2024-04-17- Disobedience Is Not Worth the Sacrifice

The speaker begins by referencing a Bible passage and discussing distractions. They share a personal story about a distracting situation at work. The focus then shifts to the story of Saul and the Amalekites. Saul disobeyed God's command to destroy everything, instead keeping the king and the best livestock. The speaker emphasizes the importance of obedience and not holding on to the things of the world. They warn against the dangers of disobedience and pride. The message concludes with a call to prayer and the title "Disobedience is Not Worth the Sacrifice." I'm going to get right into the Word tonight. We all would stand here and turn to 1 Samuel 15, starting in verse 7. When you're there, say, Amen. Thank the Lord for His presence in here tonight. Thank Him for coming in here, Brother Anthony. He didn't have to. He's right here among us. You might have a lot going on this week. We talked about distractions. I had a lot of distractions this morning going to leave work, and I won't get into the details, but it was very distracting, and things I've never dealt with before, and we're right here at it, and I'm sitting there thinking. I told my boss, I told her, I said, I need to leave, because I need to get more deep than I already am in this, because I've got to get focused. So I'm going to turn here. We're going to go to verse number 7 and start, And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is, over against Egypt. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 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 everything that was vile and refused, that they destroyed utterly. Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night. And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul, come to Carmel. And behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth this, then, this bleeding of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said unto me. Isn't that funny? We're carrying on, we're bragging, we're mentioning the fact that we've destroyed, we've obeyed God, and we're right here where we need to be, and we've destroyed the Amalekites, and the Lord spoke to the prophet. This night, and he said unto him, saying, And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed the king over Israel, and the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil, sheep, and oxen, the sheaf of the things which should have been utterly destroyed and sacrificed unto the Lord by God in Gilgal. Note these two last verses, And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and adultery. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. Would you pray with us tonight? Lord Jesus, we ask you, Lord Father God, to move in this house. Lord God, I pray for the anointing on this altar. God, I pray for the anointing on my tongue. God, as I use this word, God, to preach to the saints here tonight. God, we ask you for everyone in the sound of my voice, God, to have a listening ear, God. Search our hearts, Father, I pray, Lord Jesus, anoint these altars. As we come down here, Lord Father God, and pray after this message, Lord Jesus, we ask you to be in this house, God. We trust that you're here, Lord Father God. Thank you for your presence, your wonderful power. Hallelujah, hallelujah. The title that I'm going with tonight is Disobedience is Not Worth the Sacrifice. Disobedience is Not Worth the Sacrifice. We all are very familiar with this scripture, and that's commonly said, but I'm going to say tonight that this is a very, very familiar scripture, Brother Ron. We can all recite it. We don't even really have to open the Bible, and we know where this goes, and we can sit there and we can tell a story about how Saul disobeyed God and what become of that disobedience. I was brought to this today, literally, my thought is around the fact that he was disobedient, Brother Camden, and where did it bring him? What did it bring him in the future days? And what did he do in that time that he became disobedient? And we've already mentioned it, but I'll hold back on that for just a second, but in verse number 70, and Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah, and until thou cometh to Shur, that is over against Egypt, and he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. Looking at this scripture, I'm sure this text here, I'm sure that all of us can relate that the last thing that Saul probably should have done is taken the king of those that he was supposed to destroy. He took the person that was leading them, and he brought them back into where he was at. And it was a whole thing of disobedience, and we're going into that, and Saul, the first thing that he does is disobey after he destroys, and he obeys. He destroys some, but not all. He takes it, Brother Camden, and he looks at what was good of that which he was destroying. How many of us have looked at this world, and we've been told not to partake of these things, and we've looked onto it with our eyes, and it's like, well, it looks good, but we know that it's only skin deep, or I've been out there in this world, and I've seen things that look good, but when I partake of them, they were not good. I've done a lot of things in this past, and I'm not up here to talk about or reminisce on what we have done in our sinful life, but I'm here to tell us tonight it's never worth going back and looking at the spoil of this world. When we go and we're told to destroy the sin of our world or our life, we're not to take of that spoil. We're not to take of that memory and hold back things. You know, I've got a little shelf of keepsakes, and I'm going to put the things here that I remember from when I was there. I'm not going to do that, Brother Ron. I'm not going to meddle in the things that I should put behind me. I'm going to obey the Lord and put everything... it is at the bottom of the sea, it is far from the east, it is to the west. My sins are forever forgotten, Brother Camden. The Lord has forgotten them. God has forgiven me for them. And I don't want to ever be looked at as taking on to that weight and holding on to that. And that's where I want to go further on. We have that, and we have all the camels and the sheeps and the lambs and all these things that He has taken. And Samuel says, what meaneth then the bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? I don't want to take something, Brother Camden, that's going to come back and haunt me. It's going to come back and sound in my ear, or it's going to come back and sound in a person that I'm witnessing here, and I've got something that I've held on to as a weight that I have not let go, and I'm out here and I'm holding on to it. I don't want to be bringing something back from what I was supposed to put down behind me, what I was supposed to destroy. We need to be in the will of God, and that is obeying God and moving forward, and forgetting those things which are behind us, and moving forward to those things that are in front of us. We have to obey the Lord. And my title here tonight is Disobedience is Not Worth the Sacrifice. It's not worth the memory that we're holding on to. The disobedience, Brother Camden, it's not worth it. We have to move forward. We have to obey the Lord. And I ask myself, why would he do this? He's got so much. He's the King of Israel, and he has all of this, Brother Camden. He's the King of Israel. He's got everything in front of him. He's probably got more cattle and sheep and camels. He's probably got an abundance. He's probably got more than he could get from the Amalekites that he takes of the spoil. And the first thing that I want to talk about tonight is pride. Where does the pride show itself? And we see several things in this, Brother Ron, that shows itself in this when he gets brought to the attention of, we know, the Lord knows that you disobeyed him. He starts immediately defending his actions. But it's for a sacrifice. It's for God. I took it. They took it. He didn't say I. He said they brought them from the Amalekites. They. First off, as a leader, we all know as a leader, nine times out of ten, when I'm in some kind of conference or a confrontation or any kind of dispute or anything at work or in front of a team and I'm presenting myself, I take responsibility for me as a leader in my work. And that goes for the president. That goes for everybody. But if you don't sit there and say, well, they they did it. That doesn't show very good leadership, Brother Anthony, if you're starting to see the real saw here and you start seeing where he's denying and he says they have brought them from the Amalekites for the people spared the best, the sheep and the oxen and sacrifice to sacrifice unto the Lord by God and the rest we have utterly destroyed. We've done a little bit. We took care of a little bit of the problem, but we. We kept this back for goodwill. We kept this back for, you know, they kept this back for sacrifice, but we destroyed them. We killed most of them. We utterly destroyed them, but we kept the king. We've kept the good spoil. We've taken on everything that we could pretty much take on that looks good, but we destroyed the Amalekites. Job's not done yet. Job's not done yet. You start to see his true colors as a leader and he starts in pride and he in this is where you start seeing the pride of Saul as he comes in verse number seventeen and Samuel said, when thou was when thou was little in thine own eye and own sight, was thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel and the Lord anointed the king over the king over Israel. The Lord sent thee on a journey and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites and fight against them until they be consumed. Therefore, then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil and didst evil in the sight of the Lord. And Saul said unto Samuel, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me and have brought Agag, the king of Amalekite and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. Again, we're talking about this again. We've utterly destroyed the Amalekites, but the people took of the spoil sheep and oxen and the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal. I want to turn over here, talk about pride for a second. I want to turn over here to Proverbs chapter number sixteen, verse eighteen. Pride goes before destruction and in haughty spirit before a fall. I'm going to turn just a few places over into verse or chapter number eleven, one through five. False balance is abomination of the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. When pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with lowly is wisdom. The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perseverance of transgressors shall destroy them. Rich is profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death. We've read here in this scripture, in this text here, we're talking about Brother Anthony, the pride. Verse number two, when pride cometh, then cometh shame. How many of you have been in that spot in your life where you've held on to something and it was because it was inside and you really didn't want to let it go and we can relate it to the church house. We can relate it to a conversation outside the church house, but I can speak for me individually. How many times did I turn away from the voice of God that he was telling me that I was not right and I needed to come to this altar and put down all those things in this world and that pride. That was a shame to me is because I could walk away from that church service for the wrong with my head held down and my head held down in shame because I did not obey the Lord. And how many of us have been through this life and we have came across things that we held on to because of our pride and we turned around and looked at it and we've become somebody that defends our actions against those things that people come at us. We have a minister, he's anointed and he's coming at us like Samuel and he's telling us the things that the Lord has laid on his heart for us and we look at him in pride and we walk away and we walk out that door and we don't do the things that we're supposed to and I'm here to tell you tonight that we can put down those weights that we have picked up and if there is anybody in this church house that has things that they've picked up from pride, from disobedience, from just holding on to things in their past, you can lay it on this altar tonight and you can give it to God and you can move forward and you don't have to do the destruction that Saul did. You don't have to sit there and defend yourself and I did it because of this or I did it because of that, but I'm going to move forward and I'm going to pray that God anoint me as a holiness preacher or you as a holiness singer or you as a testifier or anybody in this church house where the candle, you can be used if you put pride aside and you, nobody, nobody and I've said it countless times has ever looked at somebody getting up in the middle of the altar and wondering or they shouldn't and say wondering what they did. Wonder why they're going to the altar. If he would have obeyed the Lord, nobody would have ever known that he took of all that spoil. He would have known that would have never. God knows the hearts of us. He knows our thoughts. How many times in the Bible did when Jesus was standing there and they got to thinking and it says in the Bible, he knoweth their thoughts and then he goes into a parable and he tells them what they think is how many of us have seen that in the Bible where we have related to the fact of that, that the Lord has literally heard our thoughts, brother Austin, and he's, he's heard it. We've only thought it. And then here comes the Holy Ghost and there's an interpretation and this is exactly what we were thinking or we were thinking of something all day long and we come to the church house and, and all of a sudden it's exactly what we were thinking all day long or, or you get behind this pulpit to preach preachers and, and the songs and the testifying and the church service before and the one before that is, is exactly in the same path of where you was at and you were struggling two or three hours before trying to get a message and you just couldn't get a hold of it. And you, you're thinking, I don't know, I just, I feel like that I can't deliver this like the Lord wants me to deliver it. And you get to thinking, you don't do that. You obey the Lord. Go through with it. How many times have we had that in our life? How many times have we seen that in a preaching brother Camden that the Lord has moved and he has confirmed exactly what he has us preaching through the word of God, through the testimonies, through the, the, another preacher getting up and exhorting to the church. How many of us have been in that situation? So why does pride have such a hold on our lives when we get told to do something, when we get told to obey the Lord's saints, we're here talking about pride and what will come us before that's destruction, a haughty spirit, that's destruction. And you're never going to end very well doing that. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. So all of us know, are very familiar with Saul and what he, what he did there. No, no idea why he did it. Just the fact of he just disobeyed God, brother Ron, and it led, it led him into destruction. The Lord left him. Now, this is a pretty stern thing to talk about here is disobedience is, is the Lord leaving you and just totally removing himself from you. But how many of us have disobeyed and you're just like, well, there'll be tomorrow, that there'll be tomorrow. I could probably go through this scripture and I could or this Bible here and I could probably find a little easier things to talk about. But the Lord led me here tonight and I'm here behind this pulpit telling you tonight that we don't know if the disobedience that we have today will lead to our destruction tomorrow. We don't know if that pride, brother Ron, that we're sitting on and we're not letting ourselves move out because we're worried or we're thinking that for some reason, some of us just think we can handle things on our own. We just keep on going on our own to think, you know, we'll just figure this thing out when the Lord's dealing with us to just take it to an altar or take it to a place of prayer and ask God to remove this from my life. I'm depending on you, God. I'm depending on you, brother Michael. So put the pride aside, put those weights down in a place of prayer and get rid of that stuff that you've picked up when you were supposed to destroy the enemy, when you were supposed to put all that behind you, brother Camden, put it down. Don't hold on to it no more and come to an altar of prayer and put it aside and say, God, I don't want these weights anymore. I don't want this stuff holding down on me anymore. I want to depend on you. I want to lean on you. I don't want to look at myself because myself will get me in a world of hurt. I want to depend on God and I want to move forward in the grace and the mercy of God. I want to say, God, I depend on you and I know that you have everything that I have to lean on and you have my tomorrow. You have it for me. I don't have to worry about it. Bible says, don't worry about tomorrow. I ain't worried about tomorrow. I ain't worried about what I'm going to eat. I'm not going to worry about that at all. Life is life. And we do plan ahead of things. And and there's a lot of people that go about life and they they plan like weeks or a week out and they build these meals up and it's probably usually when they're trying to lose weight. And they get all this stuff ready and they have in the refrigerator where they put in their their bag, take to work, heat it up. It's very convenient. I'm sure I've never been that person. But that's a whole lot of thinking about tomorrow. If you take it to a spiritual fact, we don't have to worry about what God has for us tomorrow because he's got it. As long as we obey God, we can move forward and God will have us if we all come to come to our feet and stand. But also, if you bring this song, first Timothy, chapter number six and first number eight and having food and raiment, let us be there with content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and unto many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For he loveth for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some can coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, oh, my God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience and meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, wherein to thou art also called and has professed a good profession from many witnesses. How many of us can look at this scripture and we can look at it and depend on it, verse number 10, for the love of money is root of all evil. I'm not talking about that part, which, while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But now, oh, my God, flee these things and follow after follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Saul took the spoil. He looked at those things for the Micah and he took them. The wealth, there's spoil, so there's probably money, gold. I'm not sure. It just says, Brother Camden, that they took those things that was worth. That's my context. I'm not looking at it right here, but I could read the scripture. But he took those things, the sheep, the cattle, everything that was good to look upon. And he took up the spoil. It's not worth it. We can look at this world, Brother Ron, and we can see the things that are shiny, the money that could get us what we want, what we desire after. Well, hopefully we're not desiring after a lot of things that cost money, a lot of a lot of things that we don't need to worry about. We can depend on God. The love of money is the root of all evil. Where does it start? Anytime you see somebody that gets really unhappy, Brother Ron, Brother Ron, there's a person at work that come on a lot of money recently, and they're just an unhappy person. That money didn't make him happy, Brother Tim. It didn't make him come to work with a smile on her face. It didn't make him forget about all their problems. It actually brought sorrow. And that's what we look at when we see things in this world, is we see happiness for a season. Or if you've been in this way and you go back, don't ever do that. But me talking up here behind this pulpit with the worst thing I ever did was backslide on God. And the only thing I ever did the whole entire time I was out was look back at where I was and wish that I didn't have the pride that held me in for eight years. Don't be me. Don't ever leave this way. Stay strong and taught. Put away those things to the world. Don't pick them back up. Don't ever hold on to them. If we come to an altar tonight and we have any weight, anything in our lives that we've picked up when God said, don't do it, destroy it. We need to put it in an altar of prayer. All of us come forward tonight and pray that God will deliver us of those weights. Oh, I don't know why. I am the clay after I. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,