Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Genesis chapter 21. Genesis 21. Hagar and Ishmael must be cast
out. There will be no dwelling together
with the son of the bondwoman and the son of the free woman. Light and darkness doesn't mix,
water and oil doesn't mix, and there's no mixing of works and
grace. Therefore, there's no peace,
there's no comfort where works of the flesh and the free grace
in Christ are found. Fellowship there. The Lord assured Abraham that
the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael was according to His
will and purpose. He said in verse 12, Genesis
21, And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy
sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman, in
all that Sarah hath said, unto thee hearken unto her voice,
for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. But concerning Ishmael,
the Lord had promised Abraham, because he is your seed, that
he was going to be made a great nation of the Lord. Look at verse 13, he said, And
also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because
he is thy seed. The Lord had told Hagar back
in 1720, I'm sorry, 1612, back in 1612, Genesis 1612. The Lord
told Hagar, Ishmael's mama, He said, this is what he's going
to be. He will be a wild man. His hand will be against every
man, against every man's hand against him. He shall dwell in
the presence of all his brethren. And then the Lord had promised
in 1720, promised Abraham. He said, I'm going to make him
a great nation. Genesis 17, 20, as for Ishmael,
I've heard thee. Behold, I blessed him. I will
make him fruitful, will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes
shall he beget. I will make him a great nation,
a nation surely like himself, as the Lord described to Hagar,
the way he was going to be. But concerning Isaac, his birthplace,
His position was one that was set forth the glory of Almighty
God according to God's sovereignty in salvation, in covenant grace. That place of mercy that had
been established by the Father, by the Son, and by the Spirit
of God. That covenant that could not
be broken. That covenant that was promised.
in Christ Jesus before the world began. So we see according to
God's promise for physical blessings to Ishmael and spiritual blessings
to Isaac, that therefore hath he mercy on whom he'll have mercy
and on whom he will, he hardeneth. Covenant mercy. That's that mercy
that David spoke of. This is all my salvation. All
my desire. He made with me an everlasting
covenant. Ordered in all things, ensure. Well, being a man of
God's choosing, being the one set forth that Isaac would be
the Lord's choice. That's the son I gave you. Not
the one that you took and tried to produce to fulfill my will.
the son of promise, being the one of promise. Verse 14. The Lord, having spoken to Abraham,
told him, listen to your wife, what she's saying. And Abraham
rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of
water and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder and
the child. And here's the words that struck
me this morning as I was reading this. and sent her away. Now I'd like to consider that
point, that verse of Scripture, that part of that verse of Scripture.
I want us to consider for a few minutes the faithfulness and
the obedience of Abraham. He sent her away. He was grieved when he heard Sarah say, cast
her out, a bondwoman and her son. That son of the bondwoman
is not going to be an heir with my son. God said, you listen
to her. That was according to the will
of the Lord. And Abraham sent her away, cast the bondwoman
out. It was exceeding displeasing. When it was said, it was very
grievous. in Abraham's sight. It was exceeding
displeasing in his opinion, what he said. When he heard her say
that, it was not his thinking. That was not the way he thought.
But the Lord expressed to Abraham, this is My will. This is My purpose. This is My desire. And the record,
turn over to Genesis 26, I want to read verses 1 to 5. Listen
to this record. Now Abraham at this point has
died. And the Lord is speaking to Isaac, his son. Genesis 26,
1 to 5. And there was a famine in the
land beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham.
And Isaac went up went unto Abimelech, king of the Philistines, unto
Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, Go not down
into Egypt. Dwell in the land which I shall
tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will
be with thee, and will bless thee. For unto thee, and unto
thy seed, I will give all these countries. I will perform the
oath which I swear unto Abraham thy father, and I will make thy
seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto
thy seed all these countries, and in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because that Abraham obeyed my
voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and
my laws." Now, he's saying, your daddy, Abraham, obeyed me. Now, reading that record, Abraham obeyed God. Abraham believed God. I want
you now to turn to 1 Samuel 15. 1 Samuel 15, and I want us to
just look for a few minutes at the importance of obedience. Obedience. 1 Samuel 15 verse 22. Here's a
question and I'm going to look at a few verses, those verses
leading up to this. And Samuel said, that is unto Saul, hath
the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams. The Lord's word of instruction
was given unto King Saul by the prophet Samuel. Verses 1 to 5,
Samuel also said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee to
be king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore, hearken
thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. What he's saying
is, you listen. And you obey. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how
he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now
go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not. but slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And Saul gathered
the people together, numbered them in Tilaim, 200,000 footmen,
10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek
and laid wait in the valley." Now, the Lord reminded Saul through
Samuel that he had anointed him, blessed him, to be the king over
his people. A position of honor. But with that position came the
grave responsibility of obedience. Obedience. Obedience which was
revealed to be the first word and the law of Almighty God toward
man in the garden. This was the first word concerning
man's responsibility before God. Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil thou shalt not eat of it. And disobedience to God's
word came with a penalty. For in the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. Disobedience to God. Disobedience
to God comes with this penalty. Death. Death. Well, while Saul proceeded to
the task given him by God, he came upon a people. A people
that had shown mercy. These were a people that God
would have mercy upon. He didn't say anything about
anybody else except the Amalekites. Verse 6, And Saul said unto the
Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites,
lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all
the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the
Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. The Lord had told
Saul, you go after those that mistreated my people. Well, he
came to these Kenites, and he spared them. No infraction made whatsoever
on God's Word. Verse 7, And Saul smote the Amalekites
from Havilah until thou comest to sure that it is over against
evil. The Amalekites had abused and
mistreated God's people when they came out of Egypt and now
the Lord is going to deal with them. They had touched the apple
of God's eye, the people of God's choosing, the nation of Israel
being a picture of God's elect, and they fell under the wrath
of God. And that, which people would say, that was harsh. It
was harsh. God is a just God. God is just,
and He will in no wise clear the guilty. Numbers 32, 23, and
be sure, be sure, be sure, your sin will find you out. Oh, how unsearchable are the
judgments of God. We don't question God. We don't
question. He said, I want you to go and
utterly destroy the Amalekites. All of them. Men, women, boys,
girls, infants, sucklings, all the livestock, all of it. I want
it all destroyed. It's a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. Obedience. But when Saul
began to destroy the Amalekites, the scripture reveals that he
wavered, he compromised. Verse 8 and 9, he took Agag,
king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the
people with the edge of the sword. Now that, now you just read that,
you just read. Now that, that was disobedience. What did God tell him to do?
He said, I want you to go and destroy them all. But Saul and
the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, of the oxen,
the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good and would not
utterly destroy them. But everything that was vile
and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. It's not recorded exactly the
thoughts that went through Saul's mind. when he spared the king
and the best of the livestock. But for whatever reason, he disobeyed. And the next thing we read is
God's word to Samuel and the sentence that God pronounced
upon Saul. Read 10 and 11. Then came the
word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that
I have set up Saul to be king. For he is turned back from following
me, and hath not performed my commandments. God said he was
disobedient. And it grieved Samuel, and he
cried unto the Lord all night. Now when it said that it repented
the Lord, or the Lord repented, Under no circumstances are we
ever to imagine that God changed his mind. He said in Malachi
3.6, for I am the Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. But whenever we read of the Lord
repenting, it refers to the Lord's good pleasure to exhibit a deviation. according to His will and purpose,
a deviation in the sight of the people concerning His method
or His providence, because His will has never changed. God may change the way He's doing
something in our sight, but it never insinuates a change in
God. He said, I don't change. So we
say, well, I don't understand. Well, we believe God. And the
Lord said, it repenteth me. That means He changed the way
He was exhibiting to us how He was doing something. But He said,
it repented me that I raised up Saul. The Lord who raised
up Saul to be king is now going to remove Saul because of his
disobedience. And the scripture says whenever
he told Samuel what he was doing, it said he grieved, in verse
11. It grieved Samuel. And he cried unto the Lord all
night. When it grieved him, it means
it burned within him because of Saul's actions. And he was
sensitive. God's people are sensitive. Whenever
we see disobedience, in others and especially in ourselves.
It grieves us when we see the horror of that spirit of disobedience
or questioning God in the Lord's ways. And the Lord has set forth
that because of His disobedience, He was going to remove Saul.
And Samuel prayed for him. He was grieved, burned with his
heart, and prayed all night, interceding, asking the Lord's
mercy And verse 12 said, And when Samuel rose early to meet
Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to
Carmel, and behold, he set him up a place. and has gone about
to pass on and gone down to Gilgal. Now when he rose up the next
morning, when it says he had set him up a place, actually
when you look up that word it actually means a monument or
a trophy. He had established a monument
for what he considered was a great victory over the Amalekites. And when it says he was gone
about, passed on and gone down to Gilgal, what he was doing
is he had a parade. He had a big procession, a great
deal of pomp, and a big show, obviously giving himself more
honor, more dignity, than he gave to the Lord. He had disobeyed
God. And he made a big show of it.
parading himself. In verse 13-15, and Samuel came
to Saul, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord,
I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said,
What meaneth them this bleeding of the sheep in mine ears, and
the lowing of the oxen? Which I hear, and Samuel said,
Well, they have brought them from the Amalekites for the people,
spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice
unto the Lord thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed."
Notice how he said it. Well, I tell you what happened,
they, they, yeah, but we, we utterly destroyed all the rest
of them. Associated himself with what he thought was the justifying
of himself. Man, by nature, is full of excuses,
justifying pretenses, always ready to blame another for his
own disobedience. This was the immediate response. Turn with me to Genesis 3. This
was the immediate response of Adam and Eve in the garden, Genesis
3. They've disobeyed God. They've
eaten of the fruit. And verse 7 says, it's when Adam
ate of the fruit. Here's what happened. Verse 7,
Genesis 3, 7. The eyes of them both were opened.
They knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together,
made themselves apron. And they heard the voice of the
Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam
and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God
amongst the trees of the garden. God called unto Adam and said
unto him, where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice
in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof
I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? Have you eaten, Adam? Do you think God knew it? Well,
sure He did. And the man said, the woman. whom thou gavest to be with me. She gave me of the tree, and
I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the
woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said,
The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Blame. Accusation. Accusing always others. for our
own disobedience. That's the mark of a carnal heart. That's what we are. It's the
mark of a new heart that willingly bears and admits its own guilt
before God. David said in Psalm 51, 1-3,
Have mercy upon me, O God. according to thy lovingkindness,
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out,
now listen to this, my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity
and cleanse me, from what? From my sin. For I acknowledge
my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. That's the heart. of a believer. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. Back in 1 Samuel 15, verse 16
to 21. Then Samuel said unto Saul, stay,
and I will tell thee what the Lord has said to me this night. And he said unto him, stay on.
What he was saying is, I've heard your answer. I asked you about
the bleeding of these sheep and the lowing of these cattle while
you were telling me how obedient you were. What are these sounds that I'm
hearing? Well, you know the people. You know how they are. They decided. I was in on the killing of everybody
that we killed. And he said, this is what the
Lord says, verse 17. When thou wast little in thine
own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel?
And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel. And the Lord sent
thee on a journey, what He just told them to do, to the Amalekites.
And He said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites,
and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore,
why then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst
fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?
You came down upon them in a fury. You flew upon them. But you did
evil in the sight of the Lord. And Samuel said unto Samuel,
Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. and have gone the
way which the Lord sent me. And I brought Agag, the king
of Amalek. I've utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil,
Sheep and Oxen, the sheep of the things which have been utterly
destroyed. And they did it to sacrifice
unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal." It's amazing how the Scriptures
reveal the heart of all of us by nature. We're trying to justify
ourselves and then to make it look good we'll put a religious
twist on it. The reason we didn't do that,
we did that for your honor. We did that for your glory. We
kept the best of all these animals so we could sacrifice them unto
you. And Samuel verse 24 said, Hath
the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. It's better. It's better. Why? Look at verse 23. For rebellion,
disobedience is what he's talking about. is as the sin of witchcraft,
and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry, what did Saul do? Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, and he hath also rejected thee from being
king." Disobedience and obstinate resistance to God's word according
to the word of the Lord, is no different than worshiping idols.
Disobedience. Disobedience elevates itself
to the position and the desire to be God. God had told Saul,
this is what I want. Saul justified his disobedience,
or tried to, before God. Tried to justify. And say, I
did this for you. That wasn't the word of the Lord.
He said, what you're doing is witchcraft. But now, we come
to this point. Realizing the importance of obedience. In closing for this evening,
my heart was drawn to a passage of scripture that's found in
the book of Acts. The book of Acts, and it was
when the Philippian jailer had been awakened out of his sleep. I'll just tell you the story,
you know the story. The old Philippian jailer, Paul and Silas, was in
the prison and the Philippian jailer was awakened by a mighty
earthquake. And he ran in and he saw all
the doors opened in the jail. And he was thinking that all
the prisoners had escaped, so he drew out his sword and he
was going to fall on his sword. And Paul cried out, he said,
do thyself no harm, we're all here. And that jailer called
for a light. And he came in and there were
God's men. And they were sitting there,
peaceful, they hadn't gone. And he looked at them and he
said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now here's the word
of the Lord concerning obedience. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Believe. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Believe the word of the Lord
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Disobedience unto the Lord. is the foundation of unconverted
sinner's rebellion, disobedience. You will not come to me, he said,
that you might have life. Obedience. But in ourselves,
all of us are going to admit, I've never been obedient in myself
one time, not once. We're all found to be disobedient. That's what the Apostle Paul
says. That which I would, that do I not. That which I wouldn't,
that I do. Disobedience. Sin is mixed with
all we do. And obedience is the hope, only
hope for a sinner. being found accepted of Almighty
God. Last passage of Scripture. Galatians
chapter 2. Galatians 2 verse 16. Wherein lies our hope. Wherein lies my hope that the
Lord was saved unto his people the sheep on the right hand in
the day of judgment. Enter in. Enter in. to the kingdom prepared for you.
Enter in. Well done. Galatians 2.16 Knowing that a
man is not justified Can I just paraphrase this? I'm going to
read what it says. By the works of the law. Knowing
that a man is not justified by what he does before God. By what he does before God. By
trying to obey God. by the obedience. A man is not
justified by the works of the law, because we're all sinners. If we offend in one point, we're
guilty of all of them. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith. The faith of Jesus
Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified, declared righteous by God's law. No charge. No charge. No charge. You mean no charge? I mean no charge. Being found
in Christ, there is no disobedience. None. Even we have... Knowing 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. Obedience is absolutely essential
for life, obedience. Which sinner, saved by the grace
of God, would ever plead his innocence before God and say,
I have never had one infraction. I've never had one. No believer's
going to say that. He's going to say as Paul, oh
wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me? from the
body of this death, the body of disobedience. Who's going
to deliver me from that? Christ has. Christ has. We're
not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith, the
faithfulness of Christ Jesus, charged to our account. Only
of Him did the Father say, this is my beloved Son, in whom I'm
well pleased. Abraham believed God. as he was
found, I mean, he obeyed God. Abraham obeyed God, as we told
Isaac. Your father obeyed me. In Christ
Jesus, every regenerated saint obeys God. For God looks upon
us in his son. And only there do we have hope. May the Lord bless these words
to our heart, in Christ's name.