Slipping By Degrees

Slipping by Degrees

Text: 1 Samuel 13:5-14, 1 Samuel 15:1-35

OPEN WITH PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING

One of the saddest things to see, at least to me, is someone who - by all appearances seemed to be a Christian, fall into sin and apostasy. Not let me make that clear… I said, someone who “seemed” to be a Christian. I’ve seen this happen a couple of times in my life. Someone who started the race well, but then deviated from the straight and narrow path, and ended up destroying themselves, and making shipwreck of their faith.

So today we’re going to be looking at one of the clearest examples from Scripture of this, and then we’re going to ask the Lord to search our hearts, and do what 2 Corinthians 13:5 tells us we should do, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, you fail to meet the test.”

SO if you will, please open up your Bibles to 1 Samuel 13, and follow along as I read from God’s Word (READ 1 Samuel 13:5-14).

Now there we have it… a guy who seemed like he was going to be a great king. A great example to follow. King Saul. When he became king he had two years of peace. It looked like he was going to be successful. He then mustered an army and went to war against the enemies of Israel, just as God had told Joshua to do many years before, and it looked – at least initially, like Saul was the guy God was going to work through and bless. But when you stand against the enemies of God, and against the enemies of God’s people – they tend to not like that so much, and they tend to get mobilized in order to take you out. That was true back in Biblical times, and it’s true today. Sinners don’t want to be told that they are sinning. They don’t want to be told that they are in opposition to God. They want to do what they want to do, and believe that there will be no repercussions or judgment. And, so as King Saul begins to upset the status quo, and rock the boat, the Philistines join forces and mass an army of 30 thousand chariots, and 6 thousand horsemen – and troops, and they go to box in Saul and his men.

Now think about this for a second. Saul is vastly outnumbered. He’s only got about 2,000 men… Jonathan is in another location with an extra thousand… So even if Jonathan could arrive in time the Israelites would still be outnumbered by more than 30,000 men. And this is where Saul made his first mistake. He was looking at the physical reality rather than the spiritual reality. Because the thing is – it made absolutely no difference how many troops the Philistines had – if God be for you – who can be against you? Sauls first problem here, and it leads to all the other problems… but his first problem was that he didn’t trust in the Lord. He didn’t trust in the Lord, he didn’t want to wait on the Lord, and so… he decided that he would just take matters into his own hands.

Listen Church – God is sovereign, and God is almighty, and God has a perfect plan, and you have got to trust that He is working all things together for good, to those who love Him and are the called, according to HIS purpose. And those people, that I mentioned just a little while ago, that I have seen shipwreck their faith – it almost always starts with this. They’d never say it initially, they’d never say, “Well I just don’t trust God in this.” In-fact; they’ll tell you that they do trust God, but their actions show that they don’t. And so, instead of trusting in the Lord, and waiting upon the Lord, they decide that it’s up to them to act.

That’s exactly what King Saul does here. Samuel hasn’t shown up, so Saul decides that it’s time to take matters into his own hands. And he goes against what God’s Word clearly says. He basically justifies it in his own mind. “I’ve got to do something here! I’ve got to take control of my own destiny.” That’s a complete lack of faith, and it leads to him sinning, and disobeying God’s clear commands from Scripture. And wouldn’t you know it… right after Saul does this; right after he makes a sacrifice, Samuel comes walking up.

And from that point onward, Saul slip by degrees. A little here, a little there, further and further away from God. Romans chapter one actually sheds some light on this for us. It explains to us, that as man begins to reject God, God will begin to pull His hands back away from that person. And as God pulls His hands away from that person, that person is given over to more and more of their sin nature. Their thinking will become darkened, their judgment will be clouded, their behavior will become more and more sinful, their thoughts will be more and more sinful. Their minds become darkened, their hearts become darkened, and what they perceive to be wisdom, is actually foolishness and wickedness, and they slip into more and more rebellion and sin, until ultimately, it’s too late.