Better NOT Call Saul

You'll find that on page 246 and 247. We're going to be in 1 Samuel chapter 15, verses 10 through 29, and it's our practice to read God's word aloud together. So if you find that on the screen or in your Bible, let's read together.

Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: "I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following me and has not carried out my instructions." So Samuel became angry and cried out to the Lord all night. Early in the morning, Samuel got up to confront Saul, but it was reported to Samuel that Saul went to Carmel, where he has set up a monument for himself. Then he turned around and went down to Gilgal. When Samuel came to him, Saul said, "May the Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord's instructions." Samuel replied, "Then what is the sound of sheep, goats, and cattle I hear?" Saul answered, "The troops brought them from the Amalekites and spared the best sheep, goats, and cattle in order to offer a sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we destroyed." "Stop," exclaimed Samuel. "Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night." "Tell me," he replied. Samuel continued, "Although you were once considered yourself unimportant, haven't you become the leader of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel and then sent you on a mission and said, 'Go and completely destroy the sinful Amalekites. Fight against them until you have annihilated them.' So why didn't you obey the Lord? Why did you rush on the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord's sight?" "But I did obey the Lord," Saul answered. "I went on the mission the Lord gave me. I brought back King Agag of the Amalekites, and they destroyed the Amalekites. The troops took the sheep, goats, and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was set apart for destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal." Then Samuel said, "Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? Look, to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king." Saul answered Samuel, "I have sinned. I have transgressed the Lord's command and your words. Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them. Now therefore, please forgive my sin and return with me so that I can worship the Lord." Samuel replied to Saul, "I will not return with you because you rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." When Samuel turned to go, Saul grabbed the corner of his robe and it tore. Samuel said to him, "The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel away from you today and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you. Furthermore, the eternal One of Israel does not lie or change his mind, for he is not a man who changes his mind." — 1 Samuel 15:10-29

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Let's put up this first picture. This man, probably well known to some of you—this is Willie Mays. In 1961, a counselor at a local community center in San Francisco approached Willie Mays. Right then he was a center fielder for the San Francisco Giants, and at the height of his career, very successful. And he approached him and said, "I want to ask you if you would mentor a young man. We have this 14-year-old who is really talented, really incredible. He's gonna be somebody big one day, but this young man has just robbed a liquor store. He's got a lot of poor decision-making skills, and he needs somebody to mentor him." And so Willie Mays agreed and said, "I'll spend an afternoon with him."

So it was interesting. Instead of talking to him or lecturing him, Mays invited this young man, this 14-year-old guy, over to his house. And he showed him: "Look at my fancy clothes. Look at my fancy house. Look at my car. Look at what success can get you." And it kind of worked. I mean, it ended up being a defining moment in this young man's life that sort of put him on a pathway toward success. This young man went on to become one of the biggest household names in NFL football. And here he is: O.J. Simpson.

Actually, here's a news story from this morning, New York Times—you wanna see this. So O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering his wife, his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. And during the famous criminal trial, which took weeks and was like the centerpiece of American news media for weeks, the defense attorney asked Willie Mays to come and testify on behalf of O.J. Simpson. But Mays refused.

He said I don't know a thing about this young man's character. I just showed him what success looked like. And here's the problem: OJ had learned to imitate Mays's success without imitating his character. There's a difference.

And that's really at the heart of this passage today as we look at Saul. Saul has been this young man. Over the last weeks going through First Samuel, we've seen this young, talented, charismatic, tall, attractive man rise into prominence, rise into leadership. He's been given an incredible calling. He's seen God at work. He's been given the spirit to help him with his work and yet there is a glaring character problem on the inside of Saul. He is good at deceiving himself. He's good at self deceit and that's what I want us to see this morning because this kind of comes to me, to you as a warning story.

The most dangerous lies we tell are not the ones we tell other people. They're the ones that we tell ourselves. The biggest danger is not that sin makes us guilty. It makes us brilliant at explaining why and believing why we're not guilty. The human heart has an incredible propensity towards self deceit, self deception.

So this morning we're going to look at three points. They're in the side, right there beside where you have notes in your bulletin: the fruits of self deception, the roots of self deception, and the hope of repentance. Now I've got a little bit I'm going to borrow from a sermon heard years ago by Tim Keller on self deception. I will try to make that clear, but let me just give you a quick background.

This is the third test in Saul's kingship, and this is really the third time God has put him up at bat to help him see what's inside of him. So verse 18 is the test here.

Go and completely destroy the sinful Amalekites. Fight against them until you've annihilated them. — 1 Samuel 15:18

Now time out. I just want to make sure you get this. This is the stuff that makes us cringe when we read the Bible. You read this, do you choke? Anybody choke when you read this this morning? Genocide in the Bible commanded by God. And this is the stuff that if you've taken a freshman religion class from a professor who's particularly antagonistic of the Christian faith, this is the stuff they like to highlight because it's like, "Look. Look how you like this God. This is what's in your Bible." Do you all realize that?

But I want you to make sure you're reading this in a way that's unbiased. Because with modern eyes, we read this and we're like, how reprehensible. Is God commanding colonialism and imperialism? No. What God is calling Saul to is an act of justice, and this is really unusual and really unique not only in biblical history but in human history. God calls him to exercise, to be an agent of God's justice against this other nation for three reasons.

First, unprovoked attack on the weak, the women, children, and the sick in the Exodus. The Amalekites asked Israel permission to go around them, and they unprovoked attacked them and destroyed some of the most vulnerable people in Israelite culture.

Second, centuries of raids, plundering, and starvation. This is all in the book of Judges. You can read about the Amalekites and their systemic attacks.

And then third is God's patience. God has given the Amalekites lots of time to turn to him. And now God calls him to do something really unique: go and exercise God's judgment, his justice on this nation.

I want you to think about your world history. A lot of you know plenty of world history. How many wars can you honestly say were really just about justice? They were not about gain for one country over another. Countries almost always go to war for a gain—power, money, influence in a particular part of the world, oil, I mean all kinds of reasons—but mostly it's not about justice. God is calling them to do something that's not about colonialism here and not about imperialism, but about executing God's justice.

And just so you understand this, in case this makes you really nervous about me as a pastor or us as a church: there is not a country on earth that can claim to be God's agent of justice in this world. America is not God's chosen people and we can't claim we're acting on God's side and his team as an agent of justice. We don't have that authority. Even modern Israel is not ancient Israel. Romans 9 makes it really clear there's a difference. Not all Israel were Israel. You are the new covenant people of God if you're a believer. So there's no nation that can say, "We're now agents of God's justice. We're doing it." This is a unique moment.

So the choking part of the sermon is over. The immediate question though is very straightforward for Saul: Will he obey God or not? Will he do what God commands?

And verse nine tells us:

Saul and the people spared Agag, the best of the sheep and oxen, the fattened calves and the lambs, all that was good they and would not utterly destroy them. — 1 Samuel 15:9

In other words Saul obeys selectively. He doesn't do justice. He does gaining. He discerns like what's the stuff that's of value to me that I'm gonna continue to hold on to and what's the part of God's command I'm going to obey? Do you understand? He doesn't do what God calls him to do here. And so this is where this becomes for us a case study in self deception.

The Fruits of Self Deception

So first point: the fruits of self deception. What follows, let me break this down in four D words. If we understand the pathway of self deception, it begins with number one: denial. And we'll put this up on the screen. Everybody's favorite river in Egypt. The Nile. Right?

May the Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord's instructions. — 1 Samuel 15:13

It's what he tells Samuel. It's fascinating. God says you disobeyed. Samuel says you disobeyed. Saul said I obeyed. Right? There's a little bit of a distinction here.

Here's what's fascinating. Saul has constructed a view of reality where he experiences himself as an obedient king. That's my self experience. I'm an obedient king. This is where self deception begins. We don't usually obey God or disobey God by saying outright, "I don't wanna do that." We negotiate. We deny. I know, but surely God understands. There's some circumstances that you gotta understand. There's a situation. It's not usually like "do something terrible? Okay, good idea. We're not doing that." We always come in our hearts and say, "Here's a really good reason why I did what I was not supposed to do or didn't do what I was supposed to do." Saul has disobeyed God but he doesn't experience himself as a disobedient person. We're capable of doing the same thing.

Number two on this passage, in this pathway: denial, the editor. Right? Hang in with me. Verse 14:

Samuel comes to Saul, and he's like the evidence is right here. What is the sound of sheep, goats, and cattle I hear? — 1 Samuel 15:14

Samuel's not like "I need to do an in-depth psychological study." He doesn't have to do a lot of homework. He's like, "I can hear your disobedience. It's buying right now." And Saul explains, "Well, it's a sacrifice to the Lord. They were a sacrifice to Lord. The best, the sheep, and the cattle."

Notice how Saul retells the story. He's editing the story. What's he doing? He's taking an act of disobedience and putting a little halo on top. Right? We do this all the time. For my friends who are math people here, you do this thing in algebra where you're balancing equations and you kind of move numbers from one side to the other by adding or subtracting or multiplying by the same thing on the other side. So you can cancel out stuff and you begin canceling out things and you balance the formula. Well, this is what we're doing all the time when we're the editor. We're like "my good stuff surely cancels out my disobedience, right? I can balance the formula." And we do this funny math in our hearts where we're editing what God actually says.

Okay. Let's keep going. Number three: the denier. Verse 15:

They're the one who did it. Right? So these people you gave me to lead, my people, right, they brought the sheep from the Amalekites. These people you gave me to lead, the people, they spared the best. — 1 Samuel 15:15

Notice the pronouns. Saul says in effect, "I obeyed. They are the ones who disobeyed." There's always a they. Have you noticed that whenever we're talking about good things that we did, we use personal "I" pronouns? But whenever we're talking about something bad that somebody else did, we're blaming someone. We're like, "Oh, they did it." Anybody grow up in a house with brothers and sisters who had a they? Right? We all knew who they was. It's somebody out there. Right? They're the bad ones.

We minimize. We can explain the damage. We compare ourselves with other people. We blame others. We can shift the blame. We're the hero. Look what you made me do. Okay, sorry. This is a really bad sermon for y'all this morning.

Number four on this pathway: the defender. The lawyer. So denial, the editor, the denier, the lawyer. It's all part of our process of self deception.

Samuel wasn't buying any of this. He confronts Saul with the word of the Lord. Verse 19:

Why did you not obey the voice of the Lord? — 1 Samuel 15:19

And Saul answers, verse 20:

I have obeyed the voice of the word. — 1 Samuel 15:20

Now this is really stunning because at this point they've gone back and forth a number of times.

And he's qualified and blamed and given all kinds of explanation, but he's still digging in. See, at this point, the problem is no longer that Saul has disobeyed. It's that he's become unable to recognize his own disobedience. And this is really dangerous for us. When you're in a place where you've sinned and you're willing to see it, there's always hope of you being able to be forgiven when you repent. But if you're in a place where you're like, I'm dug in and I didn't do anything wrong and no I really didn't do anything wrong, that's a hopeless situation in the sense that there's no returning from that.

See, we become our own defense attorneys. The human heart doesn't just commit sin. It manufactures alibis. It's a defense attorney heart with lots and lots of explanations. The worst thing about self deception is not that it hides our sin. It hides our need for repentance and the opportunity for that.

So in the end, here's what happens. It appears like Saul repents. Let's look at this. But does he? I'll put this up on the screen. Let's check.

I have sinned. — Verse 24

Check. That sounds good.

I have transgressed the Lord's commands.

Check. That sounds good.

And your words.

Check. Again, sounds good.

Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them.

Check. I mean, sounds like he's repenting. But is he? Look at verse 30. He keeps going.

I have sinned. Please honor me now before the elders of the people and before Israel. Come back with me so I could bow down and worship with the Lord your God.

Wait. What? Do you understand what he's doing? Even his confession becomes a moment of managing his own reputation before the people. I've sinned, but please don't make me look bad. He isn't concerned that he's offended God. He's distancing himself from God. Did you notice throughout the whole passage he keeps saying, not my God, not our God, your God, Samuel. Your God. In his heart, he is moonwalking away from the Lord. There's this distance in him. This isn't repentance. This is concern that other people are gonna think less of him. Those are the fruits. That's what we see.

The Roots of Self Deception

So what are the roots of self deception? What's under the soil? Here's the deeper issue. We deceive ourselves whenever we want something more than God. Whenever we want something more than God and obeying God.

So here's the part I got from Keller. We can know the truth and not know it at the same time. The human heart has this ability to both sort of nod at something and deny it at the same time. He gives an example of this town in Germany. I looked this up again this week, Ordruff, that was located next to the brutal Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald. And when that concentration camp was liberated under Eisenhower by the US Army at the end of World War II, Eisenhower went in there and he was so disgusted by what he saw, the incredible injustice, the way people in there had been so systemically destroyed. He's like surely the people in the town next door had to know something was going on here. So the next morning he marched everybody from that town into the camp and said you're gonna bury the bodies. That night after all those people went back home, the mayor and his wife killed themselves. The reason? They both knew and didn't know. They were like, we don't know. We pretended for years. We don't know really what's going on down the road in that camp, but they did know.

See, the most dangerous lies aren't the ones we tell other people. They're the ones that we tell ourselves and believe ourselves. I think Saul actually believes his own press here. Self deception is a kind of blindness. We're hiding an uncomfortable truth from ourselves because facing it would mean admitting our heart problem.

Next root, we make ourselves too big. Early in this passage we read Samuel's coming to find Saul and he hears, oh, Saul's gone to Carmel to make himself a statue of himself, a monument to himself. He's like, what? There's something that's going on here with Saul. When he finally confronts him, Samuel says:

Although you once considered yourself unimportant, haven't you become the leader of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king. — Verse 17

See, he reminds him, this is who you used to be. You used to be small in your own eyes. Now you're making monuments to yourself. This is one of the dangers of our own hearts. Idolatry isn't bowing down to a statue. It's in a sense putting yourself in God's place. It's making your own judgment the authority. It's deciding that your desires or your reputation, your ambitions, your interpretation of reality, those matter more than God's word. Saul's become his own god. We're really good at doing the same thing.

Final root here, we fear people more than God.

This brings us back to Saul's confession in verse 24.

Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them. — 1 Samuel 15:24

Saul wants—and we can identify with this so much—he wants other people to approve of him more than he wants God's approval of him. I mean, do we not struggle with this all the time? We so much want to be liked. We so much want to be loved. We want people just to say, "You're good." And this isn't a middle school problem or a high school problem. This is an everybody problem. This doesn't go away. I go visit my mom in her senior care facility, and this is still the reigning culture. I hate to warn you about this. This is an all of life problem.

What do you want in your life so badly that you're willing to disobey God to get it? What stories are you willing to edit, to wire up with God about? What a horrible story, really.

Is there any hope? Yeah, I know some of you are like, "Please give me some hope, preacher." Yes, there's great hope in this passage—the hope of repentance.

Maybe repentance isn't your favorite word. You might not rank it in your top 10 words. You'd say vacation, beach, quiet—especially if a little kid's quiet. Maybe quiet's on there like 10 times, right? But repentance should be your favorite word. There is so much hope in being able to turn back to the God who forgives sin and loves sinners and welcomes sinners. It is so hopeful.

Let me show you how God can help self-deceived people like me and self-deceived people like you—we're all like this—turn to the Lord.

Number One: Find Yourself a Prophet

You gotta find you a prophet. Now this is not as hard as it sounds. You don't have to look hard. This is why we emphasize community so much in the church. We're like, "Hey, just coming on Sundays? That's probably really not gonna do much for you, much as I love to preach." It's when you're in relationship with somebody else and you've given them a hunting license in your life to say, "Can you help me find places that are my blind spots?"

The definition of a blind spot is that you can't see it, right? You need to have friends. You know how you've had somebody who's been like, "Got something right there in your teeth? You got something in your nose? You got something on your shirt?" You don't see it. And so having another person, a prophet in your life—this is why we emphasize community life, why we all need other Christians around us who have a hunting license to speak in, because they are able to say, "Hey, you might not be seeing the full picture here." There is nobody who doesn't need that.

So get your prophet.

Number Two: Remember the Amalekites

And why would I say that? Because going back to the beginning of the sermon, I talked about God's justice. And God was rightfully bringing justice to the Amalekites. All sin necessitates judgment. If Saul for one second had been like, "Time out, Amalekites," he would have said and realized, "I'm just like the Amalekites. I stand under God's judgment for my disobedience and sin as well."

If you read your whole Bible, you'll read all these stories of judgment and they're the stuff that makes us really uncomfortable, right? Adam and Eve, Cain, Sodom, Pharaoh, Nadab and Abihu, Korah, Achan, Jezebel and Ahab, Ananias and Sapphira. Lots of stories. God bringing judgment forward from the end of history to a point in the middle of the Bible and executing judgment as a warning to God's people. Like, "This is what sin deserves."

See, every one of you under the sound of my voice, including myself, are people who stand under God's judgment, who stand just like Saul in a place where it's like, "I need to be able to say, 'I've sinned.'"

You know, when Samuel confronts Saul, Saul eventually says, "I have sinned." That's where repentance begins and ends. There's a period. "I have sinned." Period. Not "I have sinned because," or "I have sinned and you gotta understand." This is what repentance looks like: giving up on excuses and qualifications, agreeing with God about his just judgment. The opposite of self-deception isn't self-hatred. It's repentance.

Number Three: Rest in the Grace of This

The only true obedient King takes his own judgment against sin. This is the whole story of the whole Bible—that God would send his own Son who is the just Judge, who in the book of Revelation is the one before whom all will come. He's the Judge of all the earth and yet he takes on the cross his own judgment of sin on himself.

I remember reading this news story back in 2012. There was this robbery that took place at a convenience store, a corner store in New Bedford, Massachusetts. And the owner was a guy named Juan Rodriguez and he's sitting in the corner reading his Bible when this guy runs into the shop, pulls a knife on him and says, "Give me everything in the drawer." And Rodriguez doesn't do it.

He jumps up, grabs a baseball bat, and follows the guy. Chases the guy out into the street. And he apprehends him, but as he does so, this crowd takes over. His neighbors see what's going on, and they begin to push Rodriguez out of the way, and they begin to mercilessly beat this guy to death who's the robber. So much so that Rodriguez seeing what's going on pushes them aside and shields the robber's body with his own body. Amazing story, but nothing compared to the cross of Jesus Christ.

Jesus in his own flesh took the punishment for our sin against his own judgment. He throws himself into the fray just like Rodriguez and suffers the just judgment of God on sin in his own body. This is why we can repent. We have such grace and mercy from the Lord. Judgment has been meted out. And this is why the guilty—like me and like you, the self deceived—we can come to him with open hands and an open heart and say, I did it, without qualifying or excusing.

I'll say one thing by way of conclusion. Do you know that it's much easier to hug a dirty child than a distant child. A dirty child right in front of you, it's gonna get you dirty. But a distant child running from you, you gotta chase them down to catch the kid first to hug them. God loves dirty kids. God loves dirty kids who come running to him. He's not afraid to touch us. Yes, he can chase down the distant ones, and I wanna give that word of hope to some of you this morning who are dealing with distant kids.

But I wanna encourage you this morning. Come to him. There are things that this sermon has stirred up in you this morning. I know because God stirred them up in me as I've been preparing for this all week. But God loves to hug dirty kids. His grace knows no limit. There is no one too messed up or too broken that can't receive the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. It knows no bounds. It knows no limits. Come to him, fellow dirty ones.

Name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. Lord, would you teach us to repent? Would you help us to find a prophet, somebody who can help us see our need for your forgiveness, the areas where we're blind to our own sin? Would you help us to remember the Amalekites, that you're a just judge? And help us to stand in your grace. Lord, we thank you, father, that the cross of Jesus Christ looms large over this passage. Thank you that you invite dirty children to yourself. Lord, help us to run to you today. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's respond to God's word, and let's sing together. Would you stand?