Going to go ahead and go right to our Bible study here this evening.
We're in 1st Samuel, chapter 15.
And we started this last week looking at God's command to Saul
to wipe out all of the Amalekites.
And we saw that Saul compromised.
He did not follow the command of God.
And then with that compromise came condemnation.
And obviously Saul is confronted by Samuel the prophet.
And Samuel comes to Saul and basically says, hey, you didn't do
the job that God called you to do.
And Saul said, yes, I did.
I, I did everything that I was called to do.
He was in many ways self deceived.
Saul thought he did everything that God wanted him to do.
And obviously there's a lot of things that we could look at in our
own lives and say, you know what?
I think I'm okay.
But then if you really match it up to scripture, maybe we're not
so okay.
And so Saul felt good about what he did.
But sometimes it's not about feeling good, because we can lie
to ourselves, we can make ourselves feel good about certain
situations, but when the Bible says it's not about feeling good,
it's about being aligned with the Word.
And for Saul, he wasn't aligned with the Word of God.
He had steered away, though he did partially what God called him
to do, he didn't completely follow in that obedience.
So what happened was that he was called to wipe out all of the
Amalekites.
He wiped out most of them, but we know at least he spared the king
and he spared all the best of their animals.
And he justified it by saying, hey, look, I'm doing something that's
going to help us.
But yet in our own life, sometimes we can think that we're
doing the right thing.
But in fits into disobedience to the Lord, we know that it's not.
So we're in First Samuel, Chapter 15, and we're going to pick
up where we left off in verse number 26, right before this.
Basically, Saul is giving this empty statement of we, we would maybe
see it as repentance, even though we know that it's not true.
Repentance because of God's response.
And we know that God looks upon the heart.
We can't really judge Saul's heart, even though we can look at
his actions and certainly see that his heart was not in the right
place.
But we see him at verse 25, say, now therefore, I pray thee,
pardon my sin and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord.
So, so really he's calling out to Samuel saying, samuel, forgive
me Samuel, on my behalf.
Go to the Lord and give me some type of forgiveness.
And we're going to see what happens in verse 26.
We're going to see what God's response to this empty statement
of repentance.
And before we go into verse number 26, I want you to see a New
Testament passage that aligns exactly with what we're talking about
here this evening.
That's found in first Peter, chapter five.
One Peter chapter five.
Now we could turn to a few different passages in the New Testament
that speak to the principle that we're going to be discussing
here this evening.
But I think one Peter, chapter five really lays it out for us in
a clear manner.
Paul has talked about humility in the book of Romans, and we're
going to talk more about that in Romans chapter 12.
Here Peter is talking about humility and coming to one with another
with that care and respect.
And he says in verse number five, he's talking about younger
people submitting themselves to the elder.
And then he says, all of you be subject one to another.
And then he says this statement here, and I love the way
that he states it, he says, and be clothed with humility.
So first Peter, chapter five, verse five says that we are to be
clothed with humility.
What does that mean?
Well, one way that you could see that is that we shouldn't just
have instances of humility in our life, but our life should be
characterized by humility.
We should be covered by humility in every capacity.
Another way that you could look at that as a servant takes his
garment back at this time frame they would have worn long robes.
And when they would have taken a form of a servant, they would have
rolled that robe up to be able to work and they would have tucked
that robe into their belt and got in a form of a servant.
We know that even Jesus did that back In John chapter 13, when
he washed the disciples feet.
And if you remember what Jesus said to his disciples, he said, I'm
doing this for you to show you an example of how you are to serve,
how you're to be humble.
And I can't help but think that Peter in First Peter Chapter
5 is thinking back to when Jesus took that form of a servant,
took the clothes of humility.
And he says, hey, all of us need to take those clothes of humility
in our life.
And then he gives the reason why we should be clothed with humility.
He says, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.
And so over and over again, we see in Scripture that God resists
the prideful, and, and he gives grace to the humble.
And so for the, the people that were in the New Testament church,
Peter and Paul and many of the other New Testament passages teach
of that importance of being so humble in our lives that we don't
live a life of pride.
Why?
Because God resists the prideful.
And then we see that same principle back in First Samuel and
throughout the Old Testament, God resists those that are prideful.
So with that being in mind, with that verse in mind, let's go
back to First Samuel, Chapter 15, and let's see what God does.
Because we know that God gives grace to the humble, but he resists
the prideful.
So we're going to see God's response, and we're going to see
where the heart of Saul really was.
Because if Saul was humble and repentant, we know that God would
extend grace.
We know that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So when we come to the Lord in humble submission and in repentance,
we know that God will extend that gift of grace and mercy to us.
But we also know that this, the Bible says that God resists the
prideful.
So let's see where Saul was in, in the response of the lord.
So verse 26.
And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with me.
So, so the idea here is that not only does God reject Saul, but
Samuel rejects Saul.
Samuel is making a conscious decision to separate himself from
the sin of Saul.
And there's going to be times in our life that we need to make
those calls, that we need to separate ourselves from that sin
that is around us.
There is a time and a place to minister to those that are in sin
by preaching the word to them, by showing them love, by showing
them compassion, and by showing them the truth.
But also there is a time where we do need to take that step of saying,
you know what?
Your sin is not going to be attached to me.
And so what Samuel says is, no, I'm not going to join in with
you.
I'm not going to partner up with you in this.
Because remember, one of the major reasons why Saul kept those
Amalekite animals was for sacrifice.
He says, no, we can take some of these animals that we were supposed
to slay and use them for sacrifice later on.
So no doubt, basically what Saul is asking Samuel to do is join
in with me with these sacrifices that are not called by
God.
And so Saul is asking Samuel to join in with him on this sin.
And so Samuel says, no, I will not return with thee.
I. I'm not going to join in with what you're doing.
He says, for thou has rejected the word of the Lord.
I think that's important to note.
Remember, Samuel is a mouthpiece for God at that time.
He's the prophet.
And so this isn't just Samuel's opinion, even though I'm
sure this was Samuel's opinion.
But this is also God speaking through Samuel by telling Saul, here's
your problem.
Your problem is that you rejected the Word of the Lord.
And that's what we could say to everybody that's in sin today.
It's not that you're a bad person, because the reality is, is
at the core of everything, we are bad people in our flesh.
So I don't look at someone and says, well, you.
You are rejected by God because you're a bad person.
No, because God extends grace to people who have sin in their lives.
But what he says here is that the reason why God is rejecting him
is because he has rejected the Word of the Lord.
And so the Lord hath rejected thee, as he says at the end of verse
6:26, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over
Israel.
So the consequence to Saul rejecting the word of the Lord is
that he loses the opportunity to be king.
Now, we know that it's not the immediate thing that happens.
We.
We know that Saul continues to be king for quite some time.
But what this is is basically the beginning of the end.
And we know that Saul's family is not going to be able to hold the
throne.
It's going to be passed on to another man, which we'll talk about
here very soon.
But the idea here would be this, Saul, you have sinned.
You have rejected the word of God.
And this is the consequence.
And there's always, always consequences to rejecting the Word
of God in our life.
Now, the beauty is that we live in an age of grace.
And so when we do reject the Word of God, there's always that
opportunity to go back to the Lord in repentance and receive that
gift of grace and have that peace that passeth all understanding
in restoration with the Lord.
But I'm going to tell you, if we continue to live in rejection
to the Word of God, we will face instances in our life where
we don't face the blessings of God.
And we actually see difficulty in our lives because of our rebellion
to the Lord.
And that's exactly what Saul is Seeing here.
So Saul's statement begins with what seemed like a genuine confession.
But we know that it changed because if you go back to verse number
24, it looks like, okay, he says in verse 24, and Saul said unto
Samuel, I have sinned.
Good.
He should have just stopped there.
He should have just said, I've sinned.
It's my fault.
I need God's forgiveness.
But he says, I've sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment
of the Lord and thy words.
Okay, so not bad yet.
But then he says this because I feared the people and obeyed their
voice.
Again, he's blaming other people for his sin.
So at the core of it, he's not taking responsibility.
And, and part of taking a heart of repentance is taking responsibility.
I can't have a complete heart of repentance if I'm blaming other
people for my sin.
In my life recently, I, I, I saw this.
This was a reality.
There was a, I guess he was a pastor or some type of spiritual
leader.
And he was on this live stream.
And some of you know that you get on the live stream and it's live.
You can't get it back.
And he was actually at a restaurant, and he was sitting there
and he was about to get into his Bible study, and this waitress
comes up to him and she's bringing him a glass of water.
And he turns around and he starts yelling at this waitress about
this tiny glass of water.
He goes, why couldn't you bring me a real size?
And he was calling her names and belittling her.
And then he goes, oh, just cut that out.
Cut that out.
And the person goes, no, it's live stream.
And he said, well, guys, that's an example of how someone
can be a stumbling block to you and make you sin.
I said, that's a terrible excuse, right?
We can't blame anybody else for the sin that we commit.
Now people can sin against us, though.
Bringing someone a smaller cup than they should have was not a sin,
but someone could even sin against us.
But even if someone sins against us, we cannot blame that
person for the sin that we commit.
The book of James tells us that.
The book of James tells us that we can blame nobody else other
than ourselves when we fall into sin.
We can't look at a friend.
We can't look at a spouse.
We can't look at even an enemy and say it's their fault.
We can't even blame the devil for the sin that we commit.
He says, no, there's a personal Responsibility.
And so Saul did not take that personal responsibility.
He says, I feared the people.
The fear of man is a snare.
And so Saul was so caught up with the fear of man that he was
willing to disobey God.
He obeyed man rather than God.
And So in verse 26, we see that Samuel is reminding Saul that
there's nothing more to say.
He says, you've made your decision.
And what Saul wanted to do is he.
He wanted just Samuel to overlook it.
Just.
Just worship with me.
Just forget about it.
And we know that Samuel wasn't going to forget about it, and God
wasn't going to forget about it.
And so Saul is desperate here.
And we see that he wants to hold on to something.
He wants to have the approval of Samuel so that he can kind of
just feel free, wash his hands of the situation and just move on
without the proper way of repentance.
He's just trying to sweep it under the rug and let's see what
happens.
And as Samuel turned about to go away, so Samuel's like, I'm separating
myself from you.
I'm leaving.
I'm not going to be a part of this.
God has rejected you because of your pride.
What happens, he says here in verse 27, and he laid hold upon the
skirt of his mantle and rent it.
So basically, Saul not only spiritually is trying to cling on
to Samuel, but he physically grabs Samuel and Samuel pulls away.
And basically what's in the hand of Saul is this little small
piece of garment.
And so in this process of Saul's desperate action to hold on
to his kingdom that God did give him, but God is taking away,
we see that this piece of torn robe in his hand now shows that that's
his leadership.
His leadership is no longer the full garment.
He only gets a piece.
He only has a small piece that he's going to lose very, very soon.
And so Saul grasps so tightly to the things of this world, and
now he's grasping tightly to this piece of Samuel's garment.
But ultimately it's a picture and I think an object lesson to the
futility of materialism that's only going to bring you what you
can grab in your hand, but it's not going to be sustaining forever.
And so ultimately, what we see here is that this is a picture of
Samuel walking away and Saul trying to hold on to it.
And it only is holding just a little piece in his hand.
Verse 28.
And Samuel said unto him, the Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel
from thee this day.
And so what we see here is that Samuel is prophetically telling
him what God is doing in his life.
And he says, it is God who is pulling this away from you.
It's not me.
It's God says it is the Lord who has pulled away the kingdom of
Israel from you this day and have given it to a neighbor of thine
that is better than thou.
These are some strong words.
But basically he says, God is giving this to someone who is more
deserving, someone who is going to desire a relationship with
me.
And that's, we know, ultimately is going to be coming
here very, very soon.
Verse 29.
And also, the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for
he is not a man that he should repent.
So here we actually see very interesting title of the Lord.
It's used here.
It says the strength of Israel.
And Samuel uses the title for the Lord.
And this is actually the one place where this is found in all
of scripture.
And I love that title of the Lord, the strength of Israel, and
basically says, the Lord will not lie nor repent, meaning God's
not going to change his mind on this.
God is secure in this.
He's not going to lie to you.
He's not going to pull back and change his mind, for he is not
a man that he should repent.
And so obviously this speaks to God's perfect nature, his holiness,
the fact that he's unchanging, and the fact that God doesn't make
mistakes.
And that's a whole other lesson for another day.
But we know that God, in his decision to pull Saul away from the
throne and ultimately his family from the throne, is not a
mistake.
It's actually the greatest decision that he could make because
God makes every decision in a perfect manner.
So that's what that's all about there, verse 30.
Then he said, I have sinned.
So, so now we see a desperate Saul basically trying to cling to
his kingdom.
And again we see a statement of his sin.
He says, I have sinned.
And I find this interesting.
He's again desperate to try to hold on to something.
But again, as he begins to talk, and as he continues to talk,
we further see where his heart is.
He says, I have sinned, yet honor me.
Now you see that again, it's always about him.
He says, honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people
and before Israel, and turn again with me that I may worship
the Lord thy God.
So if you didn't catch it there, what we basically see is this.
He's not as concerned about his separation from God as he's concerned
about his image before the people of Israel.
He knows that him being pulled away from being a king is going to
be embarrassing.
He knows that people are going to talk.
He knows that this is going to mar his legacy, his record, his praise.
And so instead of saying, lord, I don't want to be separated
from you, he says, restore me so that I can be restored in front
of the people, he says.
He says, they're before the elders of my people and before Israel,
and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord.
And so Samuel understands Saul's heart.
God, even more so, understands Saul's heart.
And Saul knows that he just doesn't want to be rejected here.
So Samuel didn't, didn't come to him and say, well, you know what?
Maybe, just maybe, if you get your heart right, God will give it
back.
Even though we know that God could do that.
But we know that God has spoken through Samuel by basically
saying, saul has turned away from you.
His heart is completely wicked.
And so ultimately here God is going to reject.
And so verse 31.
So Samuel turned again after Sam, after Saul, and Saul worshiped
the Lord.
And so what we see here at the very end is so Samuel did not.
He did not lead an immediate rebellion against Saul because God
had not raised up Saul's replacement yet.
We know that David is on the way, but we know that there's going
to be some time that is to come.
And ultimately we see that there is this what we would call
like a semi quasi restoration.
But we do know that later on we're going to see that Samuel and
Saul never come back again together.
And so we'll move on here.
Verse 32.
Then said Samuel, and.
And I think that this is a very interesting portion of scripture.
I do know that there's a lot of people that struggle with this
passage of Scripture.
But again, I did mention last time that, remember that we're not
working under the same dispensation.
This is an Old Testament way of thinking.
Now we live in the New Covenant and the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
And so certainly in the Old Testament, God used individuals for
his judgment, upon them for their sin.
And so we're going to see that actually happen now with Samuel and
the king of the Amalekites, Agag.
And so Saul has demonstrated pride, but still Agag is evil because
of all the sin of the Amalekites.
Uh, they have slain people from the nation of Israel for so
long at this point, they had killed People in cold blood.
And therefore God is judging them for their sin.
And so we do know that Saul did in some way humble himself here.
But he's still not making it right.
For Saul to make this right, he would do what God called him to
do.
But now what happens is Samuel comes in, and Samuel is going to
make all things right.
So look at verse number 32.
Then said Samuel, bring ye hither to me, Agag, the king of the
Amalekites.
So what Samuel is going to do is he's going to carry out what Saul
should have done.
He's going to do God's will.
And Agag came unto him delicately.
And I. I certainly think that if I was Agag, I'd be kind of confused.
I'd say, wait, I thought, you're going to kill me now.
You're not going to kill me.
What's going on?
He comes up, and Agag said, surely the bitterness of death is
past.
This is a good tactic from Agag, basically is, guys, you guys
have been fighting long enough.
Surely it's over, right?
The.
You can let me go.
Like, killing me is not in the equation anymore, right?
Like everything's okay.
And that's basically what he's saying there.
He's thinking, I think the storm's blown over.
I think we all understand our lessons that we've learned.
Let's go.
But we know that God has a.
Has a plan, and God's plan is going to come to pass.
Verse 33.
And Samuel said, as thy sword hath made women childless, so obviously
this is pointing out the sin of Aag, so shall thy mother be childless
among women.
And Samuel hewed aag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
So again, it's pretty graphic.
But what we do know is that Samuel does what God called them
to do.
And we know that God did judge the Canaanites and the pagans for
their sin.
And there's a lot of holdups from a lot of people about that.
And we could at another time study deeper into why God enacted
that way.
But ultimately, at the end of the day, we don't know the heart
of God.
All we can do is trust that God is holy and just and that he's
righteously judging these people for their rebellion.
And we know that God did not want the people of Israel to mingle
with this idolatrous nation and follow their practices.
And so, in so doing, God called the Israelites to wipe them
out.
Saul wouldn't do it.
Samuel did so.
Verse 34.
Then Samuel went To Rama and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah
of Saul and Samuel no more, came no more to see Saul until the
day of his death.
Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul and the Lord repented that
he had ever made Saul king over Israel.
Now in this passage, there is some difficulty here of understanding
exactly what this is trying to tell us.
But what I will say is this one, one thing to note is that Samuel
and Saul never come back together again, which I find very
interesting.
It's a split of what we saw as a partnership for a very long time.
Samuel knew that God did not want him to see Saul because of Saul's
heart of rebellion.
If Saul was in a heart of repentance, certainly Samuel would
have felt comfortable coming back to a relationship with Saul.
But God separated them.
And interestingly enough, Rama and Gibeah were less than 10 miles
apart.
So it wasn't like they were moving across the country from each
other, even though 10 miles was a lot longer then than it is
now.
We know that they weren't across the world from each other,
but yet God did allow for this wedge to be driven because of a sin
in the life of Saul.
And we know that Saul wanted to see Samuel, but Saul was not willing
to get things right with God to have that type of restoration.
And so at the end we do see that Samuel mourns the loss of Saul.
So it's not like Samuel's hard hearted against Saul.
You know, I think a lot of times if someone sins against us
and we separate from them, we hold bitterness and say, well, you
know what?
I wish ill will upon them.
Well, that's something the Bible calls malice.
And we don't want to have malice.
We don't want to have anger that wishes evil upon someone or
harm upon somebody.
So even though Saul and Samuel had to separate because of Saul's
sin, Samuel still had a heart of compassion for Samuel, still had
a heart of compassion for Saul.
And so Samuel mourned for Saul.
He was brokenhearted over him.
And I think this is a great example of how we should be dealing
with people who are an unrepentant sin.
And even if we have to separate from them, there is a time
and a place to separate from people that are in unrepentant sin.
And the Bible does speak about that.
But at the same time, the Bible also tells us the type of,
of relationship that we have with them.
Even in that type of separation.
We're always praying for them.
We're wishing for restoration.
Galatians Chapter six, I believe, talks about praying that
a brother is restored.
And so at the same time, I do believe that Samuel's heart being
broken was for the fact that he wanted Saul to come back in repentance.
And the desire was for him to be restored to the Lord.
And so Samuel was not cold or dispass, dispassionate when it comes
to his relationship with, with Saul.
He hurt for Saul and we, we know that he hurt because of the
hardness of Saul's heart.
And I think some of us understand that type of pain.
Maybe somebody that we love and care for has hardened their hearts
against the Lord and instead of hating them, we should pray for
them and have a humble compassion upon them.
But at the same time, we can't always join in with their lifestyle
when it comes to their rebellion to the Lord.
So we see all that.
Then we see at the very end of verse 35 something interesting.
It says, and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
Now this is hard to think about because we just saw that the
strength of Israel, God does not lie or repent.
And then it says that God repented.
Obviously we know that in, in this case there's two different thoughts
that are being given here.
The first repent that's mentioned in verse 29 is about God
basically take turning away and knowing that he's done something
wrong.
Okay, okay.
And then we know that God has never done anything wrong.
So God doesn't make a wrong decision and have to change in that.
So when we get down to verse number 35 and we see that God repented
that he had made Saul king over Israel, we understand that God
works in different ways and he thinks in different ways and his
thoughts are beyond our thoughts.
The book of, well, we just saw that in the book of Romans that His
thoughts are beyond our thoughts.
So, so what we would say is this.
God is describing to us in his word the best way that we as humans
can understand his emotions in this scenario with Saul.
So does God make mistakes?
No.
Did God know that Saul was going to rebel?
Sure.
But God is still brokenhearted over his children who rebel against
Him.
God is not cold hearted as some people paint the picture that
he knows who's going to sin.
And not only does he know who's going to sin, but he also forces
those people to sin and determinism.
And I don't believe that God forces us to sin as we talked about
earlier.
So therefore when God sees us, he knows what we will do.
But at the same time he is brokenhearted over those that turn
and rebel from him.
And so the best way that we could rectify this in the context
of scripture, in verse 35 is that God is brokenhearted over Saul's
rebellion of being king and his relationship with, with the Lord,
but also as taking care of his people, the nation of Israel.
And so God has a better plan by bringing in David.
God has a better plan by removing Saul from the equation and
his family from the equation.
But we still know that even though God always does the right
thing there, there's still God.
God has emotions.
I do believe that that is the case.
He's not a robot.
He is not just detached from the people that he's ministering
to.
Even though he is separate from us, he's not bound by space
and time.
We also know that God is a personal God.
And we see God a brokenhearted.
And we even see the person of Jesus Christ is God in the flesh,
a weeping.
And so we do know that there's emotions.
And so I do believe that God is brokenhearted over Saul's repentance
or, excuse me, Saul's lack of repentance and his rebellion.
And so that's really the summary of First Samuel.
First, First Samuel, chapter 15.
But what we're going to see next time when we come back is that
David comes on the scene and, and really what we're going to see
is that not an immediate transition of power, even though
God promises David to be the next king, there is going to be some
waiting.
And that's a whole other test for David.
Certainly we know that it would be a lot easier for David and
for everybody in the equation if God just said, hey, David, you're
king today.
Saul, you're out.
But we know that there's this really muddied up situation when
it comes to David being friends with Saul and David being
even better friends with Jonathan, and then David playing
in the courts with Saul and then ultimately the.
A classic story of David and Goliath and then of course, David's
victories.
And so we're going to really dive deep into that relationship
of God and David, David and Saul, David and Jonathan and all
the other things that come along with that story.
And so I hope that this is a study that we can continue on with
and, and see more lessons from.
So what, so what have we learned from Saul here?
Or what have we learned to not follow in the life of Saul?
Because remember, we have passages of scripture that are prescriptive,
meaning these are examples for us to follow.
And then we also have descriptive passages which basically
just describe something and tell us these are things that we
shouldn't follow.
And certainly with the life of Saul, we saw that he started out
with a lot of potential.
I think one of the major words that I think of when I think of the
life of Saul is a man with a lot of potential.
But with that potential sometimes comes danger.
Because just because someone has potential to do great things,
particularly for the Lord, it doesn't automatically mean that that
person will do those things.
God gave Saul every single thing that he needed to be the king
that he wanted him to be.
God gave Saul all the opportunities, all the strength,
all the resources.
And if you remember, at the very beginning, God reminded Saul,
hey, Saul, this is not your nation.
This is my nation.
I'm giving you the opportunity to steward my nation as king.
And at the very beginning, Saul was humble to some degree.
But as we saw the power coming into Saul's life, he misappropriated
the blessings of God and thought that those were blessings
that he brought himself.
And therefore, his ego began to grow, his pride began to grow,
and his humility began to shrink.
And in that process of his pride growing, he led himself to
a place where he thought he could handle it himself.
He thought he had a better plan.
He thought that he could obey God on his terms.
And I do believe that there are many people today that live in
this world that truly believe that they can worship God on their
own terms.
Not on God's terms, but on their own terms.
We.
We know that even in the New Testament, that it tells us that
there will be a day when people are lovers of themselves.
There will be a day when there's people that are heaping to
themselves, teachers having itching ears.
Basically, people are going to want to have people teaching them
that are telling them what they want to hear.
And so what that means is this.
If I am at the center of my theology and if I am absorbed in
pride, I want people to tell me what makes me feel good.
And I'm only going to listen to people and agree with people that
tell me what I want to hear.
And that's one of the major downfalls within the church in this
world today, and it always has been since the very beginning of
the church, is that the churches that want to bring in the
word of God in their way and worship their way and worship God
within the church and in their communities, their way.
And then what we would see is that they would bring in the culture
into the church instead of bringing the church into the culture.
So if you think back at First Corinthians.
First Corinthians tells us that there was this church in Corinth,
and they started out to the same gospel that we all have.
But what eventually happened is, is that they were allowing the
worship of the Goddess Diana to seep into their church.
And basically what happened is, is they thought they could worship
God the way that the other pagans were worshiping God and do
the same thing and basically think that God was going to love
that, bless that, and encourage that.
And Paul reminds them, no, that is not the way to do it.
And there needed to be some serious house cleaning and discipline
within that church.
We see over and over again, there's instances in scripture where
people thought that they could bring the culture into the church.
And we see that even happening today, that we see that.
You know what?
Well, these people over here, though, historically speaking and
biblically speaking, this has never been accepted within the church.
But you know what?
Since we want to adapt to culture, we need to overlook what
scripture clearly teaches.
And so what I would tell you is, is that, yes, there are times
and places within the church that we must understand that we.
We do have to adapt to some degree.
You know, I. I'm.
I'm thankful for, you know, central air and heat.
I'm.
I'm thankful for the fact that we can meet and sit in padded pews.
You know, the church I grew up in, we, you know, we didn't have
padded pews.
I mean, so that.
I'm all for technology, I'm all for adaptation to the culture
around us.
But when we're talking about things that then contradict the word
of God, that's where we have to draw the line.
That's where we have to say, no.
That type of compromise cannot happen within the church.
So we hear the word compromise, and we have to think
about that word compromise.
Because we saw that Saul compromised, right?
He said, okay, God, do you know that?
Or I know that you want me to wipe out the Amalekites, but I'm
going to do it my way to the degree that I want to do it.
And I'm going to feel good about it, and I'm going to actually
celebrate it, and I'm going to say things to people, but how good
you are through this.
But at the same time, we know that he compromised.
Now, if we were to sit here, and I'm trying to use an analogy
that we all probably could not feel oppressed on and nervous about,
but let's say again, we were going to change the color of the
carpet, right?
And we had, you know, one segment of the church that wanted
red carpet and the other church wanted blue carpet.
And, you know, we compromised and we said, okay, we're going to
do purple carpet now, probably won't be doing that.
But you guys get the point.
If there's that type of compromise within the church, that's
not spiritual compromise.
That's like, hey, you know, there's a little bit of give and
take here.
You know, I don't have to have it always my way.
That's a blessing, and that's church unity.
That's kind of what we want to see within the church.
But at the same time, spiritual compromise is not where
we want to be.
And so in our world today, just as Saul spiritually compromised,
we see many people spiritually compromised.
And if we don't be on guard and put on the armor of God, we could
easily, whether we know it or not, slip into that type of spiritual
compromise.
Because we don't usually compromise on things that we don't
struggle with, right?
We usually compromise on the things that we personally struggle
with in our life.
And we often only justify those types of sins into our life
and say, well, I understand why I would do that, because that's
the way I feel about this.
But someone else who sins over, there, of course they're wrong.
And so what we have to do is we have to take a viewpoint from
the perspective of it's the Word of God.
And if you go back to what.
What did.
What did Samuel tell him very, very beginning here in verse 26,
he said, your problem, your issue, the reason why you're not
finding that restoration, the reason why you're not being reunited
with the Lord and God's blessing you and forgiving you is
because he says, thou has rejected the word of the Lord.
And that's the message that we could preach to the world today.
And you want to know why you have all of those issues?
Well, first check, are you rejecting the Word of the Lord?
Now, not all issues are predicated upon rejection of the
Word of God.
There are some issues in our life that we deal with because we
live in a marred, sin, cursed world.
But what I will say is that there's many people in the world
that are struggling because there's a rejection to the Word of
God.
And then they look at their life and say, why do I have this
problem, this problem, this problem?
And sometimes as a pastor, I look and say, well, you did this,
this and this.
And sometimes it's easy to see on paper, but we as humans don't
see it actually unfolding before our eyes.
It's kind of like the frog and the.
The hot water scenario.
Like, if you burned it up, hot, boiling, right away, that frog's
going to jump out of that water.
But you go very slowly, and slowly but surely it would stay in
there.
You know, I heard a.
A story one time.
There was a pastor of the church.
He.
He wanted to.
The.
The piano was.
Let's say the piano was on the right side of the church, and he
wanted the piano on the left side of the church.
He was like, I really want on the left side.
And people said, no, Pastor, if you move that piano to the other
side of the church, you're out, you're done.
That we're not compromising.
That piano is on the.
On the right side of our church.
And so he ended up leaving and going to another church.
And new pastor came in, and a few years later, he.
The older pastor came back and he said he comes into the church
service and he wanted to see, say hi to everybody.
He looks up on the stage and would you believe it?
The piano was on the left side of the church.
He said, how did he get them to do that?
How did he get them to do that?
And he goes up and asks the pastor, how did you get them to move
the piano across the church?
And he said it was one inch every Sunday, and just.
He got all the way across and they didn't notice it.
But the idea would be this.
Sometimes sin creeps in that way in our life.
Sometimes the enemy doesn't come right out and say, you know,
Middletown Baptist Church is now going to be affirming these types
of sins starting next Sunday.
Some churches have done that way, and that has been shocking.
But other times, what we see is that it's a slow burn that happens
over a long period of time where sin just gets, you know, kind
of put on the back burner and then eventually tolerated, then eventually
accepted, then eventually celebrated, and then eventually participated
in.
And so what we have to be very careful of is drawing that line between
compromise within the church that's completely healthy and part
of the body of Christ, and then that type of spiritual compromise
and sin compromise that is not part of the body of Christ.
And therefore, as we saw in the New Testament, God resists the
proud, but give grace to the humble.
So those churches that are rejecting the word of God clearly
and openly are those.
They are in pride, basically saying, we know better than the Bible.
We know better than what the Lord has to say, and.
And ultimately we know what happens when it comes to that.
So Saul is a story, I believe, of pride, a story of potential, but
of wasted potential and his rebellion to the Lord.
And then we also see it's.
It's a story of being resolute with Samuel.
Samuel stayed true to what God had to say, and at the end of the
story, he did what Saul couldn't do.
And I think that's beautiful as well.
I think that even.
Even that picture of Samuel stepping up in that scenario shows
that there's always someone who could stand up for the truth,
even if nobody else is standing up for the truth.
That's hard for me to do.
I'm just going to tell you.
Personally, in my life, I struggle when everybody around me
is celebrating Jesus and we're all on fire for the Lord.
It's so easy for me to be bold for my faith.
You know, we could go out and we could march and we could preach
the word of God.
You know what's really hard for me and where I struggle is when
everybody around me is against the word of God and that I'm the
only person that has that same viewpoint.
I'm a lot more timid in those scenarios.
When it comes to those opportunities to stand up for the
faith now doesn't mean that we don't stand up.
It just means that in our human nature, sometimes there's a
challenge with being the one that stands up and does what God
calls us to do.
But I would encourage us, just as Samuel did, is to stand up, no
matter what, who's involved, and say, you know, we need to do
this and we need to make this right.
And so that's the culmination, not the full culmination of Saul.
Certainly we know Saul is going to be mentioned over and over
again in the next few books of the Bible here.
But we do know that this is kind of like the end of the story
for him as king, even though he's not done being king.
It's the beginning of the end.
And David comes on the scene, and then we just see Saul's pride
and his rebellion just magnify through the persistence of David
having all the blessings of God.
And so we will get into that study as we go along.
So I hope that you come back for First Samuel, chapter 16.
We'll see a new guy coming on the scene.
David.
He's already been mentioned as a man after God's own heart, but
he hasn't been given his he hasn't been named yet, and we're
going to see him named here in First Samuel, Chapter 16.
So I encourage you to come back.
We've been in First Samuel for quite some time.
We're going to do First Samuel and Second Samuel, okay?
So in this study, we're going to try to do it all together.
First Samuel, Second Samuel, and then we'll see where we go from
there.
That's going to be some time in the future.