7/7/19 1 Sam. 15:17-21, Psalm 51:1-4 “I’m Never at Fault!”

05 Jul 7/7/19 1 Sam. 15:17-21, Psalm 51:1-4 “I’m Never at Fault!”

7/7/19   1 Sam. 15:17-21, Psalm 51:1-4   “I’m Never at Fault!”

Sometimes people think that pastors are some sort of super people.  We don’t have problems and most of all we don’t make mistakes.  This couldn’t be more false.  We are just ordinary people like all the rest of you.  You don’t get to go through 68 years of life without making mistakes and some of the ones I have made have been dandies.  I’m not going to go into details today but I just want you to know that I am far from mistake free.  Today we are going to compare the Scriptures I just read.  Hopefully we will be able to see a little clearer what Jesus is trying to say today through the Old Testament!

I’m going to introduce today’s sermon with a story from Andrew Chan. A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.” The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be an engineer,” said the balloonist.

“I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is, technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below responded, “You must be in Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”  I think that we have all met people like both sides of this argument.  We even find them in our Bibles.  Today we are going to compare King Saul and King David to see which one you would rather be.

Let’s begin with Saul.  Just about all that I will tell you about him will come from 1 Samuel 9-13.  The Israelites had asked Samuel, the prophet and priest, to ask God for a king.  Why did they do this?  Basically they were rejecting God as their king because all the neighboring countries had human kings.  Israel wanted to be like everyone else and have a king also.  In other words they wanted to follow the world and not God.

This is the same way things are today.  There are very few people who really want to follow Jesus.  Our government surely will not bow down to anyone but themselves.  They seek more power than what Saul had.  If that isn’t enough then look at our churches who are supposed to be following Jesus.  I would say that just about all the mainline churches of today follow the devil as he has convinced them that sin really isn’t so bad.  After all, we surely won’t die if we eat of the forbidden fruit!  Wow!  I think we have heard that one before.  Things haven’t changed much in 3 thousand years.

God had done His research when He chose Saul to be their first king.  1 Sam. 9: 2 tells us that Saul was “as impressive a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else.”  On the outside Saul was king material if there ever was king material.  He was tall.  He was strong.  He was intelligent.  In other words, he was impressive and that is just what the Israelites needed.

So this seems like a pretty good deal.  We all know that Saul ran into problems and we wrongly assume that this wasn’t really God’s first choice for king.  But God was sincerely trying to give Israel the best possible person for king.  We have to remember that David hadn’t even been born yet.  Therefore he isn’t even to be considered at this time.  Saul was God’s number one choice for king and that was it.  David was not the first choice!

So what happened to Saul to make God so upset with him?  As far as I can tell from the readings, the world happened to Saul.  At first things seem to go quite well.  The spirit of the Lord comes upon Saul and he prophesizes with the other prophets.  But when he was to be crowned, Saul hid in the baggage.  We can see the beginnings of problems before he even starts.

You can read about this on your own as I don’t have time to get into all of this today.  King Saul ruled for about 22 years and this is the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.  At this point God is speaking to Samuel and Samuel relates what God says to Saul.  This was not uncommon in those days.

The Philistines were a bitter enemy of Israel in those days and God wants to deliver the Philistines to King Saul.  So Samuel tells Saul that he has to wait until Samuel arrives in the battle area so that Samuel could make a burnt offering to God.  This is all reasonable even if we don’t do burnt offerings today.  The problem came because Saul figured Samuel was too late to do this because the Philistines had gathered and were ready to march upon them in battle.  Saul’s soldiers were not the most professional as they began to flee from the battle area.  As his army begins to diminish, Saul begins to panic.  What’s he going to do?  Where is Samuel to make the offerings and bless the troops for battle?  Saul waited his allotted time for Samuel to come.  Then he took things into his own hands.  He decided that he was king and would be able to make the offerings and blessing without Samuel.  Do you see what has happened?  Saul is thinking he is higher in rank that God’s appointed priest and prophet.

Not only this, but Saul also disobeyed God by taking the spoils of the war.  He was supposed to destroy every living thing plus all of their belongings.  This may seem harsh to us but these people were living beyond vile and despicable.  But Saul didn’t do as he was told.  And when he admitted his mistake, he blamed the people who wanted to keep the stuff as we just read in Scripture.  He couldn’t even take on the responsibility of what happened and he was the king.  He blamed anything and everything in sight except for himself.

Because of this Saul would lose his kingdom.  Samuel comes and gives Saul a good chastising from God.  The important thing to see here that applies to us is that Saul did not take responsibility for his actions.  He blamed the troops.  He blamed Samuel.  He probably blamed everything in sight.  But he did not blame himself.  It wasn’t his fault.  It was everyone else’s fault!  Just like today we find that it’s never the drug addicts fault or the rapists fault.  It’s always the fault of the family or society or some other generalization.  People, when you do something wrong, you did it!  No one else did so you face the consequences.

That is just a quick look at Saul and now we need to take a quick look at King David.  You can read the story of David in 1 & 2 Samuel.  Here are a few of the highlights.  David was just the opposite of Saul in about every way.  When we meet David, he is a lad and not that big compared to Saul so he didn’t look so good on the outside.  He is the youngest brother in his family so there is nothing for him to inherit.  But we also know that he was a fierce fighter as he had killed wild animals to protect his sheep.  He almost sounds like Jesus.

Nothing really exciting happens to David early in life other than Samuel anointing him the next king.  No one makes mention of this because they feared that Saul would have David and all his family killed if Saul ever found out.  Anyway, God departs from Saul and then his troubles really begin.  I would guess that today we might call him mentally ill.  Somehow David becomes part of the royal court for Saul as it’s his music that seems to settle Saul down when he gets overly worked up or his mental illness kicked in.

Anyway, then comes Goliath.  We all know this story.  Goliath was anywhere from 9’9” to over 12’ tall.  He was a giant.  The Bible says that there were others in his family who were almost as big.  Anyway, David accepts the challenge because he knows that God is with him and not with Goliath.  David ends up killing Goliath and the Israelites rout the Philistines.  When they return from battle the people sing out, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”  Thus begins the hostility between these two.  You can read the story of how Saul hated David and David would do nothing to harm Saul because he was God’s anointed king.

After a while, David finally becomes king after Saul had been king for about 22 years and was killed in battle along with his sons.  Now King David has the task of uniting the tribes of Israel.  He does this and many other things.  But please notice some of the mistakes he makes.  He takes full responsibility for his actions.  He is not like Saul who denied he ever did anything wrong.  Things are going pretty good until Bathsheba bathes in his sight.  Then she gets pregnant by David and David murders her husband.  David is so sure that he has covered all his tracks and is home free until Nathan comes from the Lord to rebuke him.

You must understand that there is nothing that God doesn’t know about you.  And it’s the same if you are a king or a pauper like me.  God knows all things.  Anyway, David goes from denying doing anything wrong to full confession for his sins or in this case, his crimes.  He has been found out by God after he committed all these foul acts.

There is an important lesson to learn from this.  When you have sinned or committed a crime God may forgive you of everything.  However, you still have to suffer the consequences of your actions.  In other words, if you robbed a bank, you still have to go to jail even though you confessed your crime to God.  Many people today think that God will give you a “get out of jail free card” if they just turn to God.  They forget that they still have to repay our society, either by fines or jail time or whatever.  It’s a good thing that they have come to know Jesus but they still have their sins to pay to society.

So now the question becomes “Who would you rather be like and why?”  Unfortunately for us in this country we are a lot more like Saul than David.  Let’s begin with our Congress.  If a congress person takes responsibility for their actions, they will soon be thrown out of office.  Therefore we will never get any honesty from them which is a complete shame and it’s disgusting.  This blaming everything and everyone else bleeds into every form of government all the way to our local flood diversion.

Another example is our churches.  They refuse to acknowledge the lies they tell as they continue to preach from anything but the Bible.  You can see this as the numbers fall.  Did you know that churches who preach the truth are the only ones growing?  Anyway, churches blame those who preach the truth and call them subversive instead of blaming themselves.

And why in the world do we have so many law suits?  It’s because you are never at fault.  It is always someone else’s fault.  When marriages fail, it is always the other persons fault.  I would guess that one of the reasons some people aren’t in church on Sunday is that I’m too boring!  People, who do you blame when your ice cream is cold!  When you point that someone else is at fault, you have three fingers pointing back at you.  And you should really pay attention to this instead of saying it’s just some well-worn cliché!  I could go on and on here so what should we do?

Well, the answer in this story lies in David.  David did so many things wrong that he almost seems like Peter in the New Testament.  But both these people knew that they were at fault and they knew where to go.  Jesus Christ is the answer and I don’t mean your token attention is what He seeks.  He seeks your total obedience and that begins by saying “I’m at fault.”  Quit teaching your children and grandchildren that they are never at fault.  Start by saying “I’m to blame.”  Start taking everything to Jesus.  This begins with you, you confessing your sins to Him and asking that He live in your heart as your Lord and Savior.  Then you can begin a new life that will be infinitely better than your old life.  When you begin to say that I did this or that and asking Jesus to help you out then you can begin by being like David and confessing you sins.  Or you can remain like Saul and deny all of your foul acts like every prisoner in our jails does today.  The choice is yours.

People this really isn’t hard at all if you only follow the example of David and many of the others in the Bible.  Life begins with Jesus.  He wants everyone to come to Him.  It doesn’t matter what you have done, Jesus loves you.  After all, David murdered someone and God still loved him.  He shows us his love on every page of the Bible.  Come clean and accept this wonderful offer from the maker of the universe and everything in it.  You will never regret a life in Jesus.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.