We see that Samuel, or Saul,
is rejected for being king. Though he's going to be king
for a long time. But yet he never, never obeys
God in all those years. Never obeys God. He's always,
always, and the reason he doesn't obey God is obvious that he doesn't
know God. And I want to talk about tonight,
obedience or sacrifice. Saul was rejected from being
king. The people desired a king, wanted a king. And the reason
they picked him out, because he was handsome, he was tall,
and they said he was the goodliest person in all of Israel. Stood
out better than anybody else. And then there was a time that
he said he was little in his own eyes. He said, I'm of the
tribe of Benjamin, the smallest tribe, and the smallest family
from the smallest family was, and who am I? So he was little
in his own eyes. And then it tells us there in
verse one, he reigned a year. Reigned one year. And then after
he had reigned two years, he chose him 3,000 men. got him
an army together got him an army together and he had 2,000 men
stayed with him and he had 1,000 stay with his son Jonathan this
is the first time we meet his son Jonathan but you'll learn
a lot about Jonathan you remember Jonathan and David when you hear
about Mephibosheth you know you hear about Jonathan and David
they loved one another oh they loved one another they entered
into covenant together And David always, always remembered Jonathan. And Jonathan protected David
against his own father who tried to kill, Saul tried to kill David
time and time again. And Jonathan protected him. Jonathan
maybe had been 20 years old. And it says here that Jonathan
down in verse 3, he smote the garrison of the Philistines.
Now a garrison is just kind of a small outpost. Small outpost,
got a bunch of soldiers there. He went down there, Jonathan,
a very young man, had a thousand men with him. Smoked the Philistines
in Geba. Smoked that garrison. Saw blew
a trumpet, told everybody, it's a hero Israel. Now watch what
happened now. and all Israel heard say that
Saul has smitten the garrison and the Philistines now who Jonathan
is the one that attacked the Philistines Jonathan is the one
who whipped the Philistines Jonathan is the one but who takes the
credit for it? Saul did and that's an awful
thing to do take credit for something somebody else does That's a flesh,
you can't get no more flesh than that. And let me ask you this,
who takes the credit in salvation? That's the number one question.
Who takes the credit in salvation? Who's going to take the credit
in salvation? Who gets the credit? Will it
be God or man? There's no middle ground. There's
no middle ground. It'll be God or man. If Christ
did it all, He gets all the glory. But listen, if it was a cooperative
effort, you'll say, God and me, we did this together. I let God
do. I allowed God to do. If it's
a cooperative effort, if you cooperate with God. And that's
the message today. It started with Charles Tenney
and it started with the Westleys. And they had this message that
man had the ability to cooperate with God when God gave him his
chance. So then if salvation is by chance
and when you get your chance you cooperate with God, who's
going to get the credit? Who's going to get the glory?
God's not going to get it. You're going to get it. You're
going to take it for yourself. that always, and always that
way. How many persons you ever talk to who's ever told you,
said, God saved me and God saved me by himself. And if it was by your free will,
you sure enough gonna take all the credit for that. There's a fella talking to his
neighbor one time, I've told this before. And he said, let
me ask you three questions. Did God save you or did you save
yourself? She said, well, God saved me.
And he said, answer the scripture. She said, well, God saved me. And then he asked the second
question. Why did he do it? Well, Because it pleased Him to His
own good pleasure. And when did He do it? In Christ
before the foundation of the world. That's right. You know you got
to say that's right when you got the scriptures to a point.
But this is what Saul did. Saul comes along. His son, young
man, goes out and whips a bunch of Philistines. And the scripture
says that they were had an abomination in the Philistines. And I tell
you, this is one of the things, one of the most awful things.
And maybe some of you have had this happen to you in the world.
Maybe some of you have had this happen to you. One of the most
awful things is for someone to take credit for something that
you did. Grace won't let you do that.
Grace won't let you take credit for anything that you've ever
done. If you've done anything, why? You know who gave you the
ability to do it? Who made us to differ? What do
we got that we didn't receive? What do we have that God did
not give us? We got sins? He gave it to us.
John Newton said this, the only difference between us and an
idiot is a rock that hits you in the right spot. That's all
it takes. That's all it takes. And oh listen,
so the Philistines came down here with a great army. Oh my,
and all the people got together with Saul up at Gilgal where
he's supposed to meet Samuel. And it says in verse 5, it says,
oh there's 30,000 men, 30,000 chairs, 6,000 men, and then all
these people. And of course they use this thing
that there's so many people that they're just scared of them,
terrified of them. And look what the big men of
Israel do. And all by all the men, people
were frightened and scared to death. And what did they do?
They were distressed. They saw this great big army.
Great big army. I mean, just army as far as you
could see. And I said, the people said, listen,
I'm not going to fight this battle. They would start hiding. They
went to hide. I'll tell you what, if you didn't
have God fighting your battles, I'd hide too. If God wasn't fighting
my battles, if God wasn't my defense, if God said good for
me and Christ didn't stand good for me, I'd go hide someplace
too. And the fella said the safest place to hide from God is get
you a Bible and join a church. And put a cross on your lapel.
And oh listen, and they hid themselves in caves and thickets and rocks
and in high places and pits. Oh I mean they scattered. I mean
they went in every direction. And oh my. And some of the Hebrews
in verse 7 went over the land, went over to Jordan. They crossed
back over to Jordan and went over to Gad and Gilead. Where
Saul stayed where he was. And a few people followed him
trembling. Samuel look back over here. I
believe it's in chapter 10 in verse 8 Samuel saw fixing to do something
and do something horrible Samuel told Saul he says in verse 8
in chapter 10 Now you go down before before me to Gilgal. I And behold, I will come down
unto thee to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice sacrifices of
peace offerings. Seven days shall you tarry till
I come to thee and show thee what thou shalt do. Well, this
is where he's at. He's waiting on Samuel. And they
was there in Gilgal and look what it said in verse 8. And
he tarried seven days according to the set time that Samuel had
appointed. But Samuel came not to Gilgal, and the people were
scattered from him. Now I didn't say he didn't come
in the seven days. It says that he did not come
at the time Samuel had appointed. And look what Saul did. You see
Saul, he didn't remember. Now he's going to fight this.
He's going to offer a sacrifice here. He don't remember. He don't
remember how God saved Israel by a great thunder back over
there in chapter 4. He didn't seek the Lord before
he did this thing. Never did seek the Lord to be
his defense. He didn't remember God's deliverance
when he brought them out through the Red Sea. Or how he came and
conquered Canaan. And the reason he didn't is he
didn't know God. Now look what he did. And Saul
said, bring hither a burnt offering to me and peace offerings. And
they offered the burnt offering. Oh my. What did he do? What in the world did he do?
You know what he did? He became desperate, became impatient. And he said, well Samuel's not
here. Got an army in front of me. I don't know what to do.
I don't know whether to call on God. I don't know God. I can't
call on Him. I can't call on Him to have mercy
on me. I can't call on Him to be my
defense. I can't call on Him to go fight my battles for me.
So I'll take things into my own hand. God desperate. And He said bring me a burnt
offering. And peace offerings. And it said here that He offered
the burnt offering. What in the world? There's three
offices. There's first a priest, a prophet
and a king. And a priest is the only one
that can ever offer a sacrifice. The only person that could ever
offer a sacrifice was a priest. And sometimes a prophet and a
priest were one and the same. And sometimes a prophet and a
king were wanting the same. David was a prophet and a king.
Samuel here was a prophet and a priest. And but here's what
happened. God so protects his son and his
office. that when a man enters into the
priesthood and that's what Saul did here he took it upon himself
to enter the priesthood and offer a sacrifice himself and he was
not capable of it he was assuming an office he didn't have and
he dishonored God himself and God so guards Christ in all that
he does that he's not going to let anybody intrude in any office
that's not his to have And I tell you, Christ is our great high
priest. And Saul bypassed him. Saul bypassed
the priest. And when you bypass Christ, and
you bypass God's appointed way, then God judges very, very severely. There are several people in the
Scriptures that did that. Uzziah, the king. He presumed
to enter into the priesthood one day and offered a sacrifice
and was going to offer incense on that. You know what happened
to him? God smote him with leprosy. And that was the one when Isaiah
said, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He loved
Uzziah so much, thought so much of Uzziah that he said, in the
year that Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. And I saw his glory.
And then Isaiah, Here goes the ark of God on a
cart. They're pulling it on a cart.
And that thing goes to wobble a little bit. He decides, you
know, listen, that thing may turn over. He ran over there
and touched it. God killed him on the spot. God don't have us
entering into things that's not ours to enter. He don't need
help steadying the ark. He don't need no help keeping
His glory. He don't need no help in offering
sacrifice in the inn of the priesthood. And then Cain. Everybody remembers
Cain. He's the first man. And God let
him know exactly how he was to be approached. God slew an animal,
the Lord Jesus Christ did the walking with him in the cool
of the day, offered a sacrifice, shed the blood, and clothed Adam
and Eve with their nakedness with the coats off of those animals.
And he shed the blood. And the first offering you find
in the Old Testament in Genesis was Abel come to the Lord with
a lamb. But the second offering you find
It's okay. He went over here and raised
him a garden. Oh, it was a beautiful garden, great garden. And he
said, listen, man, this is, this is, anybody would want this.
Anybody would love this. Anybody would think this is the
greatest thing. So he got him, got it all balled up, got it
all in big baskets, and he went and took it to the Lord. You
know what God did for him? Cursed him. Cursed him. I tell
you what, God will not have his son bypassed. And I tell you,
this man presumed to take upon himself to offer sacrifice to
God. Huh? And what vanity, what pride,
what self-righteousness to think that God wants or needs our sacrifices. You know what our Lord Jesus
said? He said, I will have mercy. I'll have mercy. I don't want
sacrifices. I don't need sacrifices. Sacrifices
are over. Sacrifices don't need to be over.
What sacrifice can you bring to me? He said my business in
this world is to show mercy. To show grace. And there's no
need of grace and mercy if you got your own sacrifice. And he
said I don't need you to sacrifice. Don't bring your sacrifices.
Don't even bring me your sincerity. Don't bring me the best you think
you got. Don't bring me anything. You come to me on the ground
of mercy. Come to me, sue for mercy. Come
to me, sue for grace. Because that's all I'm going
to give you. You come any other way, no mercy. No mercy. And I tell you, Saul's sin in
doing this was in so many ways. First of all, he presumed to
enter the priesthood. He presumed to enter the priesthood.
Secondly, he presumed that God could be bribed by offering sacrifice. He could bribe God by offering
sacrifice. How many people, you know, people
say, oh, there's a God. I know there's a God. But now listen, I've done something
wrong and I'm in a mess here and I'm in a bad situation. What
do I need to do to get out of this bad situation? Oh, I know
what I'll do. I'll offer me a sacrifice. I'll
offer a prayer. I'll go find me a preacher somewhere
and I'll find me a Bible maybe and I'll go to the Lord and I'll
call on the Lord and I'll bribe Him and get out of this mess.
And that's what he tried to do. It's a carnal view of God. Oh,
what a carnal view of God. To think that God, you know,
is just waiting on man to give him something. To give him something. And here's another thing that
he did. He had no regard for placing his life and the life
of the nation in the hand of God. And you can look what David,
the difference between him and David. Look over here in Psalm
18. Look at Psalm 18 with me. David was just the opposite of
this. Saul didn't regard Israel, didn't regard his own life, putting
them in God's hands in such an awful way. Look what David said
here at verse 2 and 3, Psalm 18. Saul didn't do this. This is
the king now. This is God's warrior. The Lord
is my rock. My fortress. Oh my. Here's this great big
army. David said the Lord's my rock.
The Lord's my fortress. I'm inside this fort. God's my
fortress. God's my deliverer. My God's
my strength. And whom I will trust. He's my
butler. He's the horn of my salvation
and my high tower. had all the things that he said
God is to him. And I will call upon the Lord,
who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from my iniquities. Saul did none of those things,
not one of them. He was impatient. He was impatient. And when we get impatient, we'll
do things wrong. God said, be still and know that
I am God. And one of the greatest, one
of the hardest things for us to do is to wait on the Lord. I was talking to a preacher today,
and he said, you know, he told me he got some things going on
in his congregation, and he said, I said, boy, he said, I don't
know what to do about it. And I said, well, he said, I'm
going to wait until the Lord deals with it. And that's the
wisest thing you can do. And if God don't deal with it,
all we'll do is make a mess out of things. But I do know this,
I do know this, waiting on God is one of the hardest things
we've ever done. We get up to a traffic light and we get impatient
that the light don't change fast enough. You get in a line and
you get aggravated because the line's not moving fast enough. You call customer service And
you're on that phone for 10, 15, 20 minutes, just amused,
some kind of awful music playing through there. And we get impatient
with those things right there. And most stresses in our life
is over the simplest things of impatience. And that's what he
did. He was impatient. And when a
man gets impatient, he'll get in trouble. Don't get impatient. There's a reason that line's
slow, you know. There's a reason that that light
stays as long as it is. And you're not going to get there
any faster by that light changing 10 seconds sooner. But that's
us. Ain't that right? That's the
way we are. We want things when we want them.
We want them now. We don't want to wait. I'll go
see a lion, and I'll say, I'll just go on. I won't even bother
to wait. I'll just go back to the house. I waited enough when I was in
the Marine Corps. I just waited in life for everything. And I tell you, I don't want
to do that anymore if I can help it. Now, I don't mind just a
few, but boy, if it's a great big one, I can go somewhere else
and do something else. But here's what he did. He offered
them burnt offerings. And look what happens in verse
10. And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an offering
into the burnt offering, Samuel came. Samuel got there. And Saul went out to meet him
that he might salute him. And the first thing Samuel said
to him, what in the world have you done? What have you done?
Now listen, here's one thing, Saul, he already took the credit
for something he didn't do. Now watch what he justifies himself
and how he vindicates himself. He's not sorry for anything he's
done. Now watch how he vindicates himself.
And Saul said, because I saw that the people were scattered
from me. And thou camest not within the days appointed. And
that the Philistines were gathered together at Michmash. Therefore
said I the Philistines will come down upon me to gild you out
and I have not made supplication unto the Lord. And listen to
what he says now. And I forced myself therefore and offered
a burnt offering. I just made myself do it. But one thing he never did. He
never said I'm sorry. He never said I sinned. He never
said I presumed. He never told Samuel. He said,
Samuel, I did wrong. He never, ever showed it. Everything
he did is somebody else's fault. The people scattered in front
of me. That's the first thing that happened. Oh my. And you didn't come when you're
supposed to. If you would have been here, this wouldn't have
happened. Just like Adam in the garden. It's the woman that you
gave me. Everybody's got somebody else
to blame. And I'm the worst in the world
for it. I'm certainly not going to be wrong most of the time
if I can help it. Are you? If we can help it, we're
going to blame somebody else. That's just human nature. Ain't
that right, Sherman? But that's what he did. He justifies himself. And he
said, I forced myself. I forced myself. And Samuel said, Saul, you've
done foolishly. You've not kept the commandment
of the Lord thy God. And he commanded you. Now would
you Lord, the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever,
but now thy kingdom shall not continue. And the Lord has sought
him a man after his own heart. I hope I can preach from that
next week. And the Lord hath commanded him, this man after
his own heart, to be over his people. Let me tell you about
us being impatient and him being impatient. Just give you a couple
things real quick. First of all, We know that God
works all things according to His purpose. We're all tried
at different times. All of us are tried. God put
him in the crucible and he failed. And every time God put Saul in
the crucible, he failed. But for us, who some of you still
know that I am God, wait I say on the Lord, wait I say upon
the Lord. And God works all things according
to His purpose. Nothing's happened without God's
purpose. We're predestinated according
to the purpose after the counsel of His own will. God does everything
after the counsel of His own will. And here's the second thing
about God doing everything on purpose. He works all things
out for His own glory. He's going to do everything for
His own glory. And I'm telling you what, beloved,
and that's what we want more than anything in this world.
God helping us to do that. We don't know God's providence
or purpose in our lives until it happens. But I think God said,
you know, it's like those fellows over at James said, listen, we're
going to go to this town and we're going to buy and sell and
we're going to get gain. And he said, how do thou know
us? They said, what in the world
do you think you're doing? Who do you think you are that
can say, I'm going to go do such and such? You should say, if
it's the Lord's will, I'll go do it. And so we don't know God's
will and purpose in our lives until it happens. But here's
one thing also we know about His purpose. We do know His purpose
was in salvation. God had a purpose of saving the
people in this world. God had a purpose in saving His
elect in this world. God had a purpose in saving sinners
in this world. And we know how He did it. We know how He does it. And we
know why He does it. To bring glory to Himself through
His Son forever and ever. Amen. And I tell you what, I'm
saved on purpose. And if you're saved, you're saved
on purpose. God didn't sneak up behind you
and say, Boo! I give up? No, no. He comes,
He meets you head on and when He gets through with you, you're
tickled to death. As old Scott used to say, He
saves you against your will with your full consent. And that's right. I mean He brings
such pressure and barrier that you're so thankful that God's
got a purpose and that purpose was towards you. And then God works according
to his own time frame. He was worried here about Samuel
not getting there. Samuel didn't get there until
late in the evening that day. But he decided to go ahead and
start doing something anyway instead of waiting until Samuel
got there. He knew he didn't have no right
to offer sacrifices. But God works according to His
timeframe. Sometimes we'll get in a situation,
and I know some of you have done this with people that you love
and things that go on in your lives. Days and weeks can sometimes
seem like forever to us. But it's just a moment, just
a snap of a finger to God. He said a day is as a thousand
years and a thousand years as a day in God's sight. God works
according to His own timeframe. And just like God made promises
to Abraham, I'm going to make you the father of a great nation,
many nations. Told him to look to the sky and
look to the sand. Well, Abraham, you know, he got
impatient. And you know what his impatience
cost him? Producing Ishmael. He took Hagar and he had Ishmael.
And what happened to Ishmael? He couldn't stand. with the promise
sign. He couldn't stay. That flesh
and spirit cannot dwell together in harmony. They can't do it.
And we can't do it now. Our flesh and our new man cannot
get along. They can't do it. The flesh lusts
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. That means
they war against one another. That's the way Ishmael and Isaac
was. They couldn't dwell in the same
tent. Ishmael's gotta go. And one of
these days, his flesh has gotta go and that new man is the one
that's gonna go to glory. That's why we have this war in
his flesh. And oh my, let us patiently,
let us, let us patiently wait on God. Be still. Be still and wait on God. I know
every one of us, everybody in this building tonight, I'd say
it gets impatient sometimes over somebody you love. You want to
see them saved. You want to see them confess
Christ. Or something going on in your
home that you want to change. And it don't change. You keep
praying and praying. You want things to change. And
you want things to happen. But it still don't happen. You
got children that you just constantly think about and nothing don't
happen. But what are we going to do? We can't take things in
our own hands. We certainly don't want to do
that. But what are we going to do? We're going to wait on the
Lord. We're going to wait on Him. At
His time, He'll work in our home. In His time He'll work with our
children. I may be dead and gone for years before any one of my
children ever make a confession and they may never ever know
Christ. But I'm going to wait on the
Lord until it happens. What else are we going to do? God give us faith to wait and
be patient. before the Lord. If Saul would
have waited just a little while longer, Samuel would have been
there. But he lost everything because
he wouldn't wait. He wouldn't wait. Oh, blessed Master, oh Savior,
Savior, Savior, our Father, precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
His blessed, blessed name. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the truth as it is in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
it's hard. It's hard for us sometimes to
wait. This flesh finds a terrible time
sometimes to wait, to get impatient. But Lord, give us that ability,
that faith, that grace, to wait on you, to not interfere, to
not intrude into the things of God, to not intrude in what you're
doing for other people. And Lord, in our homes, with
our children, the things that trouble us, bother us, burden
us, sometimes keeps us awake at night.
We ask that you give us grace and faith to wait, be patient,
and trust you to deal with it in your time and for your glory. In Christ's blessed name, amen. Amen. Learning to lean. Learning to lean. I'm learning to lean. Jesus. Finding more power than
I've ever known. I'm learning to lean on Jesus. I'll see you Sunday, God willing.
Or Friday night. Friday night, no.