Breaking the Family Curse Part 7 "An Insecure, Arrogant King"
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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 and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.
Introduction.
Introduction.
In the movie Chariots of Fire there is a scene where the great Jewish-English runner Harold Abrahams speaks of the fear that drives him as a sprinter.
“In one hour’s time I will be out there again. I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor, four feet wide, with ten lonely seconds to justify my whole existence. But will I?”
The Heart of the Preacher: Preparing Your Soul to Proclaim the Word Misplaced Identity
When our primary identity gets wrapped up in our performance as preachers, we start to think like Harold Abrahams. We step up to the platform, raise our eyes and look over the congregation, with thirty lonely minutes to justify our existence—if not to others, at least to ourselves. What a terribly insecure way to live.
But the damage runs deeper than just our own internal sense of security. If we get the order reversed—finding our primary identity in our service for Christ rather than our salvation in Christ—we actually become dangerous in ministry. Instead of preaching to meet the needs of others, we preach to meet our own needs—our insatiable thirst for affirmation and validation. We also become tempted to modify our message to sustain the approval of our audience. In a sense, we become parasitic preachers, living off the very sheep we were called to serve.
Saul felt like an imposter in the role of a king. Like a runaway slave.
And so, like runaway slaves, we either flee our own reality or manufacture a false self which is mostly admirable, mildly prepossessing, and superficially happy. We hide what we know or feel ourselves to be (which we assume to be unacceptable and unlovable) behind some kind of appearance which we hope will be more pleasing. We hide behind pretty faces which we put on for the benefit of our public. And in time we may even come to forget that we are hiding, and think that our assumed pretty face is what we really look like.
Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes: Soundings in Christian Tradition (Templegate Publishers, 1980), 130.
The name Saul means “asked for” or “prayed for”. He had always been wanted but there was always a fear of being rejected and a desire for acceptance.
Be careful of your insecurities.
Saul was insecure because his identity was found in how he performed rather than in who he was.
Saul almost always failed God after a military victory. His insecurity became arrogance, and it brought him to ruin.
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.
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.
Utterly destroy - “Put under the ban”. Devote to destruction. (Joshua at Jericho)
God said, “Utterly destroy the thing.” Amen. Hallelujah. What we need today…You’re a baby and sissy around with a whole lot of things you ought to be destroying.
“Well, I’m afraid to testify of healing, ’cause when mama takes me down, the pastor will say, ‘Well, now, if he goes to starting that stuff around here, we’ll put him out of the church.’”
You know what God said? “Destroy that thing.” Get it out of your mind. Get it out of your way.
Pick up that little old Jebusite baby. Say, “He is so cute. He grins so little. So sweet. He’s a little Hivite baby. I’ll just tell you…”
The Bible said destroy that fellow, not pet him, and baby him. He will raise up and be just like his daddy. 53-0831 - God Talked To Moses
(Cute little baby)
You remember, he’ll grow up to be an Amalekite; he’ll pollute the camp.” And when those little things come back like that disagreeing with the Word of God, get rid of that thing.
It’s a growing little Amalekite. Looks cute, looks innocent; it looks like it’s all right, but don’t you have anything to do with. You stay away from it. 64-0830M - Questions And Answers #3
The battle is now in our minds. Don’t let that Amalekite thought come in your mind. Get rid of it, if you don’t it will grow.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, 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 the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
They kept the stuff that they reasoned would be okay because it was beautiful to them. They had no problem destroying other people’s sins.
Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying,
It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night.
It matters how you say it. (Jeremiah, Jesus. George Whitfield)
And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord.
He’s so confident in his works!
And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?
Be sure your sin will find you out.
You elevated your interpretation over the Prophet’s words.
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.
When the church gets away from the Word it will believe anything. It is like Eve. When Cain was born she said, “I’ve gotten a man from the Lord.” Now do you realize that she really meant that? She thought that she had a man from the Lord.
You see, once she had been deceived by taking the word of Satan instead of the Word of God she then thought that whatever she said was right.
If she said that she had a man from God, then she had a man from God. But God has set laws in His universe. A good seed can only bring forth good fruit and the evil seed can bring forth only evil fruit. CAB 04 - Smyrnaen
Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.
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?
God wanted to use Saul’s littleness.
In Isaiah’s vision the perfect Cherubim flew with wings covering their face, but Uzziah barged in uninvited.
Here is only one thing to be conscious of, your littleness. If you want to get somewhere with God, make yourself real little. 62-1013 - The Influence Of Another
God can do without you, He can do without me, but we can’t do without Him. We’ve got to have Him, for He is Life, and He alone.
Not to know His Book, not to know this, or know that, or know the creed. “But to know Him is Life,” know Him as the Person, Christ in you, the Word made flesh in you.
He has got to come in you. You! God and man must come one. You’re conscious of your littleness. 63-1130B - Influence
When you become little, God can work.
You come, say, “Now, Lord, I’ve been schooled for forty years now, I’m an intellectual student. I can quote that Bible with my eyes closed.” God can’t use a bit of that.
“Oh, I belong to the biggest church there is in the country. I’m the…I’m this, Lord. Oh, I’m a Pentecostal. I…Glory to God! I just received the Holy Ghost the other night. Hallelujah! You’re going to make me to do so-and-so.” God can’t use a bit of that.
Whenever you get licked and realize you are licked, and then come on back and humble yourself. Get weak, find out you’re human.
Human weaknesses will never be used of God; God by the human weaknesses pours Himself into you, then He uses Himself. You just become an instrument. Certainly! You’ve got to get yourself out of the way. 61-1119 - Perfect Strength By Perfect Weakness
God wanted to use the space created by Saul’s ingrained weaknesses, but Saul wouldn’t let it happen.
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, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to 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.
David understood this.
O Lord, open thou my lips; And my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
He looks at the heart, not the show.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.
1 Samuel Chapter 15
Iniquity literally means nothingness, and so is constantly used for “an idol;” and this must be its signification here, as the word coupled with it, and rendered idolatry, is really teraphim. These were the Hebrew household gods, answering to the Roman Lares, and were supposed to bring good luck. Their worship, we see from this place, was strictly forbidden. The verse, therefore, means, “For rebellion is the sin of divination (i. e. is equal to it in wickedness), and obstinacy (i. e. intractableness) is an idol and teraphim.” Samuel thus accuses Saul of resistance to Jehovah’s will, and of the determination at all hazards to be his own master. With this temper of mind he could be no fit representative of Jehovah, and therefore Samuel dethrones him. Henceforward he reigns only as a temporal, and no longer as the theocratic, king.
Bro. Branham taught us how to overcome stubbornness. Don’t rebuke it, ignore it and walk away from it, in faith believing you are a Son or Daughter of God. (genes)
So when you feel that you got a stubborn spirit, lay the thing on the altar, and believe God that the thing is dead and you’ll never have it no more, and go on and don’t even pay any attention to it no more, and the thing’ll leave you. 61-0723E - God Being Misunderstood
Saul was concerned with how this looked to the people.
And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.
Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord.
And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: 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, and it rent.
And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.
And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.
Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God.
So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the Lord.
He stayed in church, he remained a follower of the prophet, he kept his position, but he had been rejected from being king.
Conclusion.
Conclusion.
And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
Saul never recovered from this, he ended up attempting to take his own life, but it was a surviving Amalekite that finally killed him.
There is a line of “usability” we can cross.
Saul was saved in the end, but he crossed a line where he couldn’t be used by God, or even hear from God.
You can be so stubborn that he will leave you alone with your insecurity, arrogance and idolatry.
David had a different attitude.
Hide thy face from my sins, And blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; And uphold me with thy free spirit.
Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; And sinners shall be converted unto thee.
Create in Me a Clean Heart.