20th November 2023

20th November 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 Samuel 19


Message Alan Burke 


I’ve sat with people in tears who have made a mess of many things in their life and you had asked them did they ever think this is where their sin would lead them they would have never believed you. It could be that night out that ended in disaster, the workplace flirtation, that looking at something that was not safe for work online, but as time goes on that sin grows and devours us that leads us on a road that we never imagined taking. Like the lion cub, looks lovely, we invite it into our home but what we forget is that lion cub will grow and one day it will devour us.  


Saul had been warned about his heart, his attitude, he had been given opportunities to repent and with every opportunity that he was given he choose his sin. As time has gone on that sin has consumed Saul, he is jealous of David and as we pick up in chapter 19 his desire is to have David killed. Saul had allowed his sin to consumed him, he had been devoured with it and nothing was now going to stop him. Look at how chapter 19 begins as the rejected king of Israel orders his men as well as his son to kill David, to murder him. Ever since the moment that anger and jealously had first captivated Saul’s heart because of David his desire had been to kill him. For as the women danced and sang as Saul returned from defeating of the Philistines (18:8), Saul knew that the Lord was with David, he was afraid of him and even said to himself “what more can he get but my kingdom?”(18:9). 


Even though Saul was the king, even though he had been chosen by the pope for he was a head and shoulders taller than everyone else, even though he had risen from a nobody to being the king of all Israel, living on the pigs back he is the shadow of the man he should of been. His jealously and fear for his throne was eating him from the inside. What Saul should have done in all of this is to look to the Lord, if he had done that in the beginning it would not have been like this but Saul’s heart was not the Lord’s and his own sin was insnaring him.


Here at the beginning I want to draw something out for us, Saul should have repented of his sinful attitude a long time ago but he did not. He should have reminded himself that he was but a servant of the Lord but he did not. Saul allowed it to fester, he allowed himself to wallow in how he was feeling. There is a warning for all of us here, because we can allow things to fester within us, to wallow in how we are feeling, what someone has said, the perceived injustice, the worry we feel, filled with pity for ourselves, full of sorrow, critical of others, full of frustration and the more we let those things fester, the more we wallow in them the more harm that they will do us and they are often then shown forth in our attitude. Instead we should be repenting of our sinful attitudes, our sinful hearts, pursuing joy, peace, patience, kindness, and self-control, among others (Gas 5:23–24). In all of this Saul heart was the issue. But this is something that we see repeated in Scripture, the Lord giving individuals and his people as a whole the opportunity to turn from their sin but they choose their sin and it has disastrous consequences. 


One of the first examples of that is in the book of Genesis with Cain the eldest son of Adam and Eve to whom the Lord tells; “…sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (Ge 4:7). In all of our lives sin crouches at the door and for some of us we may even know the reality of how it can devour is only to experience God’s grace. When we fall into sin we are to repent, to turn back to Christ and know that our sins are forgiven through him. Let us not wallow in them, to allow them to grow in our lives and devour us


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q101 What do we pray for in the first petition?
In the first petition, (which is, Hallowed be thy name, (Matt. 6:9)) we pray, That God would enable us and others to glorify him in all that whereby he maketh himself known; (Ps. 67:2–3) and that he would dispose all things to his own glory. (Ps. 83)
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