Sin is a dangerous thing. When it is not confessed and repented of, it leads to more and more sin driving us further and further away from God. Scripture calls on us to confess our sin, repent of our sin, and to forsake our sin. But sometimes we do not do that. We end up acting like King Saul who was confronted with his sin, but instead of confessing it he traveled down a dangerous path of unrepentance leading to his removal of being king. Let’s look at the dangerous path of unrepentant sin in 4 steps.
The first step is disobedience. Saul is given clear instructions about what to do with the enemies of Israel, the Amalekites. He is told to ‘utterly destroy,’ to ‘not spare’ and to ‘put to death’ all the people and animals (1 Sam 15:3). There is nothing unclear about these instructions which makes it all the more shocking that he does not obey. It says in v 9 that Saul spared Agag (the ruler of the Amalekites) and the best of the animals (v 9) in contrast to what God had told him.
Sin is easy to define: it is disobedience to God. Whether it is when we do not do what God says or when we do what God says to not do, sin is disobedience. And Saul has the opportunity to confess and repent when Samuel asks him about his disobedience. But instead of confessing or forsaking his sin, Saul continues down the dangerous path of unrepentant sin.
The second step is denial. Samuel asks Saul pointedly in v 19, why did you not obey the voice of the Lord? This is the opportunity to confess and repent of his sin, but instead Saul chooses to deny. He denies his disobedience by highlighting his partial obedience. He says he did obey by going on the mission he was assigned and destroying some of the Amalekites (v 20). Technically, that is true, but it ignores the clear disobedience to the specific commands of God. We do this when we are caught in sin, too. Instead of admitting the wrong, we turn the focus to the areas where we did right. However, that is avoiding the issue. Obedience in one area does not excuse disobedience in another. Saul should have confessed instead of trying to make himself look good in front of Samuel. But it gets worse.
The third step is defense. In a weird example of self-justification, Saul actually defends his disobedience as something he did for God. That by disobeying, he was able to do something even better for the Lord. Part of the disobedience was that Saul spared the animals that belonged to the Amalekites after God said to destroy them. Maybe he thought it was a strange command from God; why destroy such a useful resource? Imagine the church found an old chest filled with priceless coins on the church grounds but God told us without uncertainty to destroy them all. Why God? Couldn’t we use that for your kingdom? That’s Saul’s thinking. I spared these animals to sacrifice to you, God (v 15, 21). Somehow, in his mind, disobedience to God is necessary in some cases when you have good intentions. If we ever try to justify our sin by thinking about some other benefit that could come by our disobedience we’ve entered a dangerous realm.
The fourth step is to deflect. This is the step where we blame others. Saul had originally blamed the people for being the ones who disobeyed (v 15) but when he was called out for his sin by Samuel, he blamed the people for pressuring him into sin. It does seem like he is on the way towards heartfelt confession in v 24 because he does admit the sin. But then he explains away the confession by saying it was the people that convinced him to disobey. Remember, he is the king, but he says he ‘feared’ the people (v 24). In his deflection, it was the people who caused me to sin. This is classic unrepentance: blame everyone else for your sin. Yes I did it, but it was you who caused me to! For example, we do this when we blame others for making us lose our temper or blame others by taking on the childish taunt, “you started it!” It is just another way to not take responsibility for our own disobedience.
In contrast to Saul is King David. When he is confronted with his sin with Bathsheba he simply confesses his sin (2 Sam 12:13). He doesn’t try to deny his wrongdoing by listing all his other areas of obedience, he doesn’t defend himself or his behavior, and he doesn’t blame anyone else. He takes responsibility for his sin, confesses it and forsakes it. This is the path to dealing with your sin. Let us learn from the poor example of Saul of how to deal with sin when it is exposed to us, not wanting to follow the path of unrepentance that he went down.