Turn back in your Bibles once
again to 1 Samuel chapter 15. It would do you well to go back
and read again this chapter. If I could just simply set the
scene briefly, We have this man Saul that the
Lord has made king. And his first command, his first
responsibility is to go and to smite the Amalekites. They are about to receive the
judgment of God wickedness toward Israel when they came out of
Egypt." He got this word from a man by
the name of Samuel, who is the prophet of God. But now after this, Saul is then
rejected by God as King. When you read verse 26, it says
that the Lord hath rejected thee from being King over Israel. And why was this? rejection of
Saul as king by the Lord. It was all because of his disobedience to a plain command, his plain disobedience to the
word of the Lord. You see, God did not invite him
to do what was to be done to the
Amalekites. He did not even encourage him
or suggest that he do it. He commanded him to do it. And the reason that these things
are recorded in Scripture, according to the Apostle Paul, he says,
now all of these things happened unto them for examples, and they
are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world
are come. They are written for us. There is some spiritual meaning
and message to us. And it is not that this text is to be used,
as most do, to preach in some way salvation by works. Absolutely not. But rather, if I am taught of
the Lord in this at all, it would have to be that we have this
account to show us just exactly the opposite. Because Saul's disobedience here
seems really to be an illustration or a picture or a warning concerning
man's natural response to the gospel of Christ. You see, contrary to what men
in our day seem to think and preach, the gospel is a command. It is not a mere offer. but it is rather a command to
be obeyed. And that command is, without
any consideration of the state to whom it is made, that command
is to look to the Lord Jesus Christ alone for all our salvation. The gospel command reveals that
salvation is truly and entirely all of God's grace. And that the only thing that
secures our salvation is the shedding of Christ's precious
blood for all our sins, and the imputation of Christ's
righteousness to us as all our standing. Nothing less, and certainly nothing
more. We are to believe on, and we
are to rely on, and we are to trust altogether in the Lord
Jesus Christ. In that salvation that is of
the Lord. Hold your place and turn over
to Romans chapter 10. Now, I want you to look at a
lot of verses this morning. In Romans chapter 10, Listen
to what the Apostle says in those first 11 verses. Because the Apostle Paul is speaking
on the one hand to those who are akin to him after the flesh
and who claim to be the people of God. And yet he is showing
exactly not only who the true people of God are, but how they
are so, and what it is to truly believe God. He says in verse
1, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved. Say whatever you will about Paul,
and the doctrine that he sets forth in the chapter prior to
that, and all in his writings, it did not dampen his desire
to see his people saved. He says, for I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to every one that believeth." Moses describeth
the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth
those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is
of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart who shall
ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above,
Or who shall descend into the deep, that is, to bring up Christ
again from the dead? But what saith it? The word is
nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, That is, the
word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart, man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. For the Scripture saith, Whosoever
believeth on him shall not be ashamed." In other words, the
command that goes forth in the Gospel along with all the particulars
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ in His glorious person and His
successful work, the command that goes forth is to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And that is exactly what the
Philippian jailer heard when he, in that hour, being driven
from all other hope, cries out concerning this business of salvation. It says, when they were brought
out, he says to these men, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." In other words, in response to
what he asked, which was, what must I do to be saved, they commanded
him, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, turn also to Romans
chapter 16. Romans chapter 16. And listen to what Paul says
as he closes out this epistle to the Romans in verse 25. He says, "...now to him that
is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the
preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery
which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made
manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to
the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith."
You see that? For the obedience of faith. Now, we only know what that means
in the light of everything else we read in the Scriptures. What is the obedience of faith? Well, what are those who do not
believe, what are they called and how are they described? Turn with me also to Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. And listen as Paul describes
him in this second verse of Ephesians 2. He says, wherein in time past
ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit thou now workest in
the children of disobedience." Now you know and I know that
in every part concerning the law of God, And in every part,
considering all the commands of God that we find in the New
Testament, you and I know that every one of us are disobedient. But what is it that characterizes
these, he describes here and elsewhere, what is it that describes
them and sets them apart as particularly the children of disobedience? Look over in chapter 5 of Ephesians. In chapter 5 and verse 6, he
says, "...let no man deceive you with vain words, for because
of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." Look over a little farther in
Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. He says virtually the same thing. In verse 6, he says, "...for
which things sake the wrath of God comes on the children of
disobedience." Now don't we all disobey? And knowing that, can we not
understand to some degree that there is some disobedience here
that is different and unique from all of our general disobedience? What did Saul do? rather than simply obeying God. What did he do? And what was the dead, clear,
plain, obvious evidence of his real disobedience? Let me tell you what he did. He tried to justify his disobedience. In his own mind, as did the people
did in their mind, he tried to justify his disobedience and
make it rather to be some kind of a special obedience or righteousness
rather than what it plainly was, disobedience. That's all it was. Just disobedience. And so he
is a picture here in that sense of those who do not follow what
God says concerning everything that pertains to us and everything
that pertains to what we do. He did not, as Paul said, being a Pharisee and a Jew and
a keeper of the law and all that, he did not count it all but done
that he might win Christ. He did not confess, as does all
who God saves, that in them dwelleth no good things, He did not, as
we have to be brought by the grace of God and the Spirit of
God, that is to have no confidence in the flesh. But what did he do? When God sent the prophet Samuel
down to confront Saul, the very first thing that Saul
does is imagine that he will be safe in his disobedience because
he's joined with so many others in this disobedience. And worst of all, He imagines
that he can now do something in the name of the Lord, or offer
it in sacrifice to the Lord, and in some way make up for or
excuse and justify his disobedience. When Samuel asked him the question,
he said, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And so here is the prophet of
God. This man Saul, he's left without excuse. It wasn't that
he did what he did in ignorance. He had been sent a prophet of
the Lord with a plain commandment from the Lord to do what the
Lord had commanded in its entirety and nothing else. And so when Saul was confronted
by Samuel, Samuel says, well, I performed the commandment of
the Lord. That's just like every sinner.
I've done what the Lord told me to do. Or I'm doing the best
that I can. Or I've done this, or I've done
that, or the other. And Samuel says, well, if that's
the case, you tell me, what is this I'm hearing in my ears? What is this I hear of the blading
of the sheep? What is this I hear of the lowing
of all these cattle? Who obviously find themselves
now in this circumstance out of place. What is it I hear? I thought about it this week.
How many times? that I have heard people say,
I believe on the Lord Jesus, I'm trusting Christ, I believe
in salvation by grace. And almost before the conversation
ends, you get to hearing these lowing of the cattle and blading
of the sheep. But here's the big problem. Saul, in his claims, When confronted with his disobedience
to God, he said, this is why we did it. We saved all the good
stuff. We saved all the good cattle. We saved all the good sheep because
we're going to sacrifice it to the Lord. And that's when Samuel says to
him, Those words, when he says, to obey is better than to sacrifice. And to hearken, or that is to
heed, so as to listen and heed, is better than the fat of rams. In other words, Obedience, and
really the only obedience God will ever and has ever required,
commanded, and accepted, is that we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it doesn't matter how many
things, it doesn't matter how many sacrifices you make, It
doesn't matter what your intentions are. Outside of that is only disobedience. Call it what you want to. Call it a sacrifice to God if
you want to. Give your body to be burned if
you want to. Give all your money if you want
to. Quit all these things if you
want to. But all it will ever be in God's
sight is sin and disobedience. When the Lord brought this passage
back to my mind, And I think brought this application
of it to my mind. It was a reminder that no matter
how much we do, it will never undo the one thing we haven't
done. It will never make up for what
we do not have. You know, Saul, doing all that he might, he might
have taken all the cattle they got from the Amalekites and all
the sheep they got from the Amalekites, And he might have added to that
some of his own sheep and some of his own cattle, and got out
in the midst of everybody and sacrificed them all to the Lord. Except that's not what the Lord
told him to do, is it? He said, you go down, to the
land of the Amalekites, and to that king Agag, and every person,
young, old, and everything, and every animal, and every part
and parcel of everything in that land. You destroy it all. Everything. But if you hold back one thing, if like we as sinners hold on
to one little part and parcel of our doing, of our feeling,
of our experience, of our works, whatever it is, it will still all be disobedience. Every bit. And all we do and all we say
to try to justify or to call it righteousness or whatever
we want to call it, it's still going to be just one
thing. Sin. Because God commands us to look
to Christ. He commands us to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. And if a person looking at all
the creation and finding in it, whether acknowledged or not,
the revelation of God Himself in the creation, and the Scripture says all in
that light are found guilty and are left without excuse, how
much more so? Those who hear the true gospel. How much more those who receive
a plain command sent of God to them to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. and to not hold anything of our
own thinking as well as our own doing, but to bring ourselves
as subject to and submitted to what God has said. That's why it is so foolish. That is why it is so unprofitable
and such a futile effort to try to reason and argue and offer
all kinds of apologetics to men and women because it will never
subdue the heart. Paul said, "...for our weapons,
the weapons of our warfare, are not carnal, but mighty through
God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and
every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every thought, to the obedience of Christ. You see, Saul sought to disguise
this rebellion. He sought to disguise this rebellion
in the trappings of false religion. He tried to disguise it simply
as going along with the people and worshiping their way because
he almost had to. But God in the Gospel commands
us to repent of, and to turn from, and to utterly destroy,
and to count as nothing all those things we once trusted in, and to rely solely upon the obedience
of one outside of ourselves. Turn over to Romans chapter 5. You see, to obey God, which by
the way is simply what John is talking about when he talks about
doing righteousness, but to obey God is really to never trust
our own obedience, but to trust rather the obedience of Christ. Look at this in Romans chapter
5 and verse 19. Paul says, "...for as by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one, or the obedience of the one, shall many be made righteous." Not by my obedience. Either before
I was saved or after I'm saved. Not by anything that I might
have done, whether it was even obedience to a command of God. A sinner still did it. Look over in Philippians. Philippians chapter 2. You see, the obedience of faith
is that true faith looks not to our own personal obedience,
but to the obedience of Christ. And that particular obedience,
Paul describes here in Philippians 2, in verse 8, when he speaks
of Christ, he says, "...and being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross." Now I know that there are those
who say, that Christ's obedience to the
law is our righteousness. But the truth of the matter is,
if that were the case, if He actually obeyed all the law for
us, and that's what's imputed to us, then He need not die,
because in that we'd already be perfect, and the law could
pronounce us good. Is that not right? No, His obedience to the law
and every point of holiness before God is what qualified Him to
be our sacrifice and our Savior. He was obedient unto death, and
that a particular death, even the death of the cross. Because nothing could be done to undo what had already been
done. When man sinned in the garden,
and as men come into this world as sinners and go on sinning, there's one claim, and that is
that the soul that sinneth shall surely shall surely die. And it is His obedience, His
obedience unto death, that death of the cross, that is all our
hope and all our salvation. But turn back to Romans 10 again. And listen to Paul as he continues
on. Romans chapter 10. And listen in verse 16. He's
talking about those who are sent to preach the gospel. He says,
you can't believe on whom you've not heard. You can't hear unless
God sends you a messenger with the gospel. Verse 16. But they have not all
obeyed the gospel." You see, obeying the gospel is
simply believing the gospel. For they have not all obeyed
the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who have
believed our report? Look over in 2 Thessalonians.
2 Thessalonians chapter 1. And look down in verse 6. where Paul
says, "...seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense
tribulation to them that trouble you. And to you who are troubled,
rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and that obey not." The gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is that vengeance for? He says, it's a flaming fire
taking vengeance on them that know not God. You say, well,
preacher, how do we know they don't know God? He says, "...and that obey not
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." You see, that judgment simply
stated is upon them, the children of disobedience, who obey not
the gospel. Who obey not the gospel, which
commands us, which calls us, which tells us, which proclaims
to us the basis for the fact that we are to trust Jesus Christ,
His blood, His righteousness, His salvation, plus nothing. And everything else that's done, Every other work, every other
hope, every other refuge, every other thing, God sees it like
He saw the rebellion and the disobedience of Saul. And He particularly despises
The self-righteousness that masquerades trying to hide disobedience through
uncalled-for obedience. He said it's rebellion. Stubbornness worse than the sin
of witchcraft. Rebellion worse than the sin
of idolatry. Will this happen? Well, turn
over to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7 and look down
in verse 21. Christ says, "...not every one
that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven, but he that doeth the will of My Father which is
in heaven." What is the will? What is the command? What is
the Word of the Lord to us? To look to Christ. Believe His
Son. Rest in Him only. Cast off every
other hope. Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? And in Thy name
cast out devils? And in Thy name done many wonderful
works? We did all these things to honor
You, Lord. We did all these things just
like Saul and the people did to sacrifice them in the worship
of the Lord. Christ says, and then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me ye that work
iniquity. All the worship that Saul and
those people could have ever done if they slew every one of
those animals, if they took all the good stuff like the gold
and the silver, if they took everything and came out there
and offered it and sought to worship God in it, it would still be rebellion, stubbornness,
unbelief. Because that's not what He commanded
them to do. He commanded them to believe
Him. And therefore to slay everything
that pertained to the Amalekites. And the Amalekites and this King
Agak are simply a picture and type of Satan and this world
and everything that pertains to it. Burn it to the ground. Count
it all but done. Every hope other than that good
hope that is in Christ Jesus. There's nobody else to blame.
We're left without excuse if we've heard the true gospel. And you can't make up for what
the Lord's commanded you to do. And I'll tell you something else.
That's the principle all through the Christian life. There are some things that are
so clearly commanded by the apostles, by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
to the Lord's people, And they're very simple things.
To love one another. Forsake not the worship. Gathering
and assembling yourselves together to worship. Studying the Word
of God. All these various things. Just
plain, clear statements. But don't ever think that you
could ever make up for not doing those things if you did a million
things. Stubbornness is still stubbornness. Rebellion is still rebellion. Disobedience is still disobedience. Paul says it. He says, "...my own people, because they sought it not by
faith, but as it were by the works of the law, they stumbled
at that stumbling stone." He said, we know that. A man
is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. Years ago, He took the word faith,
and is it an acronym where all the letters symbolize something?
Whatever kind of M it is. And he said, faith is simply
this, forsaking all, I take Him. This is the picture. Destroy
it all. Because true obedience is to
believe God. Doing righteousness is trusting
the Lord Jesus Christ alone. This same thing happened virtually
in the camp of Israel another time. When they went out to destroy
everything in Joshua, except Rahab, the harlot, and those
who were in that house with her. Everything else. was to be destroyed. And after it was all over, they
went up to the next fight and they got beat. Why? Because a man by the name of
Achan, it was discovered that of everything that was there
in the city of Jericho, He had slipped him out some wedges of
gold and silver and some fine Babylonian garments, and he had
buried them in the tent. And God, on that basis, cursed
Israel. It's nothing but Christ and Him
crucified. Paul says in Romans 2, but unto
them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey
unrighteousness, to them indignation and wrath. They are the children
of disobedience. They are those who obey not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are those pictured by Saul
and those people that the Lord rejects. May we ever be searching all the corners, the crevices,
the hidden parts of our hearts and our minds, casting out everything
but Christ and His blood and His righteousness as all our
hope. That's the obedience of faith. Look to Him alone. Father, this day we give You
thanks for Your Word. We are thankful for every picture,
every warning, every illustration of both faith and of unbelief
that we might be encouraged and that we might be warned. that
we might see the object of faith, that we may cast off every false
object. Help us, we do pray, to look
to your dear Son. He not only is the only hope,
but He's a good hope. And it's a good hope of your
grace in Him. We thank you and we pray. In
His name, Amen. Amen.