If you'll take your Bibles and
turn with me to 1st Samuel 1st Samuel chapter 15 I've entitled this message simply
what the the text says Our text be found in verse 22. The title
the message is obey To obey is better than sacrifice To obey
is better than sacrifice. Let's begin our reading in verse
18. I Samuel here is speaking to Saul
and he says, and the Lord sent thee on a journey and said, go
and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against
them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not
obey the voice of the Lord, but did fly upon the spoil and did
evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea,
I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and I have gone the way
which the Lord sent me, and I have brought Agag, the king of Amalek,
and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took
of the spoils, the sheep and oxen and chief of the things
which should have been utterly destroyed for this purpose, to
sacrifice His intent was, say, we disobeyed so that we might
honor God. And Samuel said, here's a question,
hath the Lord as greater delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Here's the maxim. Behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice. and to hearken than the fat of
rams." Now, what I'm going to do is this. I'm going to give
you a breakdown of what's taken place here, a history of what's
taking place, and then we're going to apply this. We're going
to see that this maxim applies to every one of us. This morning,
if you are lost and without Christ, you listen. This maxim is for
you. If you are saved and you are
in Christ, this maxim is for you to obey is better than sacrifice. We're going to see why that is.
So let's see this now in this text, King Saul, king of Israel
was commanded of God and given a very simplistic task, a very
clear task. He was to utterly destroy the
nation of Amalek. The people, the Amalekites, he
was given a simple command, go and utterly destroy them. And the reason for this was,
you remember that these wicked men, when Israel had come out
of Egypt, they lay in wait for the nation, for God's people,
and they waited until the last people were coming. You know,
in the big caravan, the people in the back are the weakest.
The old, the sick, the children. These people were so cowardly. They didn't attack Israel up
front. They waited and laid in wait and then smote them in their
hinder part. That's what he says in Deuteronomy
chapter 25 and verse 17 to 19. God says, look, they smote thee
in the hinder part, in the feeble. the faint, the weary, and they
didn't fear God. And God said, when you come into
the land, when you come into the land, you are going to blot
out this people from the face of the earth. God says, thou
shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven,
thou shalt not forget it. You know what this testifies
of? The justice of God, God's judgment. We are reminded here
of God's holiness. And listen, though God does not
execute judgment quickly, you can bet this, his judgment is
sure. It's sure. Over in Ecclesiastes,
verse eight, the scripture says that evil men, they continue
in their evil deeds because judgment's not executed quickly. They're
emboldened by that. Because judgment is not executed
speedily, evil men wax worse, they get worse. But listen, God
will execute judgment. This is what this teaches. He
will execute judgment on sinners, and people that love and live
in their sin mock at God's judgment. That's what Peter said in 2 Peter
3, He said, knowing this first, that there shall at last times
come scoffers walking after their own lust. And what did they say?
Where's his coming? Where is he? You ever heard that
somebody say, well, if, if, if God is, then why didn't he strike
me down? God doesn't execute judgment
speedily, but I tell you this, he executes judgment. And this
nation, this nation is proof of that. God, with God, time
is what? It's nothing. A day is a thousand
years and a thousand years is a day, but you count this true. God will judge sinners. God's judgment is true. And woe
unto that person who offends God's saints. Woe unto those
who offend the saints of God by their sin. Those who do harm
to the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is a great woe put on them,
just like it is with this nation of the Amalekites. God did not
forget what they did. And you can't tell how many years
in between that, between that time that God promised judgment
and that time that he executed it. There were several years
God gave them room. And God's command then was to
kill all of this wicked people. It was a very simple command,
wasn't it? It's not hard to understand. It is said, he said, kill them
all. I know people don't like that. People don't like that. Well, that's the God of the old,
no friend, that's God. That's God. You may not like
it, but that's God. And God is showing you something
about himself. He's showing you that sin will
be punished. It must be punished. He is a
holy God. And so God commands Saul this
simple thing, kill all the people of Amalek, all the animals. But
what does Saul do? Saul for pride, Saul for glory,
and the praise of men, he killed the people but spared the king. He killed all the wounded animals
and kept the best. Look at verse seven. of chapter
15 of your text. Saul smote the Amalekites from
Havilah until thou comest to Shur and over against Egypt.
And he took King Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and
utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword, but
Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and
oxen, and fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would
not." You got that? He did this deliberately. He did this willingly. This was
not an accidental sin of omission. This was a sin of commission.
This was willingly. He would not. obey. He would not utterly destroy
them, but everything that was vile and refuse, well, they destroyed
that. They destroyed that. It's not
that he didn't understand the will of God. He deliberately defied the will
of God. He using his own reason. Listen, if you know what God
says to do and you start reasoning, you're in trouble. God's commands
are not ambiguous, are they? Men like to put them in such
a context that they make it seem as though there's some gray area
here. No, there's no gray area. Men willfully disobey just like
Saul. This was not Saul's first disobedient
act as king, but I'll tell you this, it was his last. I'll tell you, the scriptures are plain. God
will not always strive with man. There is a point, there is a
sin unto death. There is a sin in which God will
no longer strive with a man. With Esau, it was selling his
birthright. That was the moment. That was
the pivotal moment in which God ceased to strive with Esau. At
this point, it was the disobedience of Saul that God ceased to strive
with him as king. Matter of fact, at the end of
this chapter, Samuel was no longer permitted to talk to Saul. no longer permitted to preach. Damn. God ceased to allow him
to hear the message of the gospel. This was the straw that broke
the camel's back. This was the sin by which God
ceased to strive with him and gave him over to a reprobate
mind. In verse 10 it says, then came
the word of the Lord to Samuel saying, it repenteth me that
I have set up Saul to be king. For he turned his back from following
me and hath not performed my commandments and it grieved Samuel. It grieved him and he cried unto
the Lord all night. Listen, Samuel loved Saul. He
loved him. He wept all night before God.
And you know what, God? God didn't hear him. God did not hear his intercessory
prayer for the one he loved. God, the Lord, changed his attitude
toward the king and rejected him from being king because he
left off following God. He willfully, deliberately disobeyed
God. Now God, when it says it repented
him, we know God doesn't change, but it means he changed his disposition
towards Saul. Think of all the things that
God did for Saul. while he was king. God sent Saul
up. God made him king. God gave him
this nation to rule over. And yet what is Saul's response?
Disobedience. Turn from God. And so Samuel
came with the news here from the Lord to Saul and his rebellion
and pride. Listen, he refused to repent. He refused to repent. Instead,
he defended his position. He justified himself. This is
what wicked men do. This is what false believers,
professors of faith with no possessors of the gospel do. They justify
their sin. They justify themselves. He defended
what he did. He said the ends justify the
means. Saul thought that he would get
out of trouble by claiming ignorance. He was not ignorant. He tried
to blame the people. Rebels always try to blame God
or someone else for their sin. I remember, I knew this man,
he was a drug addict. He was a base man. And he was trying to justify
himself. He said, well, you know what?
When I go down to the drug house, I preach the gospel to them. He said, you won't ever go down
there. You see, the ends justify the means. I can sin that I might
do the work of God. Listen, rebels will not confess
their sin, but always give an excuse for it. But listen, when
God breaks a sinner, when God comes upon a sinner
and reveals his sin, that man will confess his sin without
excuse. You know what the publican did? Lord, be merciful to me, the
sinner, the sinner. And so as God sent him on his
journey, he said, go and destroy the Amalekites, fight against
them. He said, why didn't you obey? Why did you not obey the
voice of the Lord? Why did you fly on the spool
in the sight of the Lord? And Samuel said, I did, I obeyed. You see the arrogance in that,
the pride? I obeyed the voice, I went the
way the Lord told me, except I just brought a gag. You know,
just this one thing, And the people, well, those people, you
know, they forced me to keep those sheep, you know, but we
all, we did it for God. We did it for God. And then Samuel
gives us our text in verse 15, verse 22, he says, look, so Lord,
delight in obedience or sacrifices. Listen, it's better to obey than
to sacrifice. Now then, I'm gonna speak to
everyone here. These words contain in these
verses speak volumes concerning the character and nature of God. We know that sacrifice was commanded
of God in scriptures. Why? Why was sacrifice necessary? Sacrifices were necessary because
of disobedience. If there were no disobedience,
there would be no need of sacrifices. But listen, because of sin, there
is no sacrifice we can make that would be acceptable to God. Why? We've already disobeyed and everything
we sacrifice is defiled. So Jesus, therefore, Jesus is
the prime example of how obedience is better than sacrifice, isn't
he? He came to this earth with one primary goal, to obey God,
to honor the law of God. And because he obeyed God, therefore
his sacrifice alone was acceptable. His sacrifice is the only sacrifice
acceptable to God because it was done in obedience. Now, I
believe these words should be applied to everyone in this room,
everybody here. First of all, to you that are
lost, to those that are lost, I want you to know this, that
we all by nature are depraved concerning the things of God.
There is no soundness in us. The scripture says that from
the sole of our foot to the crown of our head, there is nothing
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sword. This affects us all. All the race of Adam was born
in sin. Matter of fact, listen, we come
forth from the womb disobeyed. Scripture says we come forth
from the womb speaking lies. Speaking lies. We are born blind
and we cannot see God. We cannot know Him and listen,
we don't want to. Man by nature does not want to
know God. They do not want to know God. We are blind to this. Now, why is this? Why do men
not want to know God? Because they love their sin. This is what our Lord Jesus tells
us in John chapter three. He says, I didn't come into the
world to condemn the world. Now, why? The world's already
condemned. And this is the condemnation,
he said, that light is coming to the world. I am the light
of the world. What does light do? Light exposes. When Christ comes to a man, he
exposes our sin. He exposes our need, and then
he reveals himself to be the cure. He reveals himself to be
all that we need, and we come to him. Light is coming to the
world, but men love, what? Darkness. Men love to hide their sins. They don't want it to be exposed.
This is why they say, well, I believe God's love. Well, he is love,
but he is also justice. Just as much as he is love, he
is holy. You can't do one without the
other. Why do they just want to believe God's love and not
justice? Because they love darkness. They love to hide their sin. They don't want to be exposed
because their deeds are evil. Now, what then does God demand
of you? What does God demand of us all? In order for us to
approach unto God, what is God's demand? It is simple. Just as
the command to Saul was simple. Nobody misunderstood that. Kill
them all. You misunderstand that? No. Here is God's command for all
men. Be ye holy, even as I am holy. Now, anyone misunderstand that? Is there any vagueness to that? What is holy? Perfect, without
sin. There will be no one in heaven
that is not as holy as God. It's not. Now listen, you live
your whole life and commit one sin. You know what? You're worthy
of eternal damnation. One sin. Why? You have failed
to obey the command of God. God is holy and he will not wink
at sin. He must punish sin. The wages
of sin is death. death, the soul that said it
shall surely die. But men do not obey the law of
God. Even those that never heard of
the law of God, you realize that they have a law written inside
their own heart. You go out there in a tribe,
they never heard of the Ten Commandments, and you look at their laws and
they will almost mirror that law. Why? That law is written
in their hearts, and even that law that they have in their hearts,
they have not obeyed that law. And the reward of the Amalekites
is going to be the reward, is a picture of the reward of all
sinners. Psalm 1 in verse 5 says, therefore,
the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. nor sinners in
the congregation of the righteous. Men are born dead in sins, but
listen, they still have a conscience. Isn't that right? Even the lost
have conscience. And though their conscience is
defiled and evil, yet what do they do when they're guilty?
When a lost man is guilty and he feels the guilt, what does
he do? He offers sacrifice. He tries to do something to soothe
the guilt of his own conscience. Men by nature are very religious
and because of the conscience, that natural conscience, listen,
it will never lead to obedience. The natural conscience will never
lead to true obedience to God. What will it lead to? Sacrifice. Sacrifice without obedience.
It will lead to religious works that never really satisfies the
conscience. Why do you think religion has
these, I mean, they got laws. I mean, they just keep adding
law on top of law. Pharisees did this, didn't they?
They had the law of God and they had to add on top of that and
on top of that, on top of that. Why? Conscience is never satisfied.
It's never enough. Their sacrifices will never be
enough. I've told you this before, only two religions in the world.
What are they? Salvation by works and salvation
by grace. That's it. Only two religions
in all the world. Salvation by works or salvation
by grace. This was shown us at the beginning. You remember when Adam and Eve
had sinned and God came to him. He gave him that gospel message.
He said, the seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent.
And then what did he do? He offered a sacrifice. God offered the
first sacrifice, gave him a pattern and they taught it to their sons.
And what happened? You had Cain and Abel. Abel,
he offered the sacrifice of that lamb. He had nothing to do with
the conception of that lamb, nothing to do with the growth
of that lamb. God did all that. It was not of his works. And
he offered that lamb as a substitute, as God told him to. What did
Cain do? Cain, he had to till the ground.
He had to work with the sweat of his brow. He pulled the weeds,
he pulled the thorns, and he grew the best fruit he could
possibly go in the ground. And he presented that to the
Lord. And God had no respect to that offering. Why? It was
cursed. The earth where it came from
was cursed. Why won't God have respect to
the sacrifice and work of men? Because we are cursed. because
all that we can produce is defiled, it's sinful. And so our best
offering cannot please God. What pleases God is this, obedience,
not your defiled sacrifices. God isn't pleased with our defiled
sacrifices. You ask a man how he's gonna
get to heaven on the street, what is the normal response?
Well, I'm just doing the best I can. Well, if I do this, I was baptized. I took the Lord's supper. You
know, I go to church, I pray, I read. What is he doing? Sacrifice,
sacrifice, sacrifice. And all of those sacrifices are
contaminated. They're not perfect sacrifices. They're filled with sin and God
will not accept those sacrifices. I don't care how sincere they
are. They're defiled. I tell you what, if a man believes
that he can please God by his offerings, that man is lost. That man is lost in his sins
and the hand of God's wrath abides on him. Now, let me ask you,
is that you? I must ask that. Are you trusting in your own
offerings? What a sad case for a man to
trust in his own works. His own works can't even please
his own conscience. How can he please God? How is
it possible? He can't. No amount of work will
please God. Are you trusting in anything
you've done? Remember what Paul said in Galatians,
if a man be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. If you
add one thing to Christ, you defile the whole thing. Listen,
God is holy and man cannot approach God unless he is as holy as God. And you will never be as holy
as God by your polluted offerings. Never. The Pharisees believed
that didn't they? That was the Lord Jesus Christ. If you, you can go there, go
to Matthew chapter 23, read it, read it with me. Matthew chapter
23. Look what our Lord said to these, these who trusted in their
works, who trusted in their offerings. And I'll tell you what, if we
were to put ourselves, we mocked the Pharisees pretty good, but
we weren't living in that day. If we did, we would respect them.
There was no way you could look at those men and find sin. They
were very meticulous in their sacrifices. Look what he says
in verse 23. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites. You pay tithe of men and anise
and cumin, and omit the weightier matters of the law, judgment,
mercy, and faith. These ought to have done and
not left the other undone. You see, they took the little
tea leaves, mint leaves, and they counted the leaves to make
sure they were given a tenth. He said, okay, you should have
done that, but you didn't even look at the other stuff. Mercy,
faith, judgment, you're blind leaders, you straighten it out
and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and of the
platter, but within are full of extortions and excess. You
blind, you cleanse first that within the cup and the platter,
and the outside of them may be clean. Woe unto you, scribes,
Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're like unto a whited sepulcher,
which indeed appears beautiful on the outward, but within are
full of dead men's bones and uncleanness. You see, these people who trusted
in their works, they were beautiful on the outside. They appeared
to be very holy. But Christ said, inside. They harbored all their hatred
and anger and lust and greed, and they embraced it inside. They were disobedient. So what
they sacrificed outside did not matter because the inside was
defiled and that defiled everything they did. Their sacrifices were
worthless, worthless. And all men by nature have already
broken the law of God and we've sinned against God. And if we have broken the law,
therefore, what do we need? If you've not obeyed God and
God requires you to be holy, what do you need? You need a
sacrifice. You need a sacrifice, but you
need a sacrifice that you cannot provide, a sacrifice you cannot
offer yourself. It must be the sacrifice of one
who is obedient. It must be a perfect sacrifice. This is the reason the Son of
God came into the world, so that he might, by his obedience, offer
the only acceptable sacrifice. Jesus said, I came not into this
world to do my will, but the will of him that sent me. That's
important. Now, what is the will of him
that sent him? What did God intend for Christ
to do? He said, sacrifice an offering
thou wouldest not. In burnt offerings, you had no
pleasure. What's he talking about? The sacrifices of sinners, he
has no pleasure. So what's the answer? Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me, Christ said, to do thy will, O God. Now listen, Paul says in Hebrews
10, by the witch will, by God's will, by Christ's obedience and
sacrifice, listen, you are sanctified. What did I tell you God required?
Holiness. What do you need? A sacrifice in order to make
you holy. Jesus Christ came to do the will
of the father, which is obey and sacrifice. And what's this? He said this, this is the will
of him that sent me, that of all he had given me as a representative
man, I should lose nothing. I will be successful in obedience. I will be successful in my offering. And this is the result. This
is the will of him that sent me. that everyone that seeth
the son and believeth on him may have everlasting life. And
I will raise him up at the last day. The result of his success
is the application of righteousness to the sinner. Victory. Lo, I come to do thy
will. What's his will? Victory. When
Jesus hung upon the tree and justice was satisfied, he said
these words, it is finished. It is finished. In Hebrews chapter
nine, it says he, by his one offering, he obtained eternal
redemption. By that sacrifice, his sacrifice,
not yours, his, his offering, he obtained eternal redemption. The scripture says that this
one, this man, those priests, they never sat down. That whole
covenant, they just kept working. They kept offering, they kept
offering, they kept offering, year after year after year after
year, thousands and thousands and thousands of lambs and rams
and cows. What? To no avail. They never
sat down. Their sacrifice was not acceptable. It only pictured one whose sacrifice
is acceptable. Jesus Christ. This one man, this man, after
he'd offered one sacrifice for sin, what'd he do? He sat down. He sat down. And so then the
command of God is clear. Listen to this, obey and live.
Obey and live. And my friends, the only way
that you and I could be holy is by a substitute, by one obtaining
and honoring the law of God in our stead. We cannot obey God,
we will not obey God, and our sacrifices are useless, but God
commands for us this, that all who believe on his son have his
obedience and his sacrifice accounted to you. Here's his command. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that not a plain command? It is a plain command. Why will
you not obey? Because you think the sacrifice
is better than obedience. God says, no, to obey is better
than sacrifice. To obey, to believe. This is
what John says in 1 John 3, he says, this is the commandment.
This is his commandment. I'm sorry, in verse 22, he says,
for whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments
and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Now, what
is his commandments? He taught by the law of Moses?
No, listen, he explains, and this is his commandment. That
we should believe on the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
and love one another as he gave us commandment. And listen, we
who do believe, what do we do? To obey is better than sacrifice. I tell you, that makes me lighter
than air. What have I got to offer? Nothing. What I got to
do? Nothing. Believe, love, believe
and love. Those are his commandments. And
he that keepeth his commandments, listen, dwelleth in him and he
in him. We are in union with Christ.
If we keep his commandments, if we obey him, listen, we are
one with him. And listen, his Holy Spirit abides
in us. Oh, friends, this is the this
is the hope that I have a message for the lost. Believe. That's
obedience to believe. And, you know, when you obey
that command, do you ever stop? No. No. Matter of fact, it grows. When we believe and repent, those
graces continually grow in the believer. But if you add one thing, you
know this, if you add one thing to him,
you polluted the whole thing. Remember when he told Moses,
he said, if you want to build an altar of stone, don't touch
it. Don't put your hammer to it, because when you do, you
pollute it. You put anything to his obedience
and his offering, you polluted it. You polluted it. The scripture is clear. Salvation
then is not by works. It is what? By grace. For by
grace you are saved through faith. Never apart from
faith. Never apart from faith. Faith
in Christ is a gift of God. It is a gift of grace. If you
believe it is because God in grace and power gave you that
faith. And what's the inseparable companion
of faith? Repentance. They go together. You can't have one without the
other. Faith and repentance go together and both are a gift
of grace. They're both a gift of grace.
Did Saul repent? No. He made excuses. Now, how do you live? Do you live with faith and repentance,
or do you live making excuses? Salvation is by grace, through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus. Listen, unto sacrifices. Unto good works. Believers, we
do make sacrifices. But I'll tell you this, our sacrifices
have nothing to do with our salvation. They're because of our salvation.
We do offer things to God, but they are not for our salvation. Therefore, if you are in Christ
today, you should rejoice. You should rejoice. Why? Because
we were disobedient. We were unholy. Our sacrifices
amounted to nothing, but God in grace sent Christ. His obedience
and his sacrifice by grace have been accounted as ours. You know that, that his obedience
is yours? That his honoring the law is
you honoring the law? His blood and offering is your
sacrifice? And so now then I want to talk
to you a few minutes. I got now, I would, I would, I'll tell you
this. If you're lost, believe. Trust
in Christ. Stop trying to be saved and surrender. Believe. And to you that are saved, this
is also a maxim for you to obey is better than sacrifice. Believers,
we must heed this wise counsel. Although we have been made free
from the penalty of sin and the guilt of sin and the power of
sin. Now listen to that. You are free
from the power of sin. How many times we make excuse?
Well, I couldn't help it. I'll tell you, there's a lot
of sins of omission that we don't know about. We sin all the time.
We don't even know we're doing it. I'm talking about those sins
of commission, those things that you know you're doing. And you
say, well, I just can't. No, you can. If you're a believer,
you can. You're lying. You're lying. God has given you
a new heart. He's given you a new nature.
He's given you power over your sin. Don't tell me you can't.
That's the same as Saul. Well, the people, you know, I
say, well, my old nature, you know, I just got to, you don't
get an excuse. There's no excuse for it. We
are not free from the presence of sin. Is that right? Free from
the guilt and the power, but we're not free from the presence
of sin. We as a believer now despise sin. Is that not true? You as a believer, do you not
despise your sin? Matter of fact, that's part of
the new covenant, isn't it? He said, in that day, Ezekiel
36, he said, in that day, you shall loathe yourself. Do you not hate sin? Do you not see the sorrow and
grief that sin causes? If your clothes were on fire,
would you put them, would you, would you hold them? Would you
call, if your clothes were on fire, would you just grab ahold
to them and love them? You throw it off. You throw it
off. And that's what a believer wants
to do. We want to throw it off. Throw off our sin. Put off the
old man and his deeds. This is the desire of a believer's
heart. Amalek here in this text is a
picture of our old nature, a picture of our sin nature. What did it
do? What did Amalek do to Israel?
It attacked him at the weakest point. Is that not what our enemy
does? The enemy of the world, Satan
and our flesh, wait till we are the most vulnerable, wait till
we are the weakest point. And what do they do? Yeah, you
have God's sin. It'll be all right. You could just offer a
sacrifice later. Give in to your sin. Paul says this in Colossians
2, beware. Now, why would he say that? Because
you and I are prone to sin. He said, beware, lest any man
spool you through vain philosophy and vain deceit after traditions
of men, the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. Isn't
this what the world has done to the church? Tried to reason
itself out of obedience. Look at how the world views marriage. Look at how the world views it.
How do they view it? Well, if you're not happy, you
can just get rid of it. You can just cast it off. What
does God say? He said, I hate putting away.
No ambiguous statement there. And yet the church has been infiltrated
by this vain philosophy. Deceit. I thought of Telltale and Andrew
this morning, you know, it's like if I go in this hamburger place
here and I say, I'm going to rob them, but I'm going to give
to the church. That's vain. They say, well,
the ends justify the means. That's vain philosophy. Beware,
lest many men spool you through vain philosophy and deceit and
traditions of men. Who cares what man says? You
know, I'm getting kind of tired of this statement. Well, I feel. Really, who cares how you feel
if it's against God? What does your feelings have
to do with anything? I don't really want to hurt people's
feelings. I'm not trying to hurt people's feelings, but it just
gets, it overwhelms me sometimes that that's all they live by
is feelings. And I'm talking about believers,
friends. Peter says this, therefore, beloved,
seeing you know these things before, beware, lest you also
be led away with the error of the wicked and fall from your
own steadfastness. If any man thinketh he stand,
what? Take heed, lest he fall. Believer, God tells us to continue
to believe in Christ as our only hope, to beware the deceitfulness
of men who would rob us of the joy of our salvation. Your salvation
came to you by God's grace, and it will be finished by God's
grace and not works. Therefore, beware your fleshly
lusts, beware the desires of this life. We as believers still have sin
in this mortal body and we must guard against it. We must, because sin is only
full of misery. Can a believer sin greatly? You
bet they can and they do. One thing that separates Peter
from Judas was what? Repentance. Christ, when he came,
Peter, what? There was repentance. There was
what? Obedience. Not with Judas. Look at Saul
and look at David. Saul was confronted with his
disobedience and what did he do? He made excuse. What did
David do? God, be merciful to me. I have sinned against thee, and
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. See the difference? The believer,
if you have fallen into sin, do not suppose that any of your
sacrifices will help you. Isn't that what we try to do? Make up for what we've done.
We've done something evil in the first. Our first instinct
is what? Offer sacrifice. No, your first instinct should
be this. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and love your brethren. That should be your instinct.
Love the brethren, believe on Christ. Those are your commandments,
aren't they? They are our commandments. And listen, to a believer are
those grievous things I know you've been offended by
some brethren. Who has not been offended by
brethren? I'm not gonna raise my hand, I've been offended.
So we've all been offended. What's the command? Love your
brethren as I have loved you. What good is it if you offer
a sacrifice to your offended brother and don't forgive him?
What good is that sacrifice? Worthless. Forgive him and then
offer one. Obey is better than sacrifice. If you are allowed living in
sin and neglect, believe or listen, get out. Stop. Flee to Christ. To obey is better than sacrifice. And when we're in sin, what are
we really sacrificing? What are you losing? You lose
everything. Uh, the apostle said this, I
beseech you, therefore, but I beg you because of the mercies of
God, do what? Present your bodies. Concrete. This is not abstract. It's not
philosophical. This is not theological. This
is concrete, your bodies and everything that's included in
your body, your body, your soul, your spirit. and offer them what? As a living
sacrifice. Constant, perpetual sacrifice
unto God. Listen, He made you holy. He made you acceptable. Therefore,
this offering is what? A reasonable service. It's reasonable,
isn't it? Be not conformed to this world.
Don't listen to what men say. Don't listen to what you say. Hear what God says. Be not conformed
to this world, but transformed. How? You need to renew your thinking. You need to renew your mind.
Well, I think this, what does God say? Okay, well, I'm just
going to go with what God says. That's renewing your mind. You
need to change your mind about what you think and how you feel. renew your mind, and prove what
is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. What's that that's
good and acceptable and perfect will of God? It is the offering
and blood of Jesus Christ. That's what we prove. We prove
that Christ's blood is sufficient, that Christ's blood is effectual
by continuing in the faith and obedience to God. It's what we
prove. We as children of God, believers
in Christ, We must not be conformed, continually offering ourselves
in faith and repentance. I'm going to close with that
story I've told you, I'm sure, a hundred times about the hunter
and the bear. I've said it before. I'll just
repeat it. There was a hunter in the winter, went out to kill
a bear. He found one and the hunter was
laying aim on the bear. And all of a sudden the bear
stood up and turned to the hunter and spoke. He said, wait, wait. Surely, we can work something
out. The hunter confused. He said,
well, I don't know. What do you want? He said, well,
listen, what do you want? That's an important thing, hunter.
What do you want? He said, I want a fur coat for the winter. And
the bear said, that's reasonable. That's reasonable. You know,
all I want is a good meal. And so they sat and reasoned
together. And in the end, they both had
what they wanted. The hunter had his coat and the
bear had his meal. Believer, we are not to compromise
with this world. We are not to compromise with
our flesh. We are not to compromise. Why? To obey. Is it not better to honor God
with all we have? Is it not better to obey than
to offer useless platitudes and sacrifices? It is. I hope the Lord will bless this
to your heart. Let's be dismissed in prayer. Our gracious Father
in heaven, I pray that you would make this
message effectual. I pray that the lost would hear
and believe and cease to sacrifice in their disobedience. I pray
that they would come to Christ and believe. And I pray that
we who believe might continue in obedience, in faith, and love,
and every grace, so that we might honor you. And I pray, Father,
that you would keep us from the wicked one, that you would keep
us, Father, even from our own sales and sin. Cause us to walk
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. I pray
you do this for Christ's sake.