Satan Is Happy When We Almost Do Right.

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.