All right, let's look back here
in 1st Samuel. Now, I read there, you know Samuel
was sent, I mean, excuse me, Saul was sent to destroy the
Amalekites. Destroy everything about the
Amalekites. Destroy every person, every animal,
leave nothing whatsoever living. Nothing was supposed to survive.
And the reason being was the way that Amalek had treated Israel
when she came up out of Egypt. And God meant to punish them
for that and judged them for the way they treated his people. But when Saul, back up here in
verse 1, when Samuel anointed Saul king, he said this, Now
therefore hearken unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Being
king does not exempt you from obeying God. In fact, it puts
more responsibility on you than anybody else. Hear the voice
of the words of the Lord. And that's when God speaks in
His word, it's His voice. When we have God's word, we're
hearing the voice of God in His word. And he said, and then what
he's saying is, listen to the words of the Lord. Heed the words
of the Lord. Give heed to them. Our Lord Jesus
said several times, said, take heed how you hear. Take heed
how you hear. And in Matthew 13, you know,
there was four different types of hearers. They all heard the
same word. They all heard and had the same
seed. One fell by the wayside, one fell on stony ground, one
fell among thorns, and only one fell and brought forth fruit.
So he says, take heed how you hear. That's the first thing
he told Saul. Saul, you listen to what God says. Well, God said,
go down and smite the Amalekites. God gave him a specific commandment. That's what he told him. He said,
you go down in verse 3, and smite Amalek, and that'll destroy all
them that have, and spare them not. Slay both men, women, infants,
suckling ox, sheep, camel, and ass. I want everything dead down
there. That's what God said. Well, he
didn't obey. He thought more of his own desires
and his lust and the fear of the people than he did the voice
of God. Back up here in verse 9, look
what he says. But it said, listen to this,
but Saul and the people spared Agag. He's the king. And the
best of the sheep and of the oxen and the fatlings and the
lamb and all that was good. In their eyes it was good. and would not utterly destroy
them, but everything that was vile and wasn't worth anything,
they destroyed. And I tell you what, hear him
and the people. And because he failed to obey
God, God took the kingdom from him. Took the kingdom away from
him. He said, I tell you what, you
didn't obey God. So look what he said down here
in verse 23. Excuse me, verse 24. Now look what Saul said now. He didn't obey God. And that's
why Samuel said, I was as mean as the bleeding of this sheep
in mine ears and my oxen. And they said, he brought them
from the Amalekites for the people spared the best of the sheep
and the oxen sacrificed unto the Lord. And then Saul said
unto Samuel, I have sinned. I have sinned. He just got through
telling that he had obeyed the word, the Lord. God told him,
no, you didn't. I have transgressed the commandment
of the Lord and thy words because, now listen to this, I feared
the people and obeyed their voice. Feared the people and listened
to them. Two things I want to look at
tonight. What made him fear the people and what made him obey
their voice and not the voice of God. And this is what it amounts
to is he was He tried to please men. He had a man-pleasing heart.
And he was afraid of being opposed by the people. That's why he
says, the people spared him. I and the people spared Agad. And so he listened to the people. He feared the people. He feared
these people. That's why he said, I feared
the people. I feared the people. Why would he be afraid of the
people? He's the king. As the king, afraid of displeasing
the people? Afraid of doing something the
people didn't want done? As the leader, as the king, it
was his responsibility to say, God said. The minute they said,
let's spare this one, let's spare that one, let's spare this other,
his responsibility as king said, no, no, no, God said. But he listened to the people.
He feared the people. And all he had to do was to stand
his ground and say, no, we're going to do what God said. But
he was afraid to stand his ground. He feared the people. And the
Word of God is full of examples of this kind of leadership where
people was in a position of responsibility and in places of leadership and
failed and failed miserably. Look in Exodus 32. I know you
all know this story here. I know you know this one. And
that's why Paul told Timothy. He said, Timothy said, preach
the word. Instant in season, out of season,
for the time will come. Men will not endure sound doctrine,
but heed to themselves. Teachers and they'll have these
teachers come in because they got itching ears and they want
to hear something other than what God says They want to hear
something and other than what does say at the Lord and that's
what God told Saul Exactly what to do, but Saul feared the people
and didn't do what God did said now Look what I said here in
verse 32 verse 1 when the people saw that Moses Delayed to come
down out of the mountain. He's up there getting the Ten
Commandments now get the law And the people gathered themselves
together under Aaron and said unto him, Make us gods which
shall go before us. They had just come through the
Red Sea. They had just heard all the firstborn
die down in Egypt. They had seen God bring them
out with a high hand. And then they said, Make us gods
which shall go before us. How do you make a God that will
go before you? If you make it, how can it move?
How can it walk? How can it talk? How can it speak?
As for this Moses, that's the way they said about him after
a while. As for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of
the land of Egypt, we don't know what in the world has happened
to him. and said give me your gold earrings and here's your
wives sons and your daughters and bring them unto me and they
did and look and he received in verse 4 in their hand and
fastened that for a graving tool and made it a golden calf Why didn't he say Moses will
be back down here? I'm not gonna make you a golden
calf. Golden calf can't bring us up
out of Egypt A golden calf didn't save us. We took our earrings
and took our gold and we made us a calf. That calf never saved
us. That calf never went through
a smirk the first morning. That calf never put the blood
on the door. That calf never parted the Red
Sea. And oh, that's what happened.
And I tell you, beloved, there's a... He said there'd be a famine.
Not for bread, not for water, but for the hearing of the word
of the Lord. There's plenty of words, but
to hear it from the word of the Lord. And I tell you what, a
leader where God says, do this, must obey God. If the people
are saying, turn from the right way. He knew the right way, but
if a person is really a leader, one that fears God and fears
the Lord more than they fear people, whenever God says, do
this, He's going to do it no matter how many people say, well,
turn from the right way, this will work this way. And the people were saying to
him, listen, don't kill that beautiful calf. Look at these
blue dogs, these are the best sheep. These sheep are better
than the ones we got down in Israel. Just save some of these. So he turned from the right way
and went their way. Saul knew the right thing to
do. He had God's clear command. He should have said no, no, no
to the people. But his heart wasn't in it. And
I know this from experience and every other preacher knows it
from experience. Pastors has been at it any length
of time at all. They have opposition. They have
people that oppose them. They oppose something that they
said. They oppose some decision that they make. They oppose something
that they said, something that they've done. And if he stands his ground, if they
stand their ground, then their position as pastor is put on
the line. And that's what Saul should have
done. He should have said, listen, you fellas are doing the wrong
thing and I'm not going to partake of it. And that's what happens. And when we have opposition,
you know, that's the way, that's life. When you're dealing with
people, you're dealing with people like yourselves. You know the biggest opposition
I have? Me. Me. But there has been times
when we have opposition. And we just have to deal with
it as it comes. But we must stand. Those who
are called in positions of the leadership must stand for what
they know to be true. They must stand upon the principle
of right and the principle of true, and they must stand upon
it with great conviction, not with hardness and not with harshness.
But Saul, he said, I feared the people and listened to their
voice. Now I want you to look at something with me over here
in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. This is 1 Thessalonians right after Colossians. And look here in chapter 2. You
know, Paul said it this way, do we persuade men or God? The answer is in the question.
It's a rhetorical question. Of course we persuade God. I mean we persuade men. What
are you going to persuade God to do? He does things on purpose. And he said, if we seek to be
pleasers of men, then we should not be the servants
of Christ. If our goal and our position
and our preaching was set to please men and satisfy men and
do what men want said and done, then what in the world, what
we should be, we couldn't possibly be the servant of Christ if our
whole life was made up in trying to please men. And you take 50
people out of 25 out of 50 people They all got a different idea
about something else about so many different things. Now ain't
that right? That's the way it is. But look
what he said here in verse 3. 2nd Thessalonians 2 verse 3.
For our exhortation was not of deceit Nor of uncleanness. We never used uncleanness in
our speech, uncleanness in our words, uncleanness in our appearance. And we certainly didn't use guile.
We never used deceit. We didn't use guile to try to
trick you. But listen to it. But, as we
were allowed of God, allowed of God, to be put in trust with
the gospel. Even so we speak, not as pleasing
men, but God which tries our heart, tries our heart. Oh my, my, my. And here's another thing about
people trying to fear people. And when you got a heart that
fears people like he did here, the fear of man. Whenever you
have people that oppose you, like he said these people opposed
him, he said the people took him. The people spared him. They
always believe they're in the right. No matter how much they oppose,
they always believe they're in the right. Don't you know that
when they made that golden calf down there in the wilderness
and they made that golden calf and Moses is up there in the
presence of God. Was up there 40 days and 40 nights.
Don't you know when they made that golden calf they thought
they was doing what was right. This is the right thing to do.
Huh? Moses is God, make us, since
we can't see Him, since we can't hear Him, make us a visible idol,
something we can see. So it will help us to worship. And
oh my, Saul was facing the same, same situation. The people said,
and this is the way people do. They said, Saul? My goodness,
look at all these beautiful animals. Why do you want to kill that
sheep? Why do you want to kill that ram? Look at these beautiful
cows here. Oh my goodness, they're just
beautiful. They're beautiful animals. Oh
well, favorite animals. Don't kill them, don't kill them.
I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll even take some of them
up here and we'll sacrifice them to the Lord. We'll get religion
behind it. we'll get rid of them so they think they was doing
right but ended up doing wrong because Saul feared the people
and it seemed reasonable to them and Saul listened to the people
out of fear for them saved them strong healthy animals that seemed
like the right thing to do but you know how many martyrs Countless,
countless martyrs. Have you ever read Fox's book
of martyrs? Men, women, and children. Oh
my. And then the Inquisition in Spain.
Multitudes and multitudes and multitudes of martyrs have been
sent to their death. And the people who did it swore
that they were right. Our Lord Jesus Christ was sought
after and trapped time and time again, trying to be trapped and
trying to be tempted. And our Lord Jesus Christ was
apprehended by a mob who thought they was right. In fact, our
leaders told us we was right. Our Lord was crucified by religious
leaders who believed they were doing the right thing. The right
thing. And that's the thing about it.
A man can be so convinced that he's right. And if everybody followed that
fellow who thought he was right, then everybody that follows him
will be wrong. It's like those men preaching
the gospel this weekend. And this is the only thing I
know that the Lord's people want. is they want the gospel and the
man who preaches the gospel, I know that. And so Saul was
afraid to face the people's opposition to what God told him to do. These
people will oppose me. They don't want to do this. So
I'll let them have their way. I'll let them have their way.
It'll cost me my relationship with God, but I'll let them have
their way. It'll cost me to disobey God, but I'll let them have their
way. And you know the second cause
of this man-pleasing heart and fear of man is the love of the
praise of men. Men love the praise of men. Saul was so concerned about what
others thought of him. Look over here in verse 30, chapter
15. Saul was so concerned about what others thought of him. When you love the praise of men,
then you'll do whatever you need to do. Look what it said in verse
30. Then he said, I have sinned.
I have sinned. He's talking to Samuel now. Yet
honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of the people, and
before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the
Lord thy God. Did you see what he said? He
said turn with me and honor me. Honor me. Honor me now. Before the elders
of the people and before Israel. Do this so I can save face. So I won't look so bad. So I
won't look like such a failure. So I won't look like God has
done cast me off. He loved the praise of men. Honor
me now. He didn't want to face the elders
of Israel unless Samuel was there with him. Oh, he wanted to save
face before the elders. And in his pride, he couldn't
stand it when David received more praise than he did. Let
me show you over here in chapter 18. You know, this man had some
real problems. Chapter 18 and verse 6. Saul was concerned about what
others thought. We want people to think well
of us. We don't want people to think
ill of us. We don't want people to think we're mean and ill and
hateful, contrary. We don't want people to think
that. We want to be well thought of. And we should be well thought
of. We ought to live and honor one another and love one another
and love Christ and be honest in our dealings and be honest
with one another, be honest out in the world and have some integrity
and some scruples. And we ought to be able to think well of one another. But
there's a difference in thinking well of somebody and wanting
To be well thought of and watch your reputation to be well thought
of then to just turn around and not Want nothing, but the praise
of men and loving nothing but the praise of men And look what
happens here in verse 6 And it came to pass And it came to pass
as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of
the Philistines, that the women came out of all the cities of
Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul with tabrets,
with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered
one another as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his ten thousands. Now listen to this. And Saul
was very wroth, or he was very angry. He was upset. And the
saying upset him. And he said, They have ascribed
unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands
thousands. A thousand. What can he have
more but the kingdom? Oh, he hated it when he heard
David being praised more than him. His pride couldn't stand
it. And our pride, our pride, likes
the paws of men. Oh, of course we do. Me and Paul
Mayhem was talking the other day, George Whitfield, and you've
heard me tell this before. George Whitfield was preaching
one time. And he was, you know, they had their pulpits way, way,
way up high. Because the people said they
could hear him. They had to ascend the pulpit.
Big steps going up to him. And he was up there preaching.
And he started down out of the pulpit. And this woman came running
up to meet him and said, Mr. Whitfield, that was the best
sermon I've ever heard. That was the best sermon I've
ever heard you preach. And I want to be the first to
tell you. He said, you're too late. The devil told me before
I got to the first step. Is that not right? And that's
who, you know, and our prize locks their prize of men, popular
people. You know, you find popular people
in this world, they have lots and lots of followers. And people
won't disagree with them because they don't want to be on their
bad side. And this is one of the things. Now listen, I'm not
on Facebook and I don't have Twitter. I've never had a Twitter
account. Never had any of those things. But you know the thing
on Facebook now is how many friends you can get on Facebook. I hear
them talking about that all the time. I've got thousands of friends. And then you get on Twitter and
you have millions of them. And you know why people, what's
the motivation behind that? What's the motivation behind
having people want to follow you and listen to what you got
to say and about your life and how good your life is and all
that? What's the motivation behind that? I want people to praise Him. Applause
of men is a pride. And you know what our Master
said, and I want you to see this, in Luke 12, 42. John, excuse
me, John 12, 42. The love of the praise of men,
the love of the praise of men has kept multitudes from following
Christ. And I know one particular preacher
that I run around with for a long time, and we began to learn the
gospel and I was a five pointer already. I understood a lot of
things and I rejoiced in it. I rejoiced and he did too. But
when it seemed it was going to cost him something, he was a
popular, popular preacher. Popular preacher. And he's the
first one to take me to meet Henry Mahan. He went with me
to meet Henry the very first time. But about two years after
that, When he seen us, I was starting to preach the gospel.
Bruce Crabfish started to preach the gospel. And we made no bones
about it, no fear about it. And churches were splitting up
wherever we'd go. Because there's such a distinction
in our message. But this preacher, this particular
preacher, God up in some of the places we preached at and said,
I want you to know, I do not agree with Donny Bell or Bruce,
I do not agree with those men. I want you to know that I do
not agree with what they're saying. And I don't want to be identified
with them. And me and that fella, he's the first one, and we was
talking about the grace of God in particular redemption and
sovereign election. Christ dying only for His people.
He took me to meet Henry. In September 1978, He took me
to meet Henry. And then get something and say,
I don't want to be identified with that message. You know why? I'm going to tell you why. Look
right here in John 12, 42. Nevertheless, among the chief
rulers also many believed on Him. But because of the Pharisees,
they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the
synagogue. Listen to it. For they loved
the praise of men more than the praise of God. That would be
an awful position to be in, wouldn't it? Well, what in the world, that's
why the Lord says, you know, that this well-pleasing in the
sight of men is an abomination in the sight of God. Well, what's
the cure for this fear of man? What's the cure for this pleasing
man? What's the cure from loving the
applause of men? Keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Keep your eyes on Him. No matter
what anybody says, no matter which anybody goes, keep your
eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep your eyes on Him. Seek to
honor Him. Seek to please Him. Seek to glorify
Him. Seek to worship Him. A man pleaser
is always focused on self. And that was the root of the
first sin of our parents. Satan told them, said, listen,
you'll be wise. You'll know the difference between
good and evil and your eyes will be open. And so they focused
on self and plunged the human race into sin. And I'll say this
without any fear or favor, any self glory is vain. Any self glory is vain. Now we're
talking about for God. Any self-glory is vain glory. And so the cure is to keep our
eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep our heart, keep our souls,
keep our focus. As old Scott used to say, and
Shirley said it the other day, he said, wouldn't it be wonderful
if our focus, if we had blinders on, where we couldn't see anything
else around us. We couldn't watch the world.
Couldn't watch the things that go on in the world. Wouldn't
care about anything. Keep our eyes focused on Him
and Him alone. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we
had them blinders? Like an old mule does, you know? A mule,
the only way he knows to go right is for somebody to pull his reins.
The only way he knows to go left is for somebody to pull his reins. And the only way we'd ever go
this way or that way is for God to pull our reins. You know why
we want to look unto the Lord Jesus Christ? He's the author
of our faith. We don't have faith except what
He gave us. Huh? He's the one that will finish
our faith. He'll bring an end to our faith
one of these days and faith will cease to exist. He gave it to
us and He'll see that it comes to an end and it'll end looking
at Him in the face like Larry Crispy Sunday morning. They shall
see His face. We're like the Apostle Paul.
He said, I want to be found in Christ. I want to win Christ. I want His righteousness. And
I'm pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus. You start with Christ and you
finish with Christ. And oh my, we live in a world
that says, look at me, look at me, look at me. Look at me! And I'll tell you,
I'll show you how awful all of us are. Just to give you an illustration. If somebody shows you a picture
and you're in that picture, who's the first one you look for? And you'll either say, well that's
a good picture of me, or that's an awful picture of me. We live in a look-at-me world,
but you know our world. is not look at me. Our world
is look to Christ. Look outside ourselves. Look
away from ourselves. Look away from our flesh. Look
away from everything that's worthless in us and find everything that's
worth anything and everything that's worth any value in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Huh? Oh my. That's why our world is different
than this world look at me. Our world is look to Him. Another cure is to listen to
what God says. Not what man says. Not what man pleaser says. Another
cure is to listen to what God says. You listen to these preachers
around here today. I'm telling you all they're interested
in is winning people and getting people to come listen and tear
down every barrier. You know what man's problem is?
Man's problems, like Saul was, didn't have a right view of God.
And if you get a right view of God, you will trust Christ and
Him alone. And you'll not be afraid of man.
You'll not be a man pleaser. And you won't love the applause
and praise of men. You want God. You want Christ. And you want to worship Him and
Him alone. And I tell you what, What in the world would, if God
be forthwise, should we fear what man can do? And if men praise
you and applaud you... Somebody asked me, was it you
today that asked me about something and said, does that give you
the big head? And I said, no. No, it don't. No, it don't. Listen. I've heard people brag
on you, and I've heard people say bad things. Listen, the only
thing God is my witness, the only thing I'm interested in,
and I'm sure you are too, after you've lived a while, is what
God thinks and what God says in my relationship with God in
Christ. That's all that matters in this
world. All the rest of it is just icing on the cake. The homes
we have, the cars we have, the money we have, that's just icing
on the cake. That's just making our pilgrimage
here a little bit easier to go through. But even with all of
that, we still stay focused on Christ. Amen? Amen. Oh, blessed Savior. Gracious,
gracious Master. Thank you for allowing us to
speak tonight. Lord, don't let us be a men pleaser,
loving the applause of men, the praise of men. Keep us, oh God,
from such vanity and such foolishness and such frailty and things that
would so dishonor you. Oh God, let our hearts, let our
souls, let our very being be taken up with you. I know we
fail you. I know we don't do it as we would
love to, but Lord, it's in our heart to do it. God bless these
saints of God. Thank you that they come out
on this old rainy, rainy night. God bless them. Lord, encourage
them and direct our steps in this congregation and the way
we go and the things we do. Leave us not to ourselves, to
our own will or our own ways. Always let us look to you, direct
our steps. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Well, I'll see you Sunday morning,
God willing.