Satan Is Happy When We Almost Choose To Do Right
5/3/98 Proverbs 3:5-12 Hebrews 12:1-3 1 Samuel 13:1-6
Almost is a word which can be very encouraging or very discouraging depending on whether you are at the top of the almost looking down or at the bottom of the almost looking up. Would you rather be able to say we almost won or we almost lost? In the playoff game between the Nets and the Bulls the other night, the score was tied. The Bulls took a shot with about three seconds left and missed. A Net player under the goal got the rebound, and with almost no time left on the clock, he threw the ball the length of the court. It hit the side of the rim and almost went in.
Knowing one of my daughters was a Bull fan, I said Sam did you see how the Nets player almost made the shot from full court to beat the Bulls. She replied, "I saw the shot, but did you see who won the game at the end in overtime." Almost making the shot, didn’t quite win the game.
We are all going to be faced with having to make decisions to do the right thing. Sometimes it’s going to be harder than others, especially when it seems that no one else will know what we did.
Take Susan for instance. Susan was $200 short with her rent money. She did not know where she could get any more money. She prayed to the Lord for help and left for work pretty despondent. When she got to the bus stop, she noticed a bag. Inside the bag was a purse. The purse had a brown envelope like a social security check comes, in with $400 in it. Was this a blessing from God or what. She also saw a picture ID of a 72 year old woman. Susan decided to take $200 and send the purse and the rest of the money annonymously in the mail to the woman on the id card. She almost did the right thing.
Mark was a great witness for the Lord. He lived for God at work and worked hard for the Lord at the church by singing in the choir, ushering, and serving as an elder. Mark enjoyed science fiction movies. One night he rented a video. At home he opened the case and discovered it was not the same video inside as on the outside cover. Inside the case was the video "Bunnies From Heaven" rated XXX. Mark put it back in the box immediately, called the video store and told them they had given him the wrong movie.
They told him to bring it back and they would give him credit for another video. After hanging up the phone, Mark intended to go back to the store, but he messed around until it was too late. While Mark was lying in bed, he got to thinking, just what would "Bunnies From Heaven" be about anyways. Bunnies From Heaven wasn’t the last XXX movie which made it to Mark’s house after that night. In the beginning, Mark almost chose to do the right thing.
Lena could only go to her friend’s overnight party if she passed her history test. Lena studied hard the night before the test. She wanted to go to that party so bad, she made a little cheat sheet. When she got up the next morning, she prayed for God’s help. God reminded her of the cheat sheet. Lena through the sheet in the garbage before she left for school. During the test Lena knew seven of the ten matching questions. She wasn’t sure about the last three. Donna who sat in front of Lena, was an A student. Lena knew if she leaned far enough out she could see Donna’s last three answers. She leaned and she got an A. Lena almost choose to do the right thing.
Brothers and sisters, where are we almost choosing to do the right things in our lives. Mary, Mark, and Lena were not alone when they almost choose to do the right thing. You see, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the good and the evil which we do. Satan gets happy when we almost choose to do right, because He understand how it breaks the heart of God when we choose to defy and disobey him. God always wants what is best for us, even when from our viewpoint we are giving up something we think we ought to be able to have.
For many of us, we are not running to do wrong or even desiring do wrong. Our downfall is that we almost want to do right. But the flip side of almost doing right, is we have become content with doing wrong. Some of us have convinced ourselves that viewing pornography is okay because it’s not real adultery. Some of us have justified selling drugs, because it allows us to help someone else. Some of us have accepted our unwillingness to forgive another, because at least we’re not getting revenge. We’re almost choosing to do something right, but in the mean time we are doing something wrong.
I want you to meet a young man by the name of Saul. He had a problem throughout his life of almost doing the right the thing. He was chosen to become the first king of Israel. God began to use him in some great ways. His first battle as the king involved the Ammonites. Saul led the people into battle and God gave them a great victory. Those who were concerned about Saul as choice for the king before the battle, were now convinced, Saul was God’s choice.
Before Saul became king, the people of Israel were under the military rule of the Philistines. The Philistines attempted to keep God’s people down by keeping them from having weapons and limiting their food supply. Once Saul became king, a confrontation with the Philistines was inevitable. In 1 Samuel 13, in order to get some weapons, Saul’s son Jonathan attacked a Philistine outpost. Since the Israelites had defeated the Ammonites they were ready to take on the big boys, the Philistines.
Once the Philistines heard about the attack, they began to gather their army at a place called Micmash. Saul called for the men of Israel to come out and to prepare for the battle by meeting him at Gilgal where they had crowned him as king. Now the men of Israel almost choose to do the right thing. They came out in force to stand with their king. You know it is kind of easy to do the right thing, when you’re with other Christians and the circumstances around you are okay. There is some safety in numbers. I find it a lot easier to do right when I have two other people with me who will know immediately if I do wrong.
Satan knows if he can just get us alone by ourselves, the possibilities arise for failures leading to sin. Far too many of us trust ourselves to get ourselves out of sticky situations. I have found, the sooner I catch a train out of a place, the less likely I am to almost do the right thing. It’s funny how before you get married, Satan seeks to get you alone with each other in some spot be it a car, an apartment, a motel you name it. After you get married, Satan seeks to get you alone with somebody other than the one you’re married to. Far too many of us want to be alone before marriage, and not enough of us want to be together afterwards.
But sometimes numbers themselves are not going to be enough when we look out at the situation. The Philistines came out in full force to fight. They had three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and armed soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. When the men of Israel saw the awesome size of the Philistine army, knowing they did not have any chariots and not nearly as many weapons, they started to get scared.
The big boys were a little bigger than they had imagined. They saw their situation and it did not look good. They started to desert King Saul by hiding in caves, the woods, behind rocks, in wells in the ground, and some of them went way across the valley and the river. They wanted to make sure the Philistines did not find them when it came time to do battle.
Now those men of Israel almost did the right thing by showing up when Saul called them. But when push came to shove, they showed their true colors. They were almost heroes but they ended up cowards. They left the battle for someone else. God calls each one of us every morning to come report to duty. Most of us show up, but what happens when we see the battlefield which lies before us.
There are people just waiting to get on our nerves the moment we get to school or to work. There are circumstances which are coming which we can’t control. A notice we have been laid off, or even worse we’ve been fired. A call from the doctor saying, the test is positive for cancer or for pregnancy. An argument with a spouse in which the person says "I don’t love you anymore, I’m leaving." These are the circumstances which let us know if we are truly serving the Lord and living for Jesus Christ or if we are almost following the Master.
Saul was watching his army shrink daily and they were shaking with fear. Now Samuel, who was God’s prophet and priest had told Saul before he became king, " Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do. " The words of Samuel seemed quite specific. Day one, day two , day three. It seems as though half of the Israelite army has deserted and no sign of Samuel.
Day four, day five , day six. It looks like they’re down to a third of their original size and no Samuel. Everybody is getting scared. Day seven comes and Samuel still has not arrived.
What would you do if you were Saul and everything around you was going to pieces? Would you continue to trust in the Lord? Would you take manners into your own hands? Would you have an alternative plan in mind? The Bible tells us what to do when times get hard. It says, " Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 [NIV]
No doubt Saul said to himself, "I have trusted in the Lord and nothing has happened so far." Do you know it’s possible to get so afraid of what might happened, that we fail to see the blessing in nothing having happened. Saul could see his men were deserting him and the vast army of the Philistines was getting larger. He thought God wasn’t doing anything.
But he didn’t see the men around him who were afraid, yet they were willing to die fighting by his side. He didn’t see the Philistine army could attack at any moment, but they never did. Just because you or I think, God has done nothing does not mean He has done nothing or is doing nothing.
The people who observed Jesus being crucified thought God was doing nothing when He did not come and take Jesus down from the cross. They thought God was doing nothing, when they put Jesus in the tomb and sealed it with cement and put guards in front of it. While God was accused of doing nothing. God’s heart was breaking in pain, as He separated Himself from His only Son.
God’s love was being demonstrated for all humanity, as He allowed His Son’s life to pay for their sins. God was giving us victory over death by sending Jesus to conquer death and hell. God was doing all of this while people were thinking, God was doing nothing.
Before you almost go and do something you ought not to do, don’t say its because God is not doing anything for you. The truth may be, God may be about to bring about the greatest victory in your life which you have ever experienced. Choose to do wrong however and you may forfeit what God wants to give to you.
Saul had to make a choice. When he saw more men leaving on the seventh day, he chose to disobey Samuel’s words and go ahead and offer the sacrifices which Samuel were to offer. The only problem again, was only priests could offer sacrifices to the Lord. Saul thought if the men saw him offer sacrifices they would gain strength and get God’s favor.
Disobedience never draws us closer to the Lord. Don’t ever think God has to get us to sin, before He can teach us a lesson. People say if I had not of done what I did, I would not have learned such and such from God. That’s not true. It’s just, God’s mercy does not give up on us, just because we go out and fail big time. But there’s always a price for sin.
Saul almost did the right thing in wanting to receive God’s blessing. But he went about it the wrong way. He almost waited long enough for Samuel to arrive. I wonder, how many of us can look back over our lives and see, we gave up waiting just a little bit too soon. No sooner than Saul had just finished offering the sacrifices, Samuel arrived on the scene. You see God had already taken care of handling the situation in the way it was supposed to be handle, but Saul had gotten ahead of God’s schedule. Saul almost was faithful to God. He had waited the seven days, but he had not waited through the seventh day.
Samuel said, "Brother what have you done. I told you I’d surely be here in seven days. You know a king is not a priest and only priest offer sacrifices. How can you lead the people of God, if the people of God see God is not leading you."
Saul says, " Wait a minute and here my side. But I almost waited for you. When I saw the men were getting scared and leaving, and you were not here by the seventh day, and the Philistine army was getting larger and larger I had to come up with a plan. I was worried the Philistine army would attack us before we had the chance to offer a sacrifice to God. Since I wanted God to be on our side and grant us His favor, I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering. Something just came over me. I mean I really didn’t see any other way."
Saints, just because we do not see another way, does not mean God does not have another way in mind. The way may be harder. It may take longer to get there. It might mean swallowing our pride. It may even mean changing our behavior. But God has a right way for us to do what needs to be done. There is not a right way to do wrong.
Saul was convinced he was doing the right thing, but he was wrong. We can look at our actions and apply them to the Scriptures. We are told to lay aside the sins which so easily entangles us. This means, things we just become comfortable with doing because we’ve quit calling them sin. The Word also says to throw off the things which hinder us. Things which hinder us may be things the bible does not call sin, but they keep us from reaching maturity in Christ. We can adopt the Philippians 4:8 test to decide those things which the Bible does not out right call sin.
The test is Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Philip. 4:8 [NIV]
There was no real sense of remorse or repentance on Saul’s part for what he done. He thought he should have been congratulated by Samuel. He had become arrogant. In the big scheme of things how could breaking such a little rule make that big of a difference. He had to do what he had to do. He thought he was proving he was faithful to God by being unfaithful to God in order to do it.
Samuel looked at Saul and said, "brother you’ve acted very foolishly. You didn’t keep the commands of the Lord. This was a test for you and you blew it. If you would have passed this test, you and your kingdom over Israel would have been established forever. Instead God has already chosen somebody else to give the kingdom to. A person who will not just almost do right, but one who is after the Lord’s own heart.
It cost Saul for more than he ever dreamed it would. How could he have known when he was waiting, he was determining the destiny not only of himself, but of his children and his grandchildren and his great grandchildren to become kings and queens. God does not come down and announce to us, the decision you make today, will change the course of your life forever. Yet what seems like a mere compromise can set us on a path, we never should have gotten on in the first place.
We are warned in Proverbs, do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil people. Avoid it, do not travel on it, turn from it and go your way. Do you get the gist of the message. Don’t almost get off it. Get off. Don’t almost choose the path of the Lord, choose it. How many people could be content knowing they almost made it into heaven.
Where are we today saints? Are we truly surrendering our lives to live for Jesus Christ or are we almost doing it. I’m not talking about whether or not we are perfect. None of us are. But we do know if we have made a conscious decision to not to surrender parts of our lives to God. Some of us have our feet on the road which will destroy our future if we don’t decide now to get off.
Once we lose what we have, there is no guarantee we can ever get it back it again. A seemingly small outward act reveals a cancerous gangrene growing on the inside of the heart. The only way to remove the cancer is to allow God to cleanse it by the work of Jesus Christ. Get rid of it now.
It may be too late already for you to go back, but its never too late to start again with God. Saul made a decision out of fear of something which might happen. Don’t let fear keep you from doing the right thing. Don’t let the devil make you believe God has forgotten about you. This situation you are in right now, may be the test of your faith before God elevates you to something much higher. You keep on trusting in the Lord. Keep on choosing to do right. Keep on walking with God and your day of victory is going to come.
