeking to shut it out of your mind even right now. God is gracious in giving you this warning from his word. He has been gracious in giving you and family who invite you to see your sinfulness.
He has been gracious to bear with you this long. But if you continue to harden your heart, he is going to give you the desire of your heart. He will let your sin be your God without any pricking of the conscience and you will serve those ruthless idols until they usher you into hell. Do not harden your heart against the word of the Lord, but seek a conscience that is informed by his word, that is resigned to his will, a conscience that is both being cultivated and is actively maintained as we take advantage of these things. This is the word of God for the people of God.
Let us pray. Most kind and gracious heavenly Father, we are called to be holy as you are holy and you have promised us that you have given us your Spirit and that you were going to make us conform to the image of your Son. And one way you do it is through warnings and exhortations to avail ourselves of the means of grace that you have given us. Father, forgive us for not being better informed by your word. Please give us a hymn of praise that you have given us.
Father, forgive us for not being better informed by your word. Please give us a hunger and thirst for it. Let us meditate on your word both day and night. Make our hearts sensitive to align our lives with it. Convict us when we fall into sin and make us quick to come before your throne to confess it. Father, please, by your Spirit, break in upon the hearts of those who kick against the pricks.
Break in upon the heart of that person who is soothing and searing their conscience by their own works, is soothing or searing their conscience by act of rebellion, is soothing or searing their conscience by trying to drown it away in the promises of these false idols. Break in upon them and point them to your all-sufficient grace. Save them from their sins. Make them tender and sensitive to the things which please and displease you. Make that so with all of us today. Lord, I long to be more like Christ. Make me sensitive to the things which displease you. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.
