I remember hearing Henry Blackaby say that when God gives us a message, it’s not like finding a warm fuzzy in our pocket that we can just hold and feel good about. Instead, God wants us to act on it.
If we reject His message, the consequences might be like what happened to Saul when he disobeyed God’s order about the Amalekites.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king” (1 Samuel 15:23b).
That was the last thing Saul wanted to hear. He had gone from searching for a donkey to becoming Israel’s first king, and now he was hearing that God had rejected him.
Clearly, he needed to take action. So, he started confessing his sins to the prophet Samuel.
Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:24-25).
When I read the Bible, I try to see how I might be like the bad guys in the story.
I can relate to Saul’s confession of sin. Sometimes, I confess my sins just to feel better. But deep down, I don’t really want to change. There’s a big difference between feeling better and doing better.
When we confess our sins just to feel better but have no intention of changing our behavior, we are fooling ourselves. We can’t fool God, though.
A Lost Kingdom
One saying from Henry Blackaby that has stuck with me over the years is this: “You can’t stay where you are and go with Jesus.”
Saul was focused on serving himself. He built monuments to his own glory and disobeyed God’s direct orders to fulfill his desires. Despite this, he still wanted to go with the prophet and, by implication, with God.
But as we see in the following verses, you just can’t do that.
And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.”
As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore.
And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you” (1 Samuel 15:26-28).
Reflections
Jesus made it clear that we can’t serve two masters. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, he explained this.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24).
Some may try to serve Jesus and money at the same time and fail. When we serve something other than God, we know that at the core, we are serving ourselves. We can’t sit on the throne of our own lives and have Jesus there too.
Saul is an example of this. We should look at Saul’s example and decide not to serve anything but Jesus.
YouTube Discussion
Rudy Ross, Bruce Kirby, and I discussed this passage on YouTube today.
Real Voices 