Samuel also said unto Saul, The
LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people over
Israel. Now therefore hearken unto the
voice of the words of the LORD. 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, and numbered them, and tilled them 200,000
footmen, and 10,000 men of Judah. Saul came to a city of Amalek
and laid wait in the valley. 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. Saul smote the Amalekites
from Havilah until thou comest to Shurah, that is over against
Egypt. And he took 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 of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and of the lambs, and all that
was good, and would not utterly destroy them, but everything
that was vile in refuge they utterly destroyed. And down in
verse 21, But the chief people took of
the spoil, sheep, and oxen, the chief of the things which should
have been utterly destroyed, sacrificed unto the Lord thy
God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Hath the Lord
as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as it obeyed
the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion
is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity. Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee for being king. Alright, look with me here in
1 Samuel 15. I've titled my message
this evening, Your Sin Will Find You Out. your sin will find you
out. Numbers 32, 23, that's what he
said, be sure your sins will find you out. Here's Saul as
the king, first king over Israel, has proven himself to be a self-willed,
self-justifying man. The Word of God, the Word of
Samuel didn't mean anything to him. He absolutely chose to do
what he wanted to do, no matter what God said. And that's the
first thing it says here. Samuel also said unto Saul, The
Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over Israel, his people
over Israel. Now therefore hearken thou unto,
listen to this, the voice of the words of the Lord. The voice of the words of the
Lord. Now, I tell you, beloved, we hear God's voice. We don't
hear an audible voice, but we hear God's voice in His Word.
And God used Samuel. He used Samuel. And when Samuel
spoke, He said, this is the voice of God speaking to you. This
is what God says to you. And Samuel, or Saul, he did not... And you find him, every time
you find him, he's disobeying God. When Samuel didn't come
up there, he decided to offer his own sacrifices. And then
when they asked him why he'd done it, he said, well, the people
was fixing to rebel. So I've done it because of the
people. So he was self-willed and offered
his own sacrifices, not waiting for Samuel. And then he justified
himself and said, it's the people that made me do it because they
were fixing to act up. They were going to leave me.
I had to do something. I had to do something. And here was
his sin. And I tell you what, his sin,
his rebellion went too far. There's no hope left for him.
His sin had found him out. Remember a few weeks ago, I preached
about how the consequences of sin, and it's all sin. And God
told him down here in verse 23, He said, for rebellion has the
sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry,
because thou hast, listen to this, rejected the word of the
Lord. Our Lord Jesus said it this way,
he that receiveth me receiveth my word. He that receiveth not
my word, the same word shall judge him in the last day. And
he said, you know, listen, you go to Moses, Moses wrote about
me. And so here we are, a man, because
he rejected God's Word. You're talking about a dangerous
thing to do. Not only to reject it, but to
change it, and manipulate it, and make it say something it
doesn't say. And that's what he says, you've rejected the
Word of the Lord. not my word, God's word. And
look what else he goes on to say, because you rejected God's
word one time too many, this is what he, God hath also rejected
thee from being king. And that's what he said over,
I read it to you last week where he said, went over there and
an evil spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit
from the Lord descended on him. Now God had already told him,
I've rejected you as king, and I'm seeking a man after, I got
a man after my own heart that I'm gonna make him king. And the Lord told him exactly
what to do to the Amalekites. Look what he says in verse three.
God told him exactly what to do. Now go and smite Amalek. Now listen to what he said, there's
nothing that he could have misunderstood about what the Lord told him
to do. Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that
they have, everything they have, and spare them not. Slay a man,
a woman, an infant, a suckling, ox, sheep, camel, and ass. I don't want nothing left in
Amalek, nothing. I don't want anything that lives
in Amalek to be alive when you walk out of there. Now why in
the world would God say such a thing? Well, God is holy. God is holy and God is just.
And these people, and you find that He even did it with Israel.
But when people attack the Lord's people, and this is what happened.
You keep this and look with me in Exodus 17. This is what happened. In Exodus 17, this is what happened. And this is what God's... This has happened a long, long
time ago, but it's time for God to do something about it. Now, they're still coming up
out of Egypt. And I'll tell you, this is where
the water come out of the rock. And in verse 8 it says, Then
came Amalek, and fought against Israel in Rephidim. Moses said
unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out and fight with Amalek.
Tomorrow I'll stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God
in my hand. I'll go up, stand at the top
of the hill. So Joshua did as Moses had said
to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses and Aaron and Hur went
up to the top of the hill. And he came to pass, when Moses
held up his hand, Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand,
Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy,
and they took a stone and put it under him. And he sat there
on, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the
one side and the other on the other side. And his hands were
steady until the going down of the sun. Joshua discounted Amalek
and his people with the sword. And then look what he said in
verse 14, And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial
in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will
utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
And look what he says down in verse 16, Because the Lord hath
sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation
to generation. Now this is what happened. They
come out in Egypt, Israel is in the wilderness, and they attacked
Israel. They came and they attacked the Lord's people. And God said,
touch not mine anointed, and do not you do my prophets no
harm. And that's what happened. God said, I'm going to utterly
make their name disappear out of the face of the earth. And
the only way we know anything about Amalek and the Amalekites
is because it's in God's Word and what God said to do to them.
And Saul was to be the instrument to destroy Amalek, to destroy
Amalek. And God, you know, people say,
well, these, you know, this sounds so cruel, but I'll tell you what.
God shows us that a man, these people are idolaters. These people
hated God. These people have attacked the
Lord's people. These people have come against
God's people. And they, you don't go against
God's people. It just, He will not, He said,
don't touch mine in order. You're the apple of my eye. He
that touches you, touches me. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ, he said, I shall avenge mine elect who cry unto me day
and night. So I tell you what he said, it'd
be better for a man to have a millstone cast about his neck and cast
into the sea. As be better for him than he
had been one of these little ones for whom I died. So I'll
tell you now, God told him exactly what to do. Didn't leave. You hear people talk the word
disingenuous and ambiguous. Well, God wasn't either one of
them. He wasn't disingenuous, he wasn't
lying, he wasn't making things up, and he wasn't using ambiguous
terms that would be hard to understand. He said, do this and I want it
done completely. When you leave Amalek, I don't
want nothing breathing. If it's an infant, if it's on
his mother's breast, I want him dead. I want him dead. That's what God said. And then you know, and then here's
what, this is what, you know, the Lord does this, but He done
His own Son this way. Done His own Son that way. When
sin was found on His blessed Son, when sin was charged to
His blessed Son, when our Lord Jesus Christ took our sin upon
Himself, God said, I must utterly and absolutely destroy Him. I must forsake Him. He's going
to have to die. And He's going to have to die
a bloody death. He's going to have to die a death
all by Himself. I'm holy and I'm just and I'm
righteous. And wherever there's sin, I've
got to deal with it. Wherever I find it, I've got
to justly deal with it. And that's what's going on here.
And thank God that God justly dealt with our sins in His blessed
Son. Oh, thank God he did. Now look
what happens down here in verse 8 and 9. Now remember what God told him to
do now. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive. What did God say to do? What
did God say to do? And he took the king of Amalekites
and destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But
Saul and the people, and this is always the people, spared
Agag and the best of the sheep. God said kill everything. Didn't
He say that? Sheep, camel, and ass. and the
best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fowlings, and
of the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy
them, but everything that was vile and refused, that they utterly
destroyed." Now what in the world? What do you think? Do you think
that Will said, well, he just, man, everything, there was such
good stuff. The stuff was so good, the cattle was so good,
the sheep was so good. And I took this king, I took
him captive and I'm going to be a great conqueror. I'm going
to look good when I come back into Israel and I've got this
king with a rope around his neck and I'm leading him down through
Jerusalem and I'm leading him down among the people and they'll
see what a great warrior I am. They'll see this king under subjection
to me. But what did God tell him to
do? What did God tell him to do? That's what he said. To obey
the Lord is better than sacrifices. Rebellion is a sin of witchcraft. Oh my, he didn't do what God
told him to do. He never did do what the Lord
told him to do. Oh my, listen to what happens.
Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel. It repeats me. that I have set
up Saul to be king. Now we know that God does not
change. Does not change. He's immutable. He uses language to accommodate
us and I'll deal with this at another time. For he has turned
back from following me and hath not performed my commandments.
This is what God said. How would you like God to do
that to you? To tell you that? Turn back from
following me. There's a place, and I remember
Scott preaching long ago, and I believe Martin preached on
it down here one time, where that man says, you know, the
first person that I see, I will make a sacrifice unto the Lord.
And his daughter came as the first one he saw. And he lifted
his hand and said, I've lifted my hand to God and I cannot go
back. I cannot go back. Well, here's
a man who said he turned back from following me. How many people
have turned back from following the Lord? I know preachers that
now that I want to preach the gospel that now they say they
can't preach the gospel unless they preach that Christ loves
everybody and died for everybody. That deny the particular redemption
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're still in religion.
They're still preaching. They're still in churches. They're
still making an effort. They're still thinking that they're
okay. But God says, you turn back from following me and have
not performed my commandments. And you know our Lord gave us
two commandments. Two commandments in the New Testament.
Do you know what they are? The first one is, love one another
as I've loved you. That's the first one. That's the first one. And the
second one, believe on this. He commanded, this is eternal
life that God commanded that we believe on his son. Love one
another and believe on his son. That's the two commandments we
have to obey. And listen, Do you reckon we've done that
perfectly? Do you reckon we've done that
just right? Do you reckon we love one another
just as the way we ought to? Do you reckon then that we believe
on His Son the way we ought to? No, no. But bless His holy name. There was one who did. obey the
Lord Jesus Christ, the God Himself. There's one who never turned
back from the Lord Jesus, gave his back to the smiters, gave
his beard to them that plucked, gave his face to them that plucked
off his beard. That never turned, said his face
is flint, never turned back. My hour has not yet come, said
his face is flint, going to Jerusalem. Father, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me, but if not, nevertheless, And God, He said, burn off His
sacrifice, I would not so. I come to delight, delight to
do Thy will, Thy will, O Lord, I delight to do. And Thou hast
prepared Him a body. I tell you what, Oh, I don't want to go back home. Oh God don't let us turn our
back on God. Don't help us never to turn from
God. And Samuel cried all night. Cried
all night because of what this king had done. And oh my, look what happened.
When Samuel rose early to meet Saul, verse 12, in the morning
it was told Samuel saying, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he
set him up a place. Now what in the world does that
mean, set him up a place? You know what that means? You
remember over there when they built those rocks and set them
up and said, this is my neighbor, this is Ebenezer. Hitherto hath
the Lord brought me that brought us. Here the two hath the Lord
brought me." Well, they built a monument there. And they said,
this is Ebenezer. This rock means Ebenezer. Here
the two hath the Lord brought me. Well Samuel, I mean Saul,
excuse me, he'd come to this place after they thought he had
defeated the Amalekites. And he'd come to this place and
he built himself a monument. We said he built himself a place.
He built himself a monument. Built himself something. Look
what I've done. I've worked the Americans. I've
defeated the Americans. And I'm going to build me a monument
and let everybody know what I did. That's what he did. Built himself
a monument. And he built it to himself. And he set him up a place And then he's gone on and passed
on down to Gilgal. Oh my. Well, Samuel came to Saul. Now listen, watch how religious
he is. We talked last week about him being a hypocrite. And Samuel
came to Saul, and listen to what Saul said. Oh my God, real religious
again. Oh, he loved to show his religion. Blessed be thou the Lord. Oh,
you're blessed of God. You're a great man of God. You're
a wonderful man of God, Samuel. And listen to what he said. I've
performed the commandment of the Lord. I've done it. Oh, listen. Me and you, we're
in the same place. We're going, we're thinking about
the same things. I've performed the commandment of the Lord.
Oh my. Watch what Samuel says. What's
this bleeding of the sheep that I hear? Why do I hear this sheep
bleeding? Why do I hear this sheep? And
then I hear the oxen lowing, which I hear. What is this that
I'm listening to? Oh, be sure, you see, it'll find
you out. Oh, my. These things, they're not supposed
to have them. Not supposed to have them. And Saul said, they
brought them from the Amalekites for the people. And for the people,
listen, they said, I didn't do it, the people did it. They spared
the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the
Lord thy God. I said, that's why we've done
it. We're such good people. We're such holy people, we're
such dedicated people, we're so devoted that we save the best
so we can worship the Lord. So we can offer sacrifices unto
God. That's what they used it for.
That's what they said they had done. Oh my. That's why God said down here
in verse 22 And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great a light,
and burnt offerings and sacrifices? Does he really delight in them?
Or would he rather you obey his voice? To obey is better than
any sacrifice you can ever offer. And to hear what he has to say
is better than the fat of rams. And I'll tell you something.
Now let me ask you this question, and I ask myself this question. When obeying the voice of the
Lord, when God talks about obeying, He gave Him a commandment, what
utterly to do. And He had to do that perfectly,
perfectly, just exactly the way God said for Him to do it. And
if He didn't do it exactly as God said to do it, then the Lord
You're gonna deal with him. His sins found him out. Now listen, is there any way under God's
Son that you and I can obey the voice of the Lord perfectly? There's one who did. He said, thou hast digged my
ear. That means he put a hole in his
ear and said, I love my master. And God said he dug his ear,
dug Christ's ear. And Christ said, I do what my
father tells me to do. I come down from heaven not to
do my will, but the will of him that sent me. I don't even speak
for myself. I'm not saying what's in my mind.
I'm not saying something I made up. The words that I speak unto
you, they are of my father. They come from him. And God's got to have the perfect,
perfect obedience. Listen, a man's going to be saved
by obeying Him. By obeying Him. And I heard a
preacher preach, and this was years ago, a Camelot preacher
was preaching a man's funeral. And he went through the Sermon
on the Mount and talked about how good this man was. how he
kept the golden rule, how he had obeyed all the good works
that he had done. I'm telling you, nobody, nobody,
nowhere under any circumstances is gonna go and face God by his
own works, by his own sacrifices, by his own obedience. If he does,
he's a gone Jesse in the sight of God. But I'm telling you there's one
who obeyed enough for all his elect. Our Lord Jesus Christ
because of the worth and the virtue of His blessed person.
Worth of His blessed person because His merit was so great and so
glorious and so full that in that one man He had enough love,
He had enough obedience to render satisfaction to God on behalf
of every one of His children and God views us as obeying Him
perfectly in His blessed Son. How in the world else could you
and I ever think of approaching God? And you know, I never will
forget, this is one of them times that just, you know, you hear
something and just bam, just knocks you down. I remember this
up at Don Fortner's. Oh my goodness. It had to be
35, 36, 38 years ago. Scott Richeson, never had heard
this statement made. He said, a screaming conscience
The only thing that will satisfy a screaming conscience is a perfect
sacrifice. And when your conscience is given
a perfect sacrifice, your conscience never asks for nothing else again. And God had a perfect sacrifice. And that perfect sacrifice is
His blessed Son. And when I understood that He's
that perfect sacrifice, my conscience has never asked for anything
else. It don't even accuse me anymore. I'm serious. It don't accuse
me. Sometimes sins come to me and
I feel bad about it. I say, Lord, I'm sorry that I've
done those things, but those things are taken care of. Listen,
there is therefore now, right now, right this moment, no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. And oh my, we've got one little
bit. That's why our Lord said, this
is my beloved Son. That's what I want you to do.
I want you to hear Him. If I'm going to speak to you,
I'm going to speak through Him. If I'm going to give you anything,
I'm going to give it to you through Him. Love is through Him. Grace through
Him. Righteousness through Him. Justification
through Him. Everything through Him. And He
said, Oh I've obeyed. And I tell you, you're going
to be religious. Then Samuel said in verse 16,
stay, stop right here, stay, don't move, stand right here.
I'm gonna tell you what the Lord said unto me tonight, before
I got here. And he said unto him, say on,
look what he says now. And Samuel said, when you was
little in your own eyes, in your own sight, when you was nobody,
when you was nobody, When you didn't think yourself worthy
of nothing, when you was just nobody from nowhere of the smallest
tribe, when you was little in your own eyes, was thou not made
the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord had noted thee king
over Israel. When you was little in your own
eyes. This is one thing, I've talked
about it with preachers and I've talked about it with you. God
is going to keep His people down. He's going to do that. He's going
to keep us believing. God said He hates pride, but
oh listen, what are we? Who are we? Who are we? We were nobodies from nowhere.
Our parents was nobody. Our grandparents was nobody.
Adam was one that destroyed us all. And our Lord Jesus Christ,
He, if we got anything, He gave it to us. If we know anything,
He taught it to us. And oh my, how can we not? How can we ever lift ourselves
up and make our think that we're somebody? Oh my. And then he said in verse
18, 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. That's what God sent you on a
journey, that's what he told you to do. Now listen to what
he said in verse 19. Wherefore then didst thou not
obey the voice of the Lord, and did fly upon the spoil, and listen
to this, and did evil in his sight. Did evil in his sight. You know, Over in Galatians it
says you know we are justified in His sight. That is the only
place that matters where you are justified in His sight. And
here it says you have done evil in His sight. God is looking
at you, Solomon. God saw you, Solomon. You did not obey the voice of
the Lord. You did evil in His sight. And listen, this is how
deceitful the heart is and how deceitful and desperately wicked
it is. And look what Samuel, Saul said back to Samuel. Saul
said unto Samuel, yea, I obeyed the voice of the Lord. I did. God just told him he didn't. Told him three times he hadn't.
And he turns around and he justifies himself and he looks at himself
and said, listen, I'm not here as bad as you say I am, Samuel.
No, no, no. Saul said, yes, I've obeyed the
voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me
and have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed
the Amalekites. And here, listen to who he blames
it on now. justifies himself, deceived in himself, and then
he says, well, it's the people that have done it. And that's
what he did over there. He said, I offered that sacrifice
because of what the people was going to do. But the people took
of the spoil, sheep, oxen, the chief of the things, which should
have been utterly destroyed. And he said, why they wasn't,
it's because we come to sacrifice to the Lord. And you know, There ain't but
one sacrifice acceptable to God. And that's the sacrifice of His
blessed Son, who by the sacrifice of Himself put away our sins
once in the end of the world. Oh, he is so deceived in himself,
I've obeyed the voice of the Lord. And then, oh my, he says
down here again, I'm taking the throne away from you. He said
in verse 23, for rebellion, rebelling against the word, rebelling against
God, rebelling against His will, rebelling against God Almighty
is as the sin of witchcraft. Oh my. And stubbornness, stubborn,
being stubborn, Going to justify yourself, be self-willed? Stubbornness
is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee. Be sure your sin
will find you out. Now look what he said. I've got
to move on here. I'll be done in just a little
bit. And Saul said unto Samuel, I
have sinned. I have sinned. I have transgressed
the commandment of the Lord in thy words. He finally owned up
to it. And the people, and he said,
and he said, and because I feared the people, I feared the people. Ought we ought to obey God or
people? And obey their voice, not God's
voice, the people's voice. Now therefore I pray thee pardon
my sin. Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. He's asking a man to pardon his
sin? He's asking a prophet to pardon
his sin? He's asking Samuel to pardon
his sin? Don't he know that there's only
one person that can pardon sin and that's God himself and it's
got to be God's anointed priest and it's got to be not God's
anointed sacrifice. And he said Pray thee pardon
my sin a turn again with me that I may worship the Lord. Oh my
You think he was sorry you think his repentance was real? but
look what he said and Samuel said unto Saul I will not return
with thee I For thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the
Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel." And
as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt
of his mantle, his garment, and ripped it. He said, God done
that, that's why He's done you. And I tell you what, when you
read things like this, and you see how men are, and how deceitful,
The heart is and desperately wicked is. How man is deceived
in himself. And how he just utterly rejects
God and His Word outright. Justifies himself. Self-will. Blames it on somebody else. Thank
God for the Gospel. It's me, Lord. It ain't that
other fella. It's me. I'm like that public
and smote on his heart, Lord be merciful to me, the sinner. Our Father, in the precious glorious
name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, oh Lord we bless
you that when we read things like we read tonight, that we
have a sacrifice, that we have a Savior, that we have a Sovereign,
we have a substitute, we have a sin offering, we have a high
priest, and we have the blood, and all of your appointing, all
of your providing, and we come with what you provided, and only
through Him, by Him, because of Him. Thank you for allowing
us to meet tonight. God bless you, dear people. For
Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. Well, good night.