We are thankful to see each one here tonight. We're going to turn to the book of 1 Samuel chapter 15. 1 Samuel chapter 15. This will probably close out the study we've been doing on things that hinder. I know there's more that could be said, different things to be looked at as far as what God has burdened us. We feel like we're at the end of that. But we're going to turn to 1 Samuel chapter 15. And we've been dealing with rebellion, and some people think rebellion is, well, I'm just 100% totally against God. Well, that is certainly rebellion. But there are different forms of rebellion. There are different ways that we can rebel against God. and not honor Him. And that's what we want to look at tonight in 1 Samuel chapter 15. Before we begin, we do want to look to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, as we come to You this day, Father, we're so thankful for the many wonderful things that You've done for us. Father, You've been far better to us than we deserve. And Father, we pray that we be led by Your Spirit to accomplish Your will, that Father, we as Your people could be drawn close to You. And Father, we pray that we could live for You and be the people that You would have us to be, and not just partially serve You, but fully serve You with our lives. Father, we ask for these blessings, and we ask it all in the name of Jesus, for He is worthy. Amen. We're going to try to read through most of this account in chapter 15. I'm just going to try to read through it quickly and go back and make some statements and try to bring about some things that I certainly pray could encourage us and help us to be aware of things in our lives that We don't make similar mistakes. Some people can look down upon King Saul and all that he did wrong and many others in the scripture, but if we're not careful we do similar things and we justify ours by criticizing somebody else's. And yet we need to make sure that we look at ours first. But in verse 1 of 1 Samuel 15, it says, Samuel also said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. And hearken there, of course, means follow, take heed, do it. 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 tell him 200,000 footmen and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley. And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites, and Saul smote the Amalekites, from Hevelah until thou comest to Shur, that is, over against Egypt. And he took Agag, the king of the Malachites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword." Now, you'll think, my goodness, he's doing a great job here. He utterly destroys them with the sword. He does take the king aside. But Saul and the people spared Agag. Now, that's not something they weren't supposed to do. They spared Agag and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen. Notice that, they weren't supposed to spare the sheep, the oxen, or the fatlings, or the lambs, or any of that, but they did. All that was good and would not utterly destroy them. But everything that was vile and refused, that they destroyed utterly. Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night, And when Samuel arose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord." Now I want us to notice something here. Saul said, I have done what the Lord wanted me to do. And I believe if he had taken a lie detector test, he would have passed it. And what I mean by that is he believed that he had. He had justified everything in his own sight. Surely God won't mind this, God won't mind that. And I believe in his mind, he thought that he had done what God wanted. And that's why feelings and emotions are not what we go by. There's times I can feel like I'm right with God and I can be far away from Him. There's other times I can feel like there was a time when Job felt like God was a far off, but yet He wasn't. So our feelings and emotions don't tell us anything. Some people go into a church house and they say, Oh, I felt the Spirit of God in that service. What they might have felt was just a good song service, just good singing. It might not have been the Spirit of God, but our emotions will deceive us. Our emotions will lead us astray. And Saul here, you know, he meets Samuel and he's kind of boasting about it. I have fulfilled, I've performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, what meaneth then this bleeding of sheep in mine ears? And notice that, excuse me, immediately Samuel goes, it doesn't sound like it. Weren't you told to kill all these? Weren't you told to destroy all this? Yet I'm hearing... I'm hearing the bleeding of sheep in my ears. And the lowing of the oxen which I hear. And Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Now, I don't know here if that was the truth or not. I don't know if they were really going to offer all this up for a sacrifice unto God. I think God knew the heart. And I think just going by that, I don't think that was their intention. There might have been some that they were going to offer up, but you see some good cattle, there's a lot of people that will look at it and say, well, that would do good for me. I can just take that home. Spoils of war, so to speak. But that's not what God told them to do. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord said to me. This night, and he said unto himself, and Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel. And the Lord sent thee on a journey, 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 didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord." Notice he comes back and he's defending himself. I mean, he really believes it. No, I've obeyed. We've killed all these people. "...which the Lord sent me 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 again, he wasn't told to spare the king. That's what he chose to do. And then notice this statement in verse 21, took of the spoil, sheep, and oxen, and chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, as sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal." And Samuel said, "...hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity of idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king." I'm going to stop reading there in this passage of Scripture. Notice the way that the Lord looks at this. Saul, you've rebelled against me. Well, the people did this. Who's the king? Let's be honest here. If Saul would have said, no, I told y'all we're not taking any of those sheep or oxen. Y'all kill them all. They would have obeyed the voice of the king. But he gave in to the people. He let a king live. He let all the sheep and oxen be taken for spoil. And God looked at it as rebellion. And you can say, wait a minute. Saul, I mean, he killed. You know, that's not even a nation anymore. The Malachites, they're killed. They've got a king, but there's no people. I mean, it's pretty close to what God wanted. They killed a lot of the animals. They killed what they didn't want to take. They didn't obey what God had told them to do. Do you know there's a lot of people today that think, if I serve God with 70% of my heart, God will be well-pleased. Some probably have it less than that, some may have a little bit more than that, but there's a lot of people that have it within their heart, I'll serve God 50%, 70%, 75%, and God will be well-pleased with that. And that's not Scripture. It's not what God has told us. God didn't say, I want 50% of your heart or 75% of the heart. He said, give me your whole heart. And He says that multiple times in Scripture. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our might. Jesus said that's the greatest commandment. And notice that statement, with all. Not part. All. You know, over the years, I've seen a lot of churches argue about things. They argue about a lot of different things. You know, this church over here might say, well, I tell you what, we really follow the Lord and we got all the doctrines correct. But they're not training up the next generation, they're not going out to reach lost souls. Might hold doctrine right, but they've left their first love. That's covered in Revelation chapter 2 with the church at Ephesus. And there's a lot of people that look at the church at Ephesus and say, see here, they didn't witness to lost people. So, you know, we witnessed to lost people. Now we might not hold to the doctrines, it's true, but we witnessed to lost people and we do this work really well. You know, it's amazing over the years how many churches I've come across that justify all the things that they do wrong based upon what they do right. Y'all remember what God told the church at Ephesus? He said, if you don't repent, I'm going to remove the candlestick. But a lot of people forget he also told the Laodiceans, who evidently were good at having service, maybe even good at spreading the gospel, but they were not good about keeping the doctrines and following it. They were about worldliness and they had let sin of the world come in. And God said, you're neither cold nor hot, and because of that he said, I'm going to spew thee out of my mouth. In other words, you make me sick. Which church was in a worse condition? There's a lot of people who love to argue that point, but I'll tell you the honest truth from Scripture. Both of them were in the same shape. Both of them were in danger of God not being with them anymore. And a lot of people today like to say, well, we do most things right. Well, we do this right or that right. But that's not what God said. Over the years of being a preacher, I've had many from both sides. I've had some people say, well, I'm too conservative on some things, so not received by them because I don't fit in, I guess, their clique or whatever it might be. And then on the other side, I've got some that say I'm too liberal. And I'm not trying to be liberal or conservative one way or the other. I want to stick with what thus saith the Word of God. I remember what God told Joshua. He said, don't turn to the left hand or to the right hand. Don't add to the Word of God. Don't take away from it. If I'm disobeying God in anything and I'm doing it willingly, I'm in rebellion against God. And it doesn't matter if it's, well, I tried to show more compassion here, so I covered up this sin or that sin, and let this go or that go, didn't hold to this doctrine because it wasn't well received, or whether I was holding to doctrine, but because I was so scared of false doctrine coming in, I didn't share the gospel with anybody out in the world. Either way I do it, I'm wrong. In the Great Commission, we're not only told to go into all the world sharing the gospel, But we're to disciple people. We're to train up the next generation. We're to teach them all things whatsoever the Lord commanded. And that gets difficult because all things will offend some people. It just will. And there's a lot of people that, you know, come to these conclusions. Well, I'll teach 90% of it. I'll teach 80% of it. But if I leave something off, I've actually committed a rebellious sin. If I don't preach the whole counsel of God, I've committed a rebellion. I've gone against the Lord. And that's what He tried to get across to the church at Ephesus and to the church at Laodicea. It's not that one was better than the other or greater than the other. It was that they were both leaving off things that they should do. And a lot of times people sit back and they say, oh, God's going to be well pleased with me. And I think when Judgment Day comes, a lot of people are going to get a shock. There are some people who are going to say, well, I gave to the poor. Giving to the poor is good. But if I give to the poor while committing fornication, that's not good. If I give to the poor while committing adultery, that's not good. If I take care of the poor but I don't hold up Christ as the only way of salvation, it's not good. And there's a lot that don't see. It's not that we partially serve God, it's that we give Him everything. is that we strive for that mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus. That's a mark of perfection. And a lot of people say, Preacher, we're never going to meet that. Let me say this, if somebody had snuck some of these sheep and oxen somehow out and Saul didn't know about it, but he tried to follow God to the letter of everything God wanted him to do, God wouldn't have held him accountable. He wouldn't have held him accountable. He held him accountable because he knew what was going on and he didn't do things right. Today, there's so many people that look at their lives and they want to look at, oh, I do this good and I do that good, and maybe even 50% or more of your life, and a lot of times we even compare ourselves to other churches, other Christians, and certainly the world, and we say, well, compared to them, I'm doing pretty well. Again, that is a horrible way of looking at things. It is a deceitful way of looking at things. And I know it's easy to do. I've done it before. I've looked at things in my life, and I've tried to justify things in my life that I was doing. It may not be as big as some of these things in the Scripture, but I'll tell you, in God's eyes, it's important. It's important if I know that I'm doing something wrong and I'm still going to do it. It's rebellion. It's willingly disobeying the Lord. You know, Jesus gave an illustration in the New Testament. He took two sons and He said, you know, there was one son that his father told him to do something. He said, yes, Daddy, I'll go do it. But when he left, he didn't do it. Another son He said, I need you to do this. And he told his father, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to serve you. I'm not going to do what you want. But then he repented and went out and did what his father had asked. And Jesus asked the question, he said, which one did his father's will? And they answered, they said, the one that actually did it. The one that actually submitted and did what his father said. There's a lot of people that use their intentions. They say, well, I told God I was going to do this. Well, you know, I tried to do the right thing. I just got distracted and went off some other way. But God says, I'm going to be pleased when you obey Me. And there's a lot of people that make excuses for things in their life. They say, well, I did this little bit of wrong so that I could do more for God. I don't know if y'all have heard that excuse before, but I have. Some people say, well, I had to commit this sin here so that I could get to this place that I could serve God. A lot of times that's with money. It's not always that. It's sometimes other things. But I've heard people make the excuse, well, if I go out and make this pile of money, then I can give more to the church, and I can give more to mission work, and I can give more to this. And I'm going, does God want your money or obedience? Does He want faithfulness? And there's a lot of times that people have things backwards in their thinking and how they approach it. And the sad thing is, they're probably in the same condition as Saul. Oh, I did exactly what God said to do. God's going, no you didn't. In fact, the way that God looked at what Saul had done, He said, you rebelled against Me. That's what He said. He said, because thou hast rejected. Notice that term. He didn't just say, you got a little bit off from the Word of God. He said, you rejected. the Word of God, the Word of the Lord. And because of that, He hath also rejected thee from being king." Sadly, there's a lot of times we look at things from a humanistic perspective. Well, if I do 90% of what my boss wants at the job, you know, he's pleased with me. If I do 70% of what my boss wants, he's pleased with me. But God is not your boss. He's the holy and righteous God. And He said, I don't want part of you, I want it all. I want you to wholly follow Me. I want you to wholly go with Me. And there's people that do these things in their marriages, they do this with raising their children, with so many other things. They say, well, I'll somewhat teach my children the ways of God. But I'm also going to teach them some of the ways I want them to do things that might not be what God wants. Have I raised them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord if I've done that? Or have I taught them to compromise the Word of God? Have I taught them to make excuses for not following God? If I love my wife most of the time, and I forgive her for most things, do I obey God? Or if I hold grudges? If I have alt against my wife, as the Scripture talks about? Have I wholly pleased the Lord? Or have I displeased Him? If I forgive sometimes, but not all the time, when God tells me to forgive somebody, have I obeyed Him? Or have I rebelled against His commandment? See, there's a lot of things that people have compromised on and what they don't see is a lot of times what we say we compromised on is actually, in God's eyes, rebellion. And there's some saying, well, I'm not like this church over here. I'm not like that church over there. I don't do like this person or that person. And God's going, yeah, but how are you according to My Word? And some people say, preacher, we can't be perfect. It's not about being perfect. It's about aiming for it. It's about the desire to fully follow the Lord. Not halfway. Not partially. Not just enough to get me by or let me get along with somebody else, but that in all things I'm not turning to the left hand nor to the right hand with the Word of God, but I seek to wholly keep it. God knows the thoughts and intents of our heart. He knows what we're trying to do. I could have turned over to the book of James. People talk about pure religion. And I've had people tell me this. Preacher, you know, we're to see about those widows, and we're to see about those orphans, and we're to take care of the needy. And I go, yep, there's another part to that verse too. To keep ourselves unspotted from the world. And y'all well know there's some who try to keep themselves so-called unspotted from the world, but don't care about the widows and orphans. It's not a one or the other on this. You know, there's a whole lot of buffets in our day and time, isn't there? I'll just go down to the table and I'll pick out what I want. And I'll leave what I don't want. There's a lot of people that do that with the Word of God. A lot of people do. They like those restaurants. I think it's Burger King that says, have it your way. That's not how this works. Mars says, have it His way. God's way. It's not my church. It's not my way of doing things. It's not how I want it to be in my life. It is a submission to what God has told us to do. And I have to remember that in my marriage. I have to remember that in how I raise my children. I have to remember that in how I work. And all the things that I do, that I'm going to give God an account for it. And there's a lot of people that have pinned a lot of roses on themselves. They got crowns on top of their heads and all kinds of treasures laid up in heaven. And they might be surprised when they meet the Lord and says, you know what? You actually rebelled against Me. And they might be just like Saul. No, Lord. Y'all remember what Jesus made in the statement? He said, there's going to be many coming in the last day, talking about Judgment Day. And he talks about the judgment. He said, there's many going to come to me telling me how they fed the poor, how they did many mighty works in my name. They performed miracles. They cast out devils. They did all this. And he said, they did it in my name. And he said, I'm going to tell them, depart from me, you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you. And those are scriptures that a lot of people would just like to pass by. Just like to skip and overlook, but they're very important. Saul thought that he was serving God. And God said, no, you've actually rebelled against Me. You actually rejected what I gave you. He tried to tell Samuel, no, no, I did exactly what God wanted done. Samuel said, that's not what God told me. That's not the way God saw it. And look, I never want to put more of a burden on us than we need to have. I never want to add anything to the Scripture and put something on you that's not there. Never want to do that. There's things I can tell you I wish I could preach, but I don't have enough Scripture to preach it. There's likes that I have, dislikes that I have, things that I would like to preach or like to say, or some things I would like not to preach sometimes. But if it's in Scripture, I've got to. It's not mine to pick and choose what I preach or don't preach, what parts of the Bible I like or don't like. It's to make sure that you know what the Word of God says. And if we've got it in our mind, well, I can treat my spouse mostly good, but not actually do exactly what God said. That's not good. And it's not something God's going to honor or be pleased with. If we say as a church, well, we'll pick or choose. We'll either try to hold true to good doctrine or we will try to be witnesses out in the world for the Lord. It's not one or the other, it's both. Jesus didn't say just share me or just hold to the doctrines. He said do both. To carry the gospel out into the world and to teach them all things whatsoever I've commanded you. Not part, but all. And I don't want us to be deceived. And some people say, but it's so hard to serve the Lord. It's only hard if we don't have it at heart. When God has our whole heart, it's easy to say, if He said it, I want to do it. If this is what He commanded me to do, then that's what I'll do. And I'll submit to Him and do it. The things that become hard is when we try to please men while at the same time trying to please God. You can't do that. You cannot please God and mammon. You have to choose. And the choice is God comes first. Even over self. And I want to encourage us in life. Don't pick and choose what parts of the Bible you're going to follow. Everything that God shows to you, everything that God would have you to do, submit to it. Yield to it. Follow it. And I'll even encourage you to do this, follow it with joy. Because we know that if God gave it to us, it's for a good reason. But don't think you can halfway serve Him or even 75% serve Him. and knowingly do contrary than what He told us to do in some part of our lives and think God's going to get honor out of it. Saul tried that. And God didn't just say, that won't fly, Saul. He said, you've rebelled against Me. He said, you've rejected My Word. You've rejected what I told you to do. Please take that seriously. Please take it to heart. Because there are so many today that want to halfway serve God and then halfway live in the world. They want to pick and choose how they're going to serve God instead of fully submit to Him. And that's doing a lot of damage. Whether it's the church at Ephesus doing it, or whether it's the church at Laodicea doing it. Both were doing great damage. And we don't need to sit back and say, well, I'd have rather been at Ephesus, I'd have rather been at Laodicea. No, both were called to repent because both were not doing what God had told them to do. Don't think we need to pick halfway, pick a certain direction. Do all that God has commanded us to do. That's when we hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant. This is the message that God has given us. If you'd have anything upon your heart, I invite you to come. I have verse of a song.