Rebellion

Greetings in the name of Jesus! This is Rob Haymes. This program is called 15 Minutes With Jesus. Today we’re going to talk about Rebellion. Let’s turn to Isa 14:12-15, How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. Notice what Satan said; he said, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. He spoke what he would do; it was his will to do it, and it was not the will of God, and he ended up being cast out of Heaven, and he will end up in the Pit. Let’s compare that with what Jesus said: Jesus said, I only do what I see my Father doing; I only say what I hear my Father saying. And in the hour of his temptation, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He was faced with all that torment and brutal suffering, He said, Not my will Father, but yours be done. He said, If it be your will Father, take this cup from Me! Nevertheless, not my will Father, but your will be done. In Matthew 7 Jesus said, They that do the will of my Father, those are they that are going into the Kingdom of Heaven; not they that say, Lord, Lord, and do their own will. That’s what He was talking about. He said, Many will come to Me and say, Lord, Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in your name, and I will say to them, Depart from Me, I never knew you, you who work iniquity. The root of all iniquity is rebellion; rebellion against God. We’ve all been plagued with this; it’s in our sinful nature. It’s why Jesus died for us; the rebellion that plagues us, that Jesus put to death on the Cross, and that we must put to death through the Spirit. In Rom 8:13&14 it says, If you live after the flesh you shall die. What are the works of the flesh? They’re all directed toward me, my will, my pleasures; what I want to do.  They’re rooted in rebellion. But he said,  if you through the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the flesh, the deeds of the body,  you shall live! 

Let’s turn to 1 Sam 15:1-23,  Samuel also said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men of Judah.  And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kenites, Go, depart, get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul attacked the Amalekites, from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag 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, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying,  I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night. So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord. 

But Samuel said, What then is this bleating 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 the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.  Then Samuel said to Saul, Be quiet, and I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night. And he said to him, Speak on. So Samuel said, When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. So Samuel said: Has 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 heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king. 1 Sam 16:1, Now the Lord said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons. 1 Sam 13:13&14, And Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. 1 Sam 15:28&29,  So Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 

And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent. What was the difference between David and Saul? Saul was about himself. That is why he was so angry and wanted to kill David when the women came out with timbrels and dancing singing, Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands. Saul wanted the honor of men; he wanted honor for himself. David wanted God to be honored. He loved God and was very zealous for the Lord God of Israel. That is why he killed Goliath, because Goliath defied the armies of Israel. He sought to uphold the honor of God. David kept the ways of the Lord. His heart was after God, not for himself. He sinned, but he repented and God forgave him, and he never let go of his faith; just as Jesus said to Peter, when He told him he was going to deny Him, He said Satan wanted to sift him as wheat, but He said, I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not. And that was the difference with Peter as well; his faith did not fail because Jesus interceded for him, and he repented.

What are we after? Are we after our self; our own glory, riches and pleasures? Or are we after God, and His glory and blessing? The Apostle Paul said at one point about some of those that had been with him in preaching the Gospel, he said, All seek their own, not the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a statement! Are we willing to lay down our agenda, our lives, our plans, and humble ourselves before Him and love Him and serve Him? He has promised if you will humble yourself, you will be exalted in due time; in due time. It’s according to His will and timing, and we need to trust Him. Jesus had to humble Himself all the way to the death of the Cross; all the way through it unto death, before the Father raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to His own right hand, far above all principality and power and might and every name that is named! So we need to humble ourselves and keep humbling ourselves to obey the Father as He leads us in paths of righteousness to break us of our rebellion; our stubborn self will, self love, self gratification, and to fill us with His righteousness, peace and joy; and being led by His Spirit, yielding to His Spirit, to do His will every day. It all takes place in each new day, and His mercies are new every morning! His grace is sufficient in every situation. If we will yield to Him in this, to do His will, then we will begin to bear fruit that remains to His glory. Great is His faithfulness! Great is His faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed your hand has provided. Great is your faithfulness, Lord, unto me! This all begins with repentance. We need to come to God; come to Jesus and repent in truth of our rebellion and turn from it with all our hearts to fear Him and obey Him and love Him and serve Him unto death! John 12:25&26, Jesus said, He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor. You see that? He who hates his life in this world will keep it unto life eternal and God will honor them, if they serve Him. If we serve Him, He will honor us.

The Children of Israel, many, many times, after they came into the land of Israel, and God delivered the land into their hands, they sinned in rebellion, they fell into sin and they worshipped idols and they did many abominations, and God sent them prophets and righteous kings, and they would turn from their iniquity, and then the prophet, or the king, or the priest would perish, and they would fall back into iniquity. Many, many times they turned from Him and worshipped other gods, so finally His judgement came upon Israel to destroy Jerusalem.  He sent King Nebuchadnezzar to do so. And those that humbled themselves to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, in obedience to the Word of God spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, kept their own lives for a prey. They went into captivity in Babylon, but God blessed them there and took care of them for seventy years. However, those that rebelled died. 

The Lord is making a people after His own heart who will keep His ways because they love Him with all their heart, and He will bless them forever, and they will dwell with Him in His glorious Kingdom. Jesus said, If you love Me, keep My commandments. The Apostle John said, This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. The reason we find it hard to keep Jesus’ Words is because we don’t love Him with all our heart. We still love ourselves and our own pleasures, and we want to do our own stubborn will. We still love the world; the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. If we will come to Him and acknowledge our sin to Him and ask Him to give us a heart of love and devotion to Him; if we truly want that and seek after that with all our heart, He will respond.

Lord, you know I am a rebel. I have been rebellious and self willed all my days. Forgive me Lord and cleanse me of my rebellion and all my wicked, witchcraft ways to get my own way. Give me a heart after your heart; to love You and obey You with all my heart, that You might be pleased with me; that I might be a blessing to You and your people, and to the people in my own life. Teach me to fear You Lord and to love you; that I would fear to do anything that would displease you. Amen.