Sniff, Sniff, Sniff -- Something Is Cooking

SNIFF, SNIFF, SNIFF -- SOMETHING IS COOKING

Preached on 20 September 2006

at Greater Faith Church Baptist, Waukegan, IL

Subject: SNIFF, SNIFF, SNIFF -- SOMETHING IS COOKING

Bear with me for a moment as I give you brief historical, cultural, contextual analysts ... in an effort to put this in it proper context.

Why ... because SNIFF, SNIFF, SNIFF -- SOMETHING IS COOKING here in Psalm 34. Well, let us examine some of the ingredients:

- Those of you familiar with this Psalm are at least those of you who have a study Bible can see that this Psalm was penned after David had played crazy.

What do you mean preach ... played crazy. David who killed a Lion and a Bear oh my ... David the ruddy Shepard boy, Jesse’s son who was anoint King, David who killed Goliath, who wrote my favorite Psalm # 23 ... I dare you call him crazy.

I did not call him crazy I said he played crazy, in fact the KJV say that he feigned himself mad. Which means that he pretended to be crazy...

So, before you close your Bibles, and get up, and leave ... allow me to help you this evening because SNIFF, SNIFF, SNIFF -- SOMETHING IS COOKING

Let us look at our ingredients:

You see ... back over in 1 Samuel, Chapter 15 we got problems starting to brew. Yeah ... it may have (sniff) smelt good but this cooking was not good for the people.

Allow me to help somebody this evening ... you see back in 1 Samuel, Chapter 15

#1. God told Samuel to go anoint Saul King over Israel and not only that

#2. God told Samuel to tell Saul I said -- I remember what Amalek did to my people when they were wondering in the wilderness.

#3. In other words, Saul you might not be old enough to remember, but I remember what I told Moses, over in Exodus 17:8-16 that a day would come when I would destroy the A-mal-e-kites from off of the face of the earth

#4. Can I paraphrase ... Samuel this is what I want you to do ... (1) go anoint Saul King and (2) tell him that his first assignment is the destroy the A-mal-e-kites.

5. Now ... Samuel let me make sure that he understands his assignment. I do not want him to just destroy them ... Tell him I said, I want him to utterly destroy them.

6. In other words ... if there is a man gasping for air ... KILL HIM

7. If there is a sheep or an oxen trying to run away, (e.g. bow and arrow) shoot it.

8. I do not want to hear the noise of one of their babies crying. WIPE THEM OUT!

(Sniff, Sniff, Sniff ... something is cooking)

Samuel on one hand ... obeyed the Lord’s command and did just as God instructed him. However, on the other hand Saul decided to disobey God’s instruction.

1 Samuel 15:9 records that

"But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was GOOD, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly."

(Sniff, Sniff, Sniff -- something is cooking) ...

YOU SEE -- what they did may have smelled good, maybe even of good intentions, but it was not good for them.

How many of ya’ll know that just because it smells good does not mean that it is good for you. Oh, how I love the smell of bacon, but too much of it ain’t good for my cholesterol.

This very decision and disobedience caused Saul to have his authority to serve as King of Israel stripped from him and given to ruddy, Shepard boy named David. Not only that ... the Bible records that he lost the Spirit of the Lord.

#1. Now we know, as we believe that in this dispensation (timeframe, or church age) that because of what Jesus Christ did on Calvary, by dying on the cross for our sins that -- we cannot lose our salvation.

#2. But you see in the Old Testament day ... the Holy Spirit came upon some men for a reason, for season or for an event.

#3. So keeping everything in context ... if Saul is no longer God servant then he no longer requires God’s anointing on his life. In fact, the Bible tells us over in 1 Samuel 16:14 that "...the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him."

Now keeping in mind that all of this was happening because (Sniff, Sniff, Sniff -- something was cooking) ... you see Saul thought that he was doing a good thing because the animals looked GOOD. But everything that looks good ain’t good for ya.