Monday Musings - 12/01/14

Yay! It's December! Now I can listen to Christmas music without my brother telling me, "It's not even December yet!" :D

A few weeks ago, Pastor Roland preached a message for teen chapel entitled "Ruined by Rebellion." It was about Saul and when he tried to cover up his disobedience to God in 1 Samuel 15:1-25. You probably know the story: God told Saul to "go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not" (verse 3). However, Saul "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." In modern day English, Saul destroyed everything that he didn't want, but he saved everything that was useful to him: the king, the best animals and crops, and everything that was good. Did God tell him to do that? No! Saul was being rebellious. Obeying God partway never works! Oh, and then, Saul blames the people. He says, "The people made me do it! They pressured me to save the king and the animals and the crops!" The truth is, no one made Saul do anything! He was blame-shifting! Blame-shifting is just an excuse! We can never deal with our sin until we admit that we were wrong and God was right!
We tend to think of rebellion as out-right, foot-stomping, door-slamming rebellion that you can spot for a mile away. Yes, that is rebellion, but there is another type of rebellion. Quiet rebellion is when someone tells you to do something (maybe it's your boss at work, your parents, or your teachers at school), and that little person inside you stands up and says, "Oh, yeah? Who do they think they are?" But, you eventually do whatever they asked you to do, because you have to. That's also rebellion.
Back to the Bible: Saul had a lot of potential. He could have been something great, if he had only obeyed the Lord. But he didn't, and his life was ruined by rebellion. He could have been king for a long, long time, but he disobeyed God, and God took the kingdom away from Saul and gave it someone more deserving: a humble shepherd boy named David.

So, are you more like, Saul or David?