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Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

Rebellion & Witchcraft

Father in heaven, today we are grateful that you have given to us the opportunity to open your Word and to study it.

We thank you that you have given us our young people as a treasure.

They teach us so much and they are such an important part of Your body, our family.

I thank You for Tamara and for those who help.

Thank you for the adventurers, for Tim and his team as well.

Lord, we just thank you that we can have these programs to help train our children with discipline, with learning in various activities and various efforts and areas.

And so we just thank you, Lord, that they can be a part of our worship service today.

And as we now open your Word, we confess our need for your Spirit.

Turn with me in your Bibles first of all to 1 Samuel, and we're going to be looking at 1 Samuel chapter 15.

1 Samuel chapter 15, continuing on the story here of after Jonathan and his armor bearers' victory.

Samuel says to Saul in verse 1, the Lord has sent me to anoint you king over his people over Israel.

Now, therefore, hear the words of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.

Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." Now there are certain things that we do not completely understand from Scripture.

What I do know, what I do know is that God is a God of love and He's a God of mercy, amen?

What I do know is that the truth of the God of heaven had been present in this region since the days of Abraham more than 400 years previously, right?

What I do know is that there were certain people whom God saw that they had rejected wholesale the light of His truth, the light of His gospel, and for some reason, I'm not here to explain it all, I'm here to say what I observe as I read the scripture, for some reason God said, these people group have become so entrenched in sin and rebellion that they should no longer live.

When we talk about descendants and all the rest, it doesn't really make sense to our minds, But I trust that the word of Scripture is true, and I trust that God knows what He's doing, and someday we will understand all things.

Some people would like to look at the Bible as simply a Jewish manuscript, and since they were genocidal, they simply pawned all that off on God and said it was God that told us to do these things.

I think when we read the Bible here we see the Bible says God sent Samuel with this message.

So whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not, this is what the Bible says, amen?

And so we're going to go with what the Bible says.

And and so Saul gathered the people together, verse tells us, verse 4 tells us, and numbered them in Tilam, 200, 000 foot soldiers, 10, 000 men of Judah, and he came, and as he goes, by the way, in verse 6 we see some of that grace.

Saul said to the Kenites, go, depart, because we're not going to destroy you with the Amalekites.

The Kenites were people who believed in the true God.

We know that because they were the ancestors, or they were the descendants, we should say, of Moses' wife's family.

And so these are the people who were a part of the true worship of God, they hadn't become as corrupted as the Amalekites, and so God is sparing them.

Now, let's pick up the story again in verse 7.

Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt.

He also took Agag, king of Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

Saul was just doing what was typical in the kings of those days.

He wanted to take a trophy back, I guess.

The next verse goes on, but Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good and were unwilling to utterly destroy them, but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

In other words, as Saul and his people went through this kingdom, then they were supposed to be destroying the sinfulness and the wickedness and making a statement perhaps.

They saw, oh that looks nice, I think I'll keep that.

This looks healthy, I think I'll keep that.

I think I'll keep that lamb I think I'll keep that cow.

I think I'll and they they what they didn't like they destroyed what they did like they kept Was that what God said?

That was not what God had instructed that they should do.

And so the word of the Lord came to Samuel in verse 10.

I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandment.

So you and I sitting here just reading this story, we agreed that Saul and the people did not do what God told them to do, right?

And God in heaven agrees with what we just decided, right?

He also looked down and he said, they are not doing what I asked them to do." He grieves Samuel and the Bible says he cried all night long and then he goes to talk to Saul.

Verse 13, Samuel went to Saul and Saul said to him, blessed are you of the Lord I have performed the commandment of the Lord.

Now let me ask you a question, was Saul lying?

Had he performed the commandment of the Lord?

Had he done some of the commandment of the Lord?

Might he have convinced himself that he had performed the commandment of the Lord?

I mean, this is 1 of the areas where we have to realize the deception runs very deep in our human nature.

It is possible for us to deceive ourselves.

You see, it's 1 thing to be deceived by other people.

But being a hearer of the word and not a doer, James tells us, is 1 of the ways that we can deceive ourselves.

I think that might have been what Saul's doing right here.

He heard the word of the Lord, but he didn't do it.

But he did enough of it that he convinced himself that he had done it.

And so I don't know that he thinks he's lying.

He may actually think he's telling the truth.

And that's the scary part about deception.

If I am deceived right now, I don't know it.

Because as soon as I know it, I'm not deceived anymore, right?

So the fact that you don't think you're deceived does not mean that you don't, you aren't deceived.

The fact that I standing here today don't think that I'm deceived doesn't mean that I'm not deceived.

Because the Bible tells us the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.

Only the Spirit of God can actually show us what is really in our hearts, because deception is a scary thing.

We're going to talk about Jesus today, okay?

But we have to understand why Jesus is important, amen?

There are too many people, there are too many people who go to church like you do and I do, and they don't realize how desperately they need Jesus.

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Rebellion & Witchcraft

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