1 Samuel 15 vs 18–21

1 Samuel Chapter 15 Verses 18 – 21

 What do you do with someone who lies to themself and with great

sincerity of personal truth, lies to others? Blame shifts… Saul insists

that he is innocent and yet his proof of guilt is IN his defense! “I

brought back King Agag!” His fault is evident but Saul somehow

doesn’t see it himself. Samuel is stuck in this moment with someone

who is outright and obviously in the wrong and at the same time fully

convinced and seeking to fully convince Samuel that he is NOT! What

do you do with someone who can lie so confidently to themselves?

 This is the field on which the Lord puts his right hand on the sheep

and His left hand on the goats. There is no account in the Bible of

goats becoming sheep and that is devastating. There is no

condemnation unto eternal destruction for those that have given their

lives to Jesus, Romans 8 is clear, but Romans 16 is also clear that

there is earthly condemnation in making sure you steer clear of this

type of “godly” man or woman…

 Paul wrote in Romans 16:17, “Now I urge you, brethren, note those

who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you

learned, and avoid them.” We read in 1 Corinthians 5:5, “Deliver

such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may

be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” 2 Timothy 3:2-5, “For men

will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud,

blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving,

unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,

traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of

God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such

people turn away!”

 I’m sorry to tell you of something in the Bible that is not popular in

our culture of correction and godliness being unacceptable and

feelings being exalted over all…, but there is a biblical mandate to

condemn in an earthly sense those that walk in darkness and lie to

themselves because human rejection is the only thing that gives a shot

to spiritual repentance…, why…, because this type of person, denier,

deflector, defender, self-deceiver, this type of person is numb to Godly

rejection… Tough truth. True nonetheless…

 And check this out, the community of God’s people, not the church,

the presence and community of the people of God wherever…, it’s the

only opportunity for this…, why!? Because what does the world do to

prideful, self-absorbed, lovers of themselves? The world embraces

them! Affirms them and rallies behind them! The world apart from

God will further entrench someone in a lesser, far lower and incredibly

sadder/joyless version of who they are…! When what God desires is

for them to be more like Him. The perfect and incorruptible, the

elevation, growth, maturation and graduation of a person continually

to a better version of themselves!

 Watch this, 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, “I wrote to you in my epistle not to

keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not

mean with sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous,

or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of

the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with

anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an

idolator, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, not even to eat

with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who

are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who

are outside God judges. Therefore, “put away from yourselves the evil

person.”

 Someone says, “Man, this sounds so judgy, this sounds so graceless.”

I don’t disagree. And most certainly, you need to heed not just one

portion of the Word of God but the entirety of the Word of God as Paul

would write just a few moments later in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14,

“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do

be done with love.” Jude wrote in Jude 1:20-23, “But you, beloved,

building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy

Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our

Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion,

making a distinction (practicing discernment); but others save with

fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by

the flesh.”

 So, what, how, when… to all this? Only God knows, you need to

consult with the Father…, and…, here’s the guideline, are those that

are self-deceived, warped and sinning, are they affirmed with you or

are they given the opportunity to be personally made aware of their

self-destruction through their relationship with you? Are you totally

accepting of them and totally rejecting of their ungodliness (which is

doing nothing but restraining THEIR joy and harming THEM)!?

 Now be ready for this…, some will absolutely love you for this… I

totally experience this. Because you love them but you will not shy

away from being quite objective and entirely matter-of-fact about their

sin… And some love that. They receive the correction and appreciate

someone who will be there for them and attack what restrains them!

 And there will be others that will despise you for this. Accuse you of

judging them or incessantly tell you that you are “holier than thou”

and “difficult to talk to…” Because ultimately, they reject the

correction. It’s interesting that way… But either way…, either way,

they have the opportunity to turn from that sin because of your

rejection of it…, and they in a way, are forced to face it as well.

 Maybe that’s why the reaction is different from different people…

Some sense the opportunity because deep down they want to come to

the light, come closer to Jesus…, and others just don’t want to be

bothered… At any rate, this is the/a biblical principle, one aspect of

the biblical principal, of being both light AND salt…

1 Samuel Chapter 15 Verses 22 – 23

 A rebellious heart can be easily found in the most popular of

preachers. The most active church members. The most energetic

worshippers. Because rebellion is not forsaking the sacrifice or burnt

offerings, forsaking the ministry…, rebellion is being a person that

half-obeys convincing themselves that they are obeying. Folks, we

cannot look at what we do for the Lord as our personal validation of

our faith. We must ask ourselves, do I heed His Word? Am I rebellious

or stubborn in my own ways? Or am I looking to receive and apply, to

be inwardly obedient to God’s Word over my own cause? As has been

said many times, a person who loves the Lord, has a heart close to the

Lord, obeying never even crosses their minds…, it just comes forth,

because it is what they delight to be… A man or a woman after God’s

OWN heart.

 What’s really going on here with Saul is evident in Samuel’s statement

to him. The issue was not that Saul was disobedient or partially

obedient or that he is in a rut of self-deception, those are all really just

symptoms. The issue that Saul truly had was pride. Samuel said to

Saul, and we covered this last week, “When you were little in your

own eyes…” And he gives us here the inescapable, unavoidable,

imminent trap of a reward of pride…, “You rejected the word of the

Lord…”

 A resolution to relentlessly attack, (and even before that, to hunt for

and actually be aware of pride in yourself), will lead you to all forms

of godliness, all forms of productivity, all forms of spiritual,

emotional, relational and even worldly success… It’s the key issue.

It’s the heart of the issue, every issue, because it’s the single mortal,

ungodlike, carnal issue of the heart. And the primary ministry of the

Holy Spirit is to lead a child of God in dealing with this primal sin.

1 Samuel Chapter 15 Verses 24 – 29

 Ah the revelation of pride’s daddy. The father of pride. The root cause

and the foundation under the high rise… FEAR. Fear is the motivation

for pride. Fear that God will not, that they will not, that I will lose, that

I will not be ok…, fear is the single fuel behind all pride. Test those

statements. Stir them up over and over again and truly consider…, and

you will conclude the same.

 At this time, and we will see this in the next chapter, there was a 10-

year-old boy named David just beginning to serve his family and serve

his father in the field, keeping the sheep. The youngest son of Jesse

who had eight sons. This ten-year-old unknown runt and the Bible

calls him “better than” the king of all Israel…

 I love how God is named, “The Strength of Israel,” here. And

remember, God never changes… His name is the same today…

 Notice here Samuel says that God doesn’t relent… Does that

contradict verse 11? No, it doesn’t, it explains it. Verse 11 does not

mean that God regrets a mistake He made. God is good, all the time.

Verse 11, God expresses regret and that regret is an expression of

grief. We can regret even good things… Good things we have done

that have hurt our situation, but they were the right things to do in that

day in the eyes of the Lord… but they caused the end of that

relationship or the end of that worldly comfort… Or yet today we

suffer because of that right decision we made many years ago…

 And we can look back on that day with regret. Not that we wouldn’t

do it again, it was right… But regretful towards the grief and the

loss… Regret is not always indicative of a mistake… God grieves

Saul. His will is that none should perish, none should destroy

themselves…

 But Saul does. Saul ends up trying to kill himself after a battle. That is

how his life ends… But he isn’t successful…, and it ends up being an

Amalekite that kills him on the battlefield. He destroys himself with

his self-deceived half-obedience… And not only that…, fast forward

a couple hundred years and the entire nation of all people of Israel

come under a death sentence at the decree of one man, an Agagite,

Haman…, during the time of Queen Esther…

1 Samuel Chapter 15 Verses 30 – 35

 Notice, when did Samuel come back together with Saul? When Saul

dropped every other statement, every other veil, every other shield…,

and simply said, “I have sinned.”

 Samuel, the man of God, executes the command of God even to the

disdain of many men. No doubt many men condemned Samuel for this

as many of us do just now in reading this… But for Samuel, no matter

what this world looks like, his heart is knitted to the heart of God so

this is nothing to him…

 And check this out, there must have been more… There must have

been some sort of secret hidden sin of Saul that is not written in these

pages because if all Amalekites were utterly destroyed and now Agag

is dead, where does Haman come from? Where does the man that

killed Saul come from…? We even see perhaps the discernment of

Samuel in his statement to Agag, “So shall your mother be childless

among women…” Agag’s mother was still among women?

 So, we see one more truth… where there is smoke, there is fire…

Where there is someone who lacks humility and presents self-

deception (which the world now calls “personal truth”) it is always a

signal of hidden, secret sin, hidden, tucked away worship of self or

worship of some other idol…, image, lust, power, pride, money…,

something more…, and they are carrying it like a weighted veil on

their hearts constantly seeking affirmation of themselves from others

because they are unable to affirm themselves…

 So they carry something in their heart ashamed and unable to unload it

believing (falsely) that it is shrouded from the eyes of others and in a

self-deceived manner, shrouded from the eyes of God in their lives…

Who in one moment of humility and strength of character would be

able to heal them and move them on…, because that’s not only what

God can do and does all the time, it’s what He wants to do in every

life!