Introduction
The Word of God is amazing rich. The more we read it, the more it speaks to us. The Bible is a living book in the hands of the Spirit of God. When he yields it, it becomes more powerful than a two-edged sword that penetrates deep into our hearts and exposes all that is there. The reason I am saying all that is that the more I read chpt. 15, the more things are there for us to consider.
I. The Things We Have Already Seen in Chpt. 15
A. God is serious about sin as demonstrated by the command to destroy the Amalekites – the severity of God.
"To the modern ears, this sounds alarmingly like ethnic cleansing. But this is ethical cleansing rather than ethnic cleansing. This is an act of judgment against sin. Destruction will come to the Amalekites not because they are Amalekites, but because they are sinners. In a sense, this should alarm us. Not because it is unfair, but because it is far; and because while we are not Amalekites, we are sinners. Their destruction is a picture of what humanity deserves, and faces, from God. When judgment comes, nothing – nothing – is left." Tim Chester
B. God is a God of the big picture and of every detail that forms the big picture; that makes him a very personal God – we see that in the type of obedience he requires of Saul (we'll likely come back to this subject again).
C. Any change in the way God deals with an individual is based on a change in the individual because God never change in his essence – the problem of repentance in vv. 11 and 29.
II. The Things That Are Still There for Us to Consider in Chpt. 15.
A. Faith in and love for God always results in obedience demonstrated in repentance, 22-23.
B. True worship is from the heart and always according to the Word of God, 22-23.
C. There is a time when we must separate ourselves even from other professing believers, 35.
D. There is a repentance that needs to be repented of, 24-25, 30 – that's what we are going to consider today.
III. Saul's Performance through This Whole Episode.
A. Saul was commissioned with a very difficult task – destroy the Amalekites – but didn't seem to have any qualms about it for he proceeded to do it, 4-5.
B. Saul had the opportunity to obey God – he had the Amalekites on the ropes, 7.
C. Saul made a conscious choice to disobey God, 8-9.
D. Saul tried to spin his sin and make it into obedience instead of disobedience, 13-15, 20-21.
1. As soon as Samuel gets there, Saul starts on his "I'm a good guy" campaign – "I did everything God told me to do," 13 – as suspicious as the kids using the word accidentally.
2. Saul really confused doing what he wanted with doing what the Lord wanted.
a. To destroy all the possessions of the Amalekites would not bring him and his troops any immediate, earthly benefit.
b. But saving the best for "sacrifices" would ensure that they would have several nice meals on the Amalekites' tab.
c. Notice Saul's spiritual response: "We kept the animals in order to worship YOUR God."
3. Saul reminds me of the little kid with chocolate all over his face and yet denying vehemently he ever touched the chocolate chip cookies.
4. Listening to Saul's and Samuel's conversation is just like listening to the average conversation with a post-modern person.
a. Did you destroy the Amalekites completely? Yes!, 13.
b. What are the sheep and the cattle doing here, then? We kept them!, 14-15.
c. But didn't you just say you destroyed them completely? Yup! See, here is their king, alive!, 20.
E. At the end of the day, Saul did not obey the Lord, plain and simple, and he was unwilling to recognize that, 19, 22-23.
"Saul did not listen to Yahweh's voice; he did not obey Yahweh's clear command. One does not call that an alternate religious understanding, or an expression of theological pluralism, or a quest for finding one's identity. It is rebellion. It is arrogance. It is idolatry." Ralph Dale Davis
F. His unwillingness to obey God's clear command compounded by his unwillingness to repent truly led him to be dismissed as king, 26.
1. In Gilgal, Saul was crowned, 11:14-15.
2. In Gilgal, Saul's dynasty ended, 13:7b-15.
3. In Gilgal, Saul himself is rejected as king.
IV. A Look at Saul's Repentance.
A. Several times in this chapter, Saul seems to repent, 24, 30a.
B. But his repentance was about saving face with his troops, not restoring his relationship with his God, 24-25, 30.
C. You see, the same reason that led him to disregard God's command also keeps him from truly repenting: pride.
1. When God first chose him to be king, he was a humble man, 17 – remember, he was hiding among the equipment.
2. Now he is even building monuments for himself, 12.
3. Pride will not only lead us into more sin, but it will also prevent us from repenting from the sins we have committed.
D. Saul's repentance was a repentance that needed to be repented of – look at all his excuses.
1. "Look at what I have done (20). I may have spared Agag, but I've destroyed everything else as I was told."
a. In effect, Saul is saying that partial obedience is enough.
b. How easy it is to excuse sin on the basis that we have not sinned in other ways!
1) I may have gotten angry with him at church; but at least I was at church!
2) Yes, I looked at soft porn on the web; but I didn't look at anything else.
c. Partial obedience equals disobedience; it doesn't excuse it.
2. "Everyone else does it," 15, 21.
a. "I know I have done wrong, but other people are worse than me."
b. God holds each of us accountable for our own actions.
c. We must not take our standards from, or justify our actions based on a comparison with other people – only with the Bible.
3. "It seemed like the sensible thing to do. Killing all those animals seemed such a waste, so we decided that there was a better use for them."
a. So-called "common sense" does not trump God's Word.
b. As a matter of fact, sanctified common sense will always agree with God's Word.
4. "I did it for God (21). It may technically have been sin, but my motives were good."
a. All sinning is against God.
b. God does not need us to break his law in order for his will to be done.
5. "I was afraid of the people (24)."
a. Even if this is really the case, fear of others is no justification for sin.
b. Jesus put is bluntly and brilliantly.
Mt. 10:28 – And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
"Those that are willing to justify themselves are commonly forward to condemn others, and to lay the blame upon any rather than take it to themselves." Matthew Henry
E. All these excuses help us see that Saul's repentance was the type that needs to be repented of.
F. Saul was not unique in his repentance – we may find ourselves doing the same thing or encouraging others to do the same thing.
1. In "repenting," we may actually excuse.
2. And in trying to help others, we may actually excuse.
"Someone tells us about their sin, and we minimise it by repeating one of these excuses. Don't worry about it, we might say. You're a good person most of the time or Everyone does it or Your motives were good or You were doing your best or You are tired… ill… under a lot of pressure at the moment."
G. The real problem with all these excuses is that we take upon ourselves to decide what is right or wrong, what matters and what does not.
1. We judge people for their failings, and excuse our own.
2. We play God.
3. We think we know better than God.
4. We act as if we are the judge of the world.
5. We center all on ourselves – "I sinned, so honor me," 30.
6. And that is blasphemy!
a. The excuses don't make our sin better, but worse.
b. Not only do we sin, but we then decide what is right and wrong.
c. We do not trust God's Word to be true and good and we sack God.
"When we do not repent, our voice rules our life or we are ruled by the voices of other people. But when we repent, it is God's voice that shapes our lives." Tim Chester
V. True Repentance
A. Let's compare Saul's repentance with another king's repentance: King David.
1. King David was a sinner just like King Saul.
a. There was no essential difference between the two of them.
b. They were sinners by nature and they sinned in life.
2. The difference is on how they ultimately deal with their sins.
a. There are two particular sins that are singled out in David's life.
1) His involvement with Bathsheba and the consequent murder of Uriah.
2) The counting of the people of Israel towards the end of his reign.
b. Both of them are dealt with through thorough, real repentance.
3. The one that we are more familiar with is his involvement with Bathsheba.
a. After he committed adultery and then murder to cover it up, David went on his marry for the good part of year without repenting.
b. Eventually, God, in his infinite mercy, sent Nathan the prophet to confront the king regarding his sin, 2 Sam. 12.
1) The story of the little lamb and David's indignation.
2) David received the gift that God had sent through Nathan and repented of his sin, but in a way completely different than Saul's.
B. Repentance that does not need to be repented of, Ps. 51:3-4.
Ps. 51:3-4 – For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight—that You may be found just when You speak, andblameless when You judge.
"The sin is not vaguely expressed and in a neutral context but intensely personal – MINE – and is so described five successive times in the first three verses. True penitence is not a dead knowledge of sin committed, but a vivid, ever-present consciousness of it. Thus poignantly affected by this fixation of sin and dominated by a feeling of complete submission, the psalmist opens the hidden world of his soul, exposing his guilt-stricken conscience" Edward Dalglish (Psalm Fifty-One in the light of ancient near Eastern patternism [Brill, 1962] 104).
1. David makes no excuses, offers no rationalizations, and refuses to shift blame.
a. He doesn't say, "Well, now wait a minute God. Yes, I sinned. But it takes two to tango. What about Bathsheba's complicity in all this? She's so beautiful and seductive. And my wife wasn't meeting my needs. Besides, the pressures of being king over your people are enormous. Given what I faced on a daily basis, I'd expect you to cut me a little slack."
b. No!
2. There's no insanity plea or appeal to diminished capacity.
a. Do you recall the infamous "Twinkie Defense" used by Dan White when he killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk in 1985?
b. He pleaded innocent based on his alleged "diminished capacity" brought on by certain biochemical reactions to junk food! – "I'm innocent, Your Honor. I overdosed on Twinkies!"
c. None of that here.
3. My sin, he says, "is always before me" (v. 3b).
a. It is no intermittent flash but a perpetual obsession, a sight from which I can never turn away.
b. It is, as it were, seared on the inside of my eye-lids: I see it all the time.
4. Worse still, it is a sin ultimately against God alone (v. 4a).
a. But how can it be against God "only" if he committed adultery with Bathsheba, conspired to kill her husband Uriah, disgraced his own family, and betrayed the trust of the nation Israel?
b. Perhaps David would argue that whereas one commits crimesagainst people, one sins only against God.
c. More likely still, "face to face with God, he sees nothing else, no one else, can think of nothing else, but His presence forgotten, His holiness outraged, His love scorned" (Perowne, 416).
d. David is so broken that he has treated God with such disregard that he is blinded to all other aspects or objects of his behavior.
5. David's confession is not simply to "get things off his chest," as if confession were merely a therapeutic release of sorts.
6. His confession is designed to tell everyone that God was in the right all along, that God's judgment was true, just, and that the Almighty is blameless (v. 4b).
C. The Lord forgives sinners like David who repent.
Ps. 51:14-17 – Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, the God of my salvation, andmy tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.
1 Jn. 1:9 – If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
D. What true repentance is and is not.
1. It is a grace (gift) of God
a. It is not something we offer to God, but something that God works in us.
b. Yet, at the same time it is something that you are to pursue as if your life depends upon it because it does! All the commands to repent. God will give you the grace to repent.
2. True repentance that leads to life in Jesus Christ includes a humbling of the sinner, a breaking of the heart that may happen in two ways:
a. The law of God comes and hits your heart like a rock, breaking it into hundreds of little pieces, and you are convicted of your sin and you run Christ.
b. Or it happens as when your ice heart is melted by the Gospel.
Rom. 2:4 – Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
c. Therefore, both the goodness of God and the severity of God drive people to repentance.
3. True repentance that leads to life will result in transformation (change) of the whole person.
a. Repentance causes a change in the mind – metanoia includes the mind and how the penitent thinks of sin, he looks at sins as the greatest evil.
b. Repentance causes a change in the affections – it is not the absence of sin in our lives, but the way we look at and feel about sin.
"It turns rejoicing in sin into sorrowing for sin; it turns boldness in sin into holy shame; it turns love of sin into hatred…. The penitent takes the sacrificing knife of mortification, and runs it through the heart of his dearest lusts." Thomas Watson
4. Repentance is not a natural softness and tenderness of heart
a. Some people are naturally inclined to weep when they see any object of pity.
b. Many weep when they see another's person misery, who will not weep at their own sin.
5. It is not fear of the consequence of sin.
a. A person who has lived a life of sin may suddenly see hell ready to devour him/her, and is filled with anguish and terror.
b. After a while the tempest of conscience is blown over and he/she is quiet.
c. He/she then concludes that he/she is a true penitent because he has felt some bitterness in sin.
d. But anguish and trouble of mind followed by peace of mind is not necessarily repentance if there is no grieving for the offence against God and turning to him for forgiveness – Screwtape would be happy with this counterfeit repentance.
6. It is now taking some vow or making a resolution – Lord, if you get me out of this one, I'll never do it again.
7. If any of these things describe your repentance, turn away from and run to Christ.
"If you find that yours is a counterfeit repentance, and you have not repented aright, mend what you have done amiss. As in the body, if a bone be set wrong, the surgeon has not way but to break it again, and set it aright; so you must do by repentance; if you have not repented aright, you must have your heart broken again in a godly manner, and be more deeply afflicted for sin than ever." Thomas Watson
Conclusion
Here we have two kings and two very different ways of repenting of their sins. King Saul's model of repentance glorifies the prince of darkness. King David's true repentance glorifies the King of kings because it drives us to him.
2 Cor. 7:9-10 – Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.
How do you deal with your sins? Do they drive you to Christ? Or, are they taking you to the spiritual grave?
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