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Rise and Ruin | 1 Samuel 15
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We all face a painful truth that we're tempted to avoid: you have been unfaithful to God. We avoid this truth because it declares that we don't measure up. It makes us helpless before the God we wronged. It challenges the view we have about ourselves—and that's too negative for our hearts to bear.
Like the song "I Don't Want to Know" by Mario Winans, where a man chooses ignorance over confronting his partner's unfaithfulness, we have developed a strategy to avoid truth: self-deception. We hide the signs of our unfaithfulness to God from ourselves. But here's the danger: When the truth of our condition is hidden from us, we'll never turn from our ways.
The life of Saul demonstrates this pattern perfectly. Saul experiences a meteoric rise and a devastating ruin—all because he refuses to face the truth about himself. This passage in 1 Samuel 15 shows us three critical things: how self-deception is easy, how self-deception is deadly, and how we escape it.
God gave Saul a clear mission: "Go devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed." This wasn't ethnic cleansing—it was justice. The Amalekites were not wiped out because of their nationality, but because they were unjust, vicious murderers who had refused to turn from their ways for over 500 years.
After the people of Israel were released from Egypt, the Amalekites unprovoked attacked God's people. God said then: "When you got a problem with my people, you got a problem with me." Over 500 years later, God declares that the time for judgment has come. He uses the people of Israel—through King Saul—as instruments of his judgment.
It is good news that God is just. God will not allow the guilty to go unpunished. The person who harmed you will not evade God's judgment. People may miss the evil done to you; they may get away scot-free in the eyes of people. But no one will get away scot-free in the eyes of God. God sees every tear you cry because of injustice, and he will judge it.
Yet here's what Saul does: Instead of working for the glory of God, he uses this victory for his own glory. Right after the victory, Saul builds a monument to himself. He spares King Agag and keeps all the animals. Why? For his own glory. When you're a king and you've enslaved another king, it makes you look more powerful. When that king's possessions become yours, it makes you look richer.
But Saul has a dilemma: How does he justify using a mission meant for God's glory for his own glory? His answer is self-deception.
When Samuel comes to confront Saul, before Samuel can even speak, Saul declares: "Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord."
Typically, the person who is loudest about their innocence is the guilty party. Samuel responds: "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?" Samuel reminds Saul: "God told you to destroy everything—oxen, sheep, camels, donkeys. So why do I hear all this bleating?"
How could Saul believe and proclaim his obedience despite all the loud evidence to the contrary? Willful ignorance. When you can't handle the truth, you simply ignore the evidence for it.
Consider Albert Speer, architect of Adolf Hitler. He was tasked with designing buildings directly related to the enslavement and death of Jews during the Holocaust. With so much death and destruction around him, how could he not know? One author wrote about Speer: "He diverted his attention so thoroughly and systematically as to render psychologically manageable what would have been morally unthinkable if confronted squarely." In other words: he couldn't stand what the truth said about him, so he simply looked the other way.
We do the same. We proclaim that we love people, yet ignore the bleeding of broken relationships in our lives. We proclaim that we want the world to know the gospel, but ignore the lowing of our non-existent witness—nobody even knows we're a Christian during the week. We proclaim, "I love you, Lord," yet ignore the evidence of our consistent and unrepentant disobedience. We conveniently ignore the words of Jesus: "If you love me, you'll obey me."
It's too easy to dismiss hard words with self-deception. But we must acknowledge: we can use willful ignorance to deceive ourselves from the truth about ourselves rather than facing it and accepting it.
When Samuel confronts Saul, asking "Why did you not obey the voice of the Lord?" Saul responds: "I obeyed. I went on the mission. Yes, I came back with Agag, but I devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took the spoil."
Notice that phrase: "But the people." Saul's strategy is comparison. He justifies himself by comparing his actions to others' actions.
Jesus warns us against this strategy in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee thanks God that he's not like the tax collector. The tax collector, meanwhile, simply throws himself on God's mercy, knowing he's not good enough for anybody. The parable ends with the tax collector justified and the Pharisee condemned.
It is dangerous to spend your life comparing rather than confessing. We say: "God, I know I love money too much, but I'm no billionaire with a private jet. God, I know what I look at when nobody else is around, but at least I'm not like that guy. God, I know I have a temper, but you should see my brother-in-law."
Comparison keeps gossip alive because hearing about someone else's downfall helps us feel better about ourselves and keeps us in our delusion. But what separated David from Saul wasn't that David never did wrong—David did unimaginable things. What separated David from Saul was this: when David was confronted about the truth of who he was, he refused to point the finger at anybody else. David said: "Against you and you only have I sinned, O Lord."
G. K. Chesterton was asked by a newspaper: "What is wrong with the world?" Many gave philosophical answers, but Chesterton responded: "The answer to the question 'What is wrong with the world' is or should be: 'I am wrong. I am wrong.'" He confessed that he was the problem. The tragedy in Saul's life is that he refuses to admit those words because he's so busy comparing his actions to everybody else's.
Saul claims the animals were kept "to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal." He takes his disobedience and repackages it—not as disobedience, but as sacrifice and worship. Saul has covered his disobedience with religious behavior. In other words, Saul rebranded his disobedience.
It's like when Twitter rebranded to X in 2023. It looked good—dark and sleek—but it was the same platform under a different name. Rebranding is taking a product nobody wants anymore and putting it in a different package.
Saul manipulates himself to believe that his disobedience can be covered by acts of worship. And we do this too. We believe that our unfaithfulness to God can be covered by good deeds and acts of worship. For many of us, religion is simply a pill of self-deception.
"I know I cut corners on my taxes, but I'll tithe a little more. I know I'm doing things I shouldn't with my girlfriend, but we'll get married soon. I know I'm heavy-handed with my kids, but I'll serve in Kids' Quest. I know I need to give up that sin, but I'll keep going to church and serving."
But God won't allow this. Listen to Samuel: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. And to listen is better than the fat of rams." You cannot use religion to rebrand your disobedience. You can't do it.
If you recognize these strategies in yourself—willful ignorance, convenient comparison, religious rebranding—you might ask: How do I stop deceiving myself and face the truth about myself?
You will only be able to resist self-deception when you rest in the grace of God.
You'll stop using self-deception to protect your identity when you rest in the identity that God has already given you.
Look at what Samuel says to Saul: "Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king of Israel." Here's what this means: God made Saul big, and Saul was still little in his own eyes. Why? Because Saul refused to rest in the identity God had given him and declared over him.
Remember Saul's past. God declared Saul king before Saul did anything. He didn't have to prove his leadership ability. God raised up Saul himself. God gave Saul an identity that didn't have to be achieved. All Saul had to do was receive it and walk in it. But Saul refused. God made him big, and Saul said, "No, I'll make myself big. I'll keep King Agag. I'll keep the spoil."
You'll never admit the truth when the truth costs you your identity. Why does an athlete take painkillers to continue a career that's clearly over? Why did Mario Winans keep singing "I Don't Want to Know" when his partner was clearly cheating? Why do Saul and we deceive ourselves despite evidence to the contrary? It's all for the same reason: admitting the truth would prove too painful to the identities we've built for ourselves.
But listen: God has given you an opportunity to find your identity not in your performance, but in his grace.
About a thousand years after King Saul, there came another king—King Jesus. Here's what's amazing: Saul was a nobody who became king. Jesus was a king who willingly became a nobody.
Jesus, the King of the entire universe, clothed himself in human flesh. He was born in obscurity and lived a perfect life—the life you and I did not live. Having no sin of his own for which to die, he died on the cross, taking the penalty for your sin and my sin. Our Savior didn't stay dead. He rose again in power, proving he has victory over sin, Satan, death, and the grave. And he did that to give you an opportunity to receive the only identity that can fill your soul—the identity of a child of God.
Proof that you have received who God has called you to be is that you no longer need self-deception to prop up your identity. You don't need it anymore. You no longer need to believe that you measure up because when you became a child of God, you became that—not because you measured up, but because Christ did.
You no longer have to be put together all the time or be right all the time, because your identity doesn't come from protecting your rightness through self-deception. It comes from being honest about yourself and receiving Christ's righteousness.
You are free to admit that you have been unfaithful to God because your standing with God doesn't depend anymore on your faithfulness—it depends on Christ's faithfulness.
If you are not a Christian today, I want to implore you: Be reconciled to God. The reason you're defensive, the reason you can't face the truth, the reason you've been searching your entire life to fill your soul and can't find it—is because you were made for something bigger. You were made to be called a child of God. You can become that this morning by repenting of your sin and trusting in Jesus as Lord.
If you are a Christian, I encourage you to grow. Taking the pills of self-deception will stunt your growth in the Christian life. The only way you'll grow in godliness is to stop taking them.
God has given us something to help us resist self-deception: each other. You are like someone strapped into a harness. That harness is the security you need to do what you would never do without it—to admit the hard truth about yourself. Your identity is secure in God's grace.
You will NOT GROW AS A CHRISTIAN if you never admit your weaknesses, your faults, your failures, or your pains. God has provided a church around you to help you test that harness and experience the joy of resting in his grace, not your performance.
Ask your brothers and sisters in Christ this scary but vital question: "What sin in my life do you see that I'm blind to?"
You can't work yourself out of self-deception because you deceived yourself. You need brothers and sisters in life to speak honestly to you. It's scary, yes. But remember: you are secure. You are strapped into the harness of grace. You are a beloved child of God. You have been purchased by the blood of Christ. Because you are secure, you can ask that question without fear. No matter how tough it is to swallow, your identity is not at risk.
Saul couldn't take that risk. Samuel came to reveal his sin, and Saul plugged his ears and started singing, "I don't want to know." Because of that, Saul ruined everything. He rejected the truth about God, and therefore he was rejected by God.
Christian, God has given you a local church to love you enough to tell you when something is wrong. Get into community. It is not enough to darken the doors of this church and leave before communion, only to do the same thing next Sunday. Don't avoid the hard conversations. Don't resist the truth. Don't ignore. Don't compare. Don't rebrand. Receive the hard truth. Repent. As a result, you'll experience an even deeper degree of joy—the joy that your identity is rooted in the love and grace of God, not your performance.
When you begin to understand that his love and grace bears you up, it will change you from the inside out.
