When we seeked to honestly do right we see more clearly. But when we try to do right and wrong at the same time, or just full out wrong, we we get confused, we become blind. James says it this way, For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. And here is a case of self-seeking. He wasn't seeking God, he was seeking himself, not out of weakness, but out of wickedness.
This man held too much power for it to be amusing, and sin is swallowing him up, and he's really not trying to fight it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
The Lying King is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in 1 Samuel chapter 15. Verse 16, then Samuel said to Saul, Be quiet, and I will tell you what Yahweh said to me last night. And he said to him, Speak on. And Samuel said to Saul, Shut up. Thank you, Lord, that Samuel stopped him.
because he would still be going on. He would just keep going on and going and tell Samuel, you royal backslider, I don't want to hear you talk. Just be quiet. This is the prophet speaking to the king. He interrupts him.
It's a hard verbal slap in his face. And I believe it did contribute. Subconsciously, which would eventually become conscious on the surface. to Saul's growing resentment for godly people. They were in the way.
He always got some goody two-shoes thing to say about God. which interferes with what he wants. And that's what's going to happen with David. I think when Saul threw the Spirit of David, David was just ministering in the spirit, in truth. And Saul was being convicted, and to get away from it, he sought to kill the messenger.
because he was demonic.
Well Sam Mules. Present anger is a clear revelation of Samuel's loyalty to God. If the king will not be loyal, that's him. Me, as for me in my house, we're going to be loyal. Do what you gotta do, and we'll do what we have to do.
And so he says, and I will tell you what Yahweh said to me last night. Again, the tone is: I've had enough of you. And he's probably not even offered him a seat. or a cup of water. He just, you know, you see Samuel coming, he goes, Oh, blessed are you, Samuel.
I've done everything God said. Why would he even bring it up right away? Why, Samuel, have you been? How was your trip? None of that.
I think if there was that happened, it would have been put in here. But Right now only God's opinion matters to Samuel. And I don't think that he could endure much more of Saul's outrageous brand of truth, tailored truth. But here's what Saul says. And he said, Speak on.
Don't you just want to taser the guy? It's a little arrogant say it. I don't care what his tone is, knowing the man, knowing the man. It was just won't say it. Get it out.
Yeah, it's going to cost you your throne. Is it worth it? Saw verse 17.
So Samuel said, when you were little in your own eyes, Were you not? Head of the tribes of Israel, and did not Yahweh anoint you king over Israel?
So Samuel winds the clock back and he says, Remember when you were at least apparently humble? You looked like you were humble. When I first met you, But we pointed out when he first met him how the servant with Saul was more in tune to God than Saul was in tune. But What this also says is that God gives chances to nobodies. It gives them a chance to be someone.
He's going to repeat this with David. David was just a shepherd boy, son of Jesse. God gives him a chance to be the king of Israel, and he is. He becomes the king of Israel. And how many psalms, how much scripture does, you know, in Deuteronomy, the kings were to write for themselves a copy of the law of Moses.
Well David Whether he did that or not, it is not explicitly said, but what we do know he did is he wrote more scripture. And so what did Saul write? a terrible record. Humility And this giving nobody's a chance where he's taking them. You were once humble, at least in appearance.
Humility is not thinking lower of yourself. It simply is not thinking of yourself. And Saul, of course, always thought of himself, ergo, being self-centered. 1 Samuel 9, verse 21, Saul answered and said, Am I not a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of Israel and my family, the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then do you speak like this to me?
See, he had that humility, which wasn't genuine humility. It was just factual. You really are nobody, and you just recognize him, but given the chance to be a somebody, you're gonna mess it all up because you're gonna think you deserve it anyway. Dave Hunt in his book. Beyond seduction of Christianity.
Now, the seduction of Christianity, the characters are pretty much outdated, and that brand of sin is not as strong as it was when Dave Hunt wrote the book. But it is worth while and It is worth reading. Uh and we do carry it in the chapel store. Uh this is A shameless endorsement. of the book.
I loved it when I first read it, but again, you'll just have to, everything still fits other people and other sins. But Dave Hunt says this. One of the Bible's major purposes is to correct man's high view of himself. Yet, It is now interpreted by Christian leaders to intend just the opposite. This happened when the churches were pushing self-esteem for Christians.
When the Bible says, humble yourself in the presence of the Lord, that He may exalt you when He is good and ready. Because you're going to have to go through a whole bunch of stuff to get your clock cleaned. And now we don't hear so much about it anymore because they found out man has too much self-esteem. That's the problem. Cain had so much self-esteem, he would not dare let anybody cast a shadow on him, so he killed his brother.
Because his brother's works were righteous. And John in the New Testament says: in case you missed it, Cain was wicked. And it's not the only one. And so he says, and did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? Yeah, like all the other kings in the nations, that's what the people wanted.
Their request, of course, Was uh When God sits Samuel, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me. They're dissatisfied with my authority. Because that's what the flesh is. To all of us Christians, we're dissatisfied with our flesh is dissatisfied with what God wants. And that's why we struggle against the spiritual man, against the carnal man.
But we win because of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Verse 18 now.
Now Yahweh sent you on a mission. And said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.
Well, of course, he stops. He conquers the city, but instead of continuing on to other Amalekite settlements, he starts to collect. The plunder. And He doesn't destroy them. Without submission to God, there can be no mission of God.
This is beautiful words. God sent you on a mission. To be on a mission from God.
Well, you know, go into all the world and preach the gospel.
Well, that entails so much more. It's not enough to just know the gospel. You have to be doing it yourself as a witness to maintain. There's so much involved. And so the hope is to reach the loss, but first.
To strengthen the saved, to reach the lost. Otherwise, what are you reaching them with? You know, the basic put your oxygen mask on first and you can help others. But if you can't I mean, if the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a ditch. These are fundamental principles that are rookie mistakes when violated.
We should not be making these mistakes.
Well How long would a church last without the scripture?
Well, history is full of that. Shouldn't have to dig far. Anyway, he refers to them here in verse 18 as sinners. That means in the context that's being used here, of course, they're Amalekites, so they're worshiping false gods. They're sinners in that sense, yes.
But this is going a little bit beyond. He's now saying they are offenders. They are direct offenders of Yahweh. And that's why judgment has fallen upon them. It's not only with the Amalekites, it will be with the Philistines and other peoples too, but these are the ones that are before us now.
Verse 19. When they Because why then? Did you not obey the voice of Yahweh? Why did you swoop down on the spoil? And do evil in the sight of the Lord.
You gotta love Samuel. You swooped down on it. like a vulture. This is the same Hebrew word that was used when When Saul said, no one can eat, and the people were eating the meat with the blood in it without properly bleeding it, and they. They swooped down.
They fell upon the feast in chapter 14. In verse uh thirty two. And the people rushed on the spoil. That's the same Hebrew word. And took sheep and oxen and calves and slaughtered them on the ground, and the people ate them with the blood.
They swooped down, and so this is very graphic. And you get this picture of Uh solve. Being this Vulture. and doing in doing wrong. Descriptive words.
This uh Verse 20 now, we'll go right to it. And Saul said to Samuel, But I have obeyed the voice of Yahweh and gone on the mission on which Yahweh sent me and brought back Agag king of Amalek. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. I mean it's just You you want to again taser him. Just to see him, you know, shake, rattle, and roll.
What is with this guy? Is is he that is he that dense? I I don't I think he says this full of himself. Self-centeredness blinds the soul. You can't see anything.
All you see is you. He has no disposition to acknowledge sin. He just can't say, I'm sin, I'm wrong, until he's forced. And it must have. I don't know that anybody was witnessing.
Well, they had to be witnesses. Either Samuel told the story, or somebody else told it, or a collection of. But if you were standing, it had to be painful watching this. King being picked apart by the prophet. And then hearing the king.
resort to such a cowardly response, such a lie He's the king that lies. Shamelessly. to God's servants. Saul was prepared to obey God's commandments. to a point And that's it.
That means it was not devoted. That's the lack of devotion there. In his case, it was not weakness, it was wickedness.
Now, weakness can morph into wickedness, is not to be trifled with. But there's a great big difference between a man saying, I try to not do this, Paul writes about that, the sin that I do that I wish I did not do. But sin in me. But that's not the case. This guy likes it.
That's the big difference. Not only is flesh, he just has no problem with it.
So he refused to comply because the best was slipping away. And what a shame to slaughter all all those blue ribbon sheep and oxen when you can just take them home. Yep, but what did God say? Ah, God will understand when we give him a sacrifice or do he'll shut up.
So when we Seek. Two Well, looking, let's look at this. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. Excuse me, what does utterly define utterly, please, Saul. Just tell me what your definition of utterly is.
Well, it means almost. That's what is it laughable but not humorous. When we seeked to honestly do right, we see more clearly. But when we try to do right and wrong at the same time, or just full out wrong, we we get confused, we become blind. James says it this way, For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.
And here is a case of self-seeking. He wasn't seeking God, he was seeking himself, not out of weakness, but out of wickedness. This man held too much power for it to be amusing, and sin is swallowing him up, and he's really not trying to fight it. And it will come out in succeeding chapters. You know, his hatred for David is just not, it's inexcusable.
that such an indecent character as Saul would hate such a decent lad as David. And we'll get to, we'll comment on a trigger in a little while. Verse 21. But he uh but the people took of the plunder sheep and oxen The best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed. to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in Gilgal.
And there he is again. He's still, see, he's not back down. He's still blaming the people. After all, Samuel has said, he's still blaming the people. And he's still disowning God.
Typical.
Well, we've come to expect this from him. He's despicable. And again, I'm not trying to be self-righteous like I'm. In me are and you are all the codes to be as wicked. But I am not prepared to say I am like Saul.
I am not prepared to say I am like Judas Iscariot. Are you prepared to say you are like any of these characters? I don't think so.
So it's not self-righteous. I mean, that's one of the devil's traps, is to say, You know, you have something in your eye when you're trying to take a heal, misuse that. Jesus made it clear, yeah, you might have something in your eye. Just make sure it's not like 5,000 times bigger than the other guy. It's not a We're not looking to.
Attack to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. We're looking to learn. From the mistakes of those pointed out in Scripture. Saul, the first king of Israel, here, he's admitted his sin. In fact, he admits his sin, it seems like, more than anybody else in the Bible.
But he just it never goes anywhere. David would confess his sin and work to fix it. But he doesn't benefit from admitting his sin because he's always blaming others. Yeah, I'm in there somewhere in the background. But really, it's these people that did this, and he's going to do it some more.
And Though he openly rebelled against God, he has no sense of guilt. And he is not going to be blamed. By Samuel or anybody else, not without. This him and hawing.
Well, what about agag? At what point did Samuel find out Agag was alive and in the camp?
Well, we're not told. But Samuel will show Saul how it should have been done. And uh Agag represents the Amalekites who represent the flesh, and Samuel will treat the flesh like we would like to treat the flesh. He'll hack it to death. because he knows it's not going to die of old age.
Continuing in verse 21, he says, To sacrifice the Lord your God in Gilgal, Saul still speaking again with not my God, but your God. Tolen sheep for God, everybody. It's just It's a tragedy. Imagine a drug dealer. Tithing.
from his drug deals. This is what, you know, like, well, at what point does God want your loot? Verse twenty two So Samuel said, Has Yahweh As great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of. Yahweh? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams.
Of course, this is one of the classic verses of Scripture, one of the great verses of the Old Testament. And Samuel is saying it is more important. To obey God. Saul's view is more important to play religion. Than to respect God.
Appearances, appearances. That's what counts with Saul. First John With Saul, the label on the bottle says worship, but inside is disobedience. The label says obedience and it's something else, always with Saul. 1 John 2, verse 4.
He who says, I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. If you turn in your modern Bibles, there's a picture of Saul next to that verse. He says, obey. Behold, to obey, that is to heed. Peter says, You do well to heed the word of God.
And very moving verse. It is better to sacrifice, he continues, than to heed the fat of rams. This verse is worthy of a session all by itself.
So I have to kind of. Move through it. not lingering on it too much because it's just so much here. But Where he says Uh is it better But then sacrifice. Two uh well let me reread that.
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. And to heed than the fat of rams. This is the whole premise of Isaiah chapter 1. The whole premise is: you people are bringing sacrifices. God is nowhere, he's not only is he not.
Interested, he's angry with you for it. Thumbing your nose at him. The fat of the ram was the portion that was burned and given to God. The meat would Unless it was a whole burnt offering, it would be for the people. Matthew chapter 15, and in vain they worship me, teaching his doctrines the commandments of men.
And here, in this case, the preference of Saul.
So God seeks those who love him. And obedience is the evidence of that love. I mean, how else do you establish it? If you love me, keep my commandments. This is what when Peter was confronted by Christ, and Christ said to him, Do you love me?
And Peter said, Lord, I don't love you as much as you want me to love you.
Well, do you love me, Peter? Not as much as You want me to love you. And he was just being honest. He said, I've been there. I thought I loved you more than all of these.
I thought I'd never let you down because of my love for you. But when faced with the proper combination of temptation and trial, I blew it. I could not understand the crucifixion. I could not understand your arrest. fell apart.
And now I'm not ready to say to you, Lord, that I can do all that you want me to do, even though you know I love you. The very touching moment there on the shore of Galilee. And we have been there, have we not, as believers? Uh maybe you've Said something to someone, and you wish you could take those words back. But you cannot.
But you know that you did not mean it, or if you meant it at the time you said it, it was not right, and you know that. And you just look to God and you say, I just can't do. everything perfectly. And of course, God says, you got that right. Let's see what you do with it.
Let's see what you do with others who are in the same boat as you. Verse 23. For rebellion is as witchcraft, is the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry, because you have rejected the word of Yahweh, he also has rejected you from being king. For rebellion is the sin of witchcraft, which is divination, which is trying to get in touch with forbidden spirits. And that's how God classifies the sin.
And he says, This is rebellion against my authority. I've told you not to do it. And what are you doing sneaking around me anyway? You're supposed to come to me. but you're going to them.
And they are opposed to me. And this is rebellion. Seeks to bypass the throne of Yahweh. It is a heightened form of sin. Saul later Flagrantly commits this very sin.
He goes to the witch at Endor to find out, you know. Who's the winning horse in the first race? You know, it just does it matter. Does it even matter why he went there? He's not supposed to go.
There is no reason. There's no acceptable reason to. There's a reason, but it's just not acceptable. He says, and stubbornness is the iniquity of idolatry. It's stiff-necked.
God is pulling you this way, and you refuse to go. This is uh This is not the same stubbornness. As someone who's determined To do what they know is right, and others may be trying to get them off of that. That's a good kind of stubbornness. This is the bad type of stubbornness that holds to error when it knows it's error, and it's going to hold to it nonetheless because it wants what it wants.
Because you have rejected Yahweh.
Well, you're going to reap something for this rejection. He also has rejected you, and there it is. The crown goes from you, and the crowd goes, ooh. If any spectators are watching and they're hearing Samuel say this, they have got to be, oh man, this is not going good for Saul. Too bad it wasn't instant.
No, he's going to be king for a long time. Uh but his His children will not sit on the throne. And in the end, it will say that David, Judah, prevailed over Benjamin in 2 Samuel. Verse 24 now. Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of Yahweh.
and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Well, he's admitting to it because he has to admit to it. But still, he's got the people in there, doesn't he? Why can't he just say, I have sinned, I have transgressed? Why does he have to bring up the people? Even if he's trying to say, Yeah, I shouldn't have listened to that, why don't you shut your mouth?
You sin, just leave it at that. Without Samuel's confronting him, he would never admit to this.
Somebody else could come along and say, This is what you did wrong. He'd probably have him killed even at this stage in his life. We'll get him later. 2 Corinthians chapter 7: For godly sorrow produces. Repentance leading to salvation.
Because it is contrite, it is genuine. Then he says, not to be regretted, but.
Sorrow of the world produces death. And that's what this is: the world's type of sorrow. Yeah, the plan didn't work out as I expected. Judas Iscariot, you know, yeah, it didn't work. I'm going to hang myself, punish somebody for it, whatever is going through his wicked head.
Whereas Peter was just shattered. shattered by what he had done wrong. They wept bitterly, the Bible tells us. There are certain scenes. If you could portray these scenes in a movie, you won't forget that part of the movie.
Or the play, or whatever it is. And this scene with Samuel and Saul, you this was the highlight of the movie, if it was about the book of Samuel. And you get to the New Testament, the part about Peter weeping. And you know, Jesus looked at Peter. Before the weeping They made eye-to-eye contact.
Jesus is arrested. Peter is denying him. And they make eye-to-eye contact. As G. Campbell Morgan said, that look would have been wasted.
That look of Jesus would have been wasted if Peter didn't make it to make the connection. And he did make the connection, and it wasn't wasted. And Peter went out and cried like a baby. How different from this man? Verse twenty four Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed against the commandment.
I just, sorry, I read that.
Well, God must have felt you need to hear it again.
So, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and your words. This is the confession of a criminal. Not the confession of a contrite heart, not again hating his sin, just disliking being held accountable and boxed in, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Now Brother Aaron. First high priest of Israel. In a similar situation, And it's kind of passed over, it's dealt with, and then they move on. As though Aaron knew he was wrong. But let's reread it because it's fun.
It's fun because it's not my turn in the hot seat, it's Aaron's. This is when Moses comes down and the people are dancing and having a good time around the golden calf, which is why we don't allow dancing in church. It's not the only reason, but that's one.
Okay. Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel. If you'd like to listen again to this or other messages or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreference radio.com.
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