Hammer on Anvil '

I have been meditating recently on 1 Samuel 15. Samuel the prophet tells King Saul that God wants
him to attack the evil Amalekites for how they treated Israel. The word from the Lord is clear; Saul is to totally destroy them. Women, children, cattle sheep -- "anything that belongs to them" (vs. 3).

Saul was not obedient, though. Thinking he knew better than God, he spared "the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs -- everything that was good." He also spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites. But "everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed" (vs. 9).

The word of the Lord came immediately to Samuel, and it was not a gentle word. God was angry, and said He regretted making Saul king. When Samuel confronted Saul about his disobedience, Saul assured Samuel that he did obey, and he only kept the "best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God."

Ah, we humans are masters of backpedaling, aren't we? When confronted with our sin, we sometimes make excuses to rationalize why we did what we did -- or didn't do what we were supposed to do. We act as if God should settle for partial obedience.

Samuel then had the difficult job of communicating God's judgment to Saul:

Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.

Ouch. I wonder if Saul thought to himself, Geez, one little mistake and I get dethroned? I've never been dethroned (except from my pride), but I have certainly been in Saul's position, where God called me on something and I tried to make excuses.

The thing Saul forgot is that God is God, as Samuel reminds him in verse 29: "He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind." In other words, God didn't change His plan to destroy the Amalekites simply because Saul decided to wing it and make a few alterations. That's call sin, my friends.

And to make it worse, Saul then pretended that he only did what he did so that he would have the choicest animals to sacrifice to God. Have you ever done that? Have you ever sinned, but tried to justify it as somehow righteous behavior?

For example, someone may boast, "I just say the first thing that comes to my mind. I speak the truth, and that's just how I am." Never mind the fact that their mouth is like a loose cannon, and leaves destruction in its wake. They conveniently forget God's warnings about the power of life and death being in the tongue. In other words, they are doing what Saul did -- their sin is obvious to everyone else, but they justify it as righteous because they are "only speaking the truth."

Another person may swear up and down that they have forgiven someone who offended them. Yet when the two happen to bump into each other in a public setting, it is painfully obvious that a grudge is still being nursed. If you try to gently confront your brother or sister about their lack of forgiveness, you may hear something like, "I told God I forgave that person; it doesn't mean I have to be civil to them." In their minds they are righteous, but they are still clinging tightly to their perceived "right" to be unfriendly and standoffish.

I am guilty in both of these scenarios, and probably a host of others. I am learning to not try to justify my sin, but to do as David did when Nathan the prophet exposed his sin with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 12. He said very simply, "I have sinned against the Lord." Period.

Remember, my dear friends, we are called to live our lives according to God's standard for us, not according to what the world dictates, and not according to what we might see others doing. The next time you are tempted to rationalize your sin, spend some time in worship. As you stand naked before a holy, righteous God, you will come face-to-face with the gravity of your sin. You will also come face-to-face with a God who loves you and will forgive you, and whose Spirit empowers you to live victoriously over sin every day. Remember, the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is alive in YOU!