The Self-Justifiers

by Joseph Perrello
Published February 15, 2005

Saul was disciplined for this should give pause for serious reflection on the matter

“Rationalizing our disobedience to God makes excuse givers of us all,” may sound like a trite paraphrase of an old cliché, but that makes it no less true. King Saul was such a person. God selected him as Israel’s first king when the nation demanded that it be as other nations that had kings. In thus acquiescing to the people’s demand for a king, God expressed His permissive, rather than His perfect will in the matter.
It is heart-rending for a person to be in God’s permissive rather than His perfect will. One pastor surprised this writer by admitting that he had followed God’s permissive will for his life. God had given him a definite call to the mission field and worked things out for him to go by providing financial support, and by moving on the mission board to appoint him immediately upon his graduation from seminary, without the necessary two-year experience as a pastor. However, he was engaged to a girl who refused to marry him if he entered missionary ministry. No amount of persuasion could change her mind, so he changed his. In spite of the strivings of the Holy Spirit for him to obey, he rejected his true calling and instead became a pastor.

In His mercy, God permitted him to serve in that capacity with some success. As the pastor told me the story, his voice manifested his profound sadness. “I realize God has forgiven me,” he said, “but I can’t help wondering how many souls never heard the Gospel because of my disobedience. I don’t think anyone replaced me where I was appointed to serve.”

It’s easy for us to exhibit a spirit of false humility by implying that we are expendable to God - by saying that there is always someone else God can use in our stead. However, that excuse “won’t wash” with God. Moses learned that lesson at the “burning bush” when, after making every excuse he could think of for not answering God’s call for him to lead Israel out of Egypt, he told God, “O my Lord, send. I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” Transposed into our vernacular, he actually was decisively telling God, “O my Lord, send someone else” (Exodus 4:13).

God’s reaction to the words of Moses indicates that Moses’ rejection of the commission was rude and forceful, since it's recorded, “And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses . . .” (verse 14). It is improbable that God considered Moses expendable, though it is evident that Moses thought of himself as replaceable.

As stated above, “Rationalizing our disobedience to God makes excuse givers of us all.” Both Moses and King Saul rationalized their disobedience. Their motives were different - the disobedience of Moses was motivated by fear, while that of King Saul was motivated by arrogance - but the disobedience of both was rooted in that same inclination that prompts all of us to offer excuses for not obeying God. Moses offered excuses for not immediately doing what God called him to do. King Saul offered excuses for doing what he was not called by God to do.

According to the Book of First Samuel, chapter fifteen, the Lord sent the Prophet Samuel to anoint Saul as the first king of Israel. Through Samuel, God immediately gave him a commission to declare war on the nation of Amalek. “Thus saith the Lord of Host, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid in wait for him [Israel] in the way, when he [Israel] came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have . . . But Saul and the people spared Agag [the king of Amalek], and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly” (1st Samuel 15: 2-3).

But God had commanded that all the spoils of the war with Amalek be destroyed, not just that which was “vile and refuse.” It is dangerous to attempt to second-guess God and rationalize one’s disobedience to Him. It was this tendency in Saul that initiated his rejection by God. Rather than destroy all the spoils and then wait patiently for the coming of the Prophet Samuel as instructed, he did things his own way and therefore forfeited the permanency of his family’s reign on the throne of Israel (1st Samuel 13:13-14).

Read the history of King Saul and contrast it to that of King David. David, who also was not a perfect man, was considered “a man after his [the Lord’s] own heart” (1st Samuel 13:14). The phrase appears inappropriate when one considers David’s conduct in the light of his relationship to Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite, one of his most loyal military officers. David’s conduct in this situation marks him as a conniving, adulterous, wife stealing, murderer, who manipulated the assassination of Uriah in order to hide his own adultery with the officer’s wife. If we compare the guilt of David to that of Saul, David’s guilt appears much weightier. How, then, could Samuel refer to him as “a man after his [the Lord’s] own heart?”

The question is answered when one notes that Saul excused his willful disobedience, while David admitted his sin and acknowledged God’s justice in punishing him. God sent the Prophet Nathan to confront David with his crime. To do so, Nathan told him the story of a rich man with many flocks and a poor man who owned only one ewe lamb that he kept as a family pet. One day, a traveler visited the rich man. In preparing a meal for the traveler, rather than taking an animal form his flocks, the rich man took the poor man’s lamb, dressed it and served it as a meal (2nd Samuel 12: 1-5).

The story aroused David’s hypocritical, unrighteous indignation! “And David’s “anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: . . . because he had no pity” (verses 5-6).

“Thou art the man,” Nathan accused the king (verse 9).

Through Nathan, God pronounced His sentence on the man after His own heart. God did not spare him; the punishment was heavy and grievous. One may find it recorded in 2 Samuel 12: 7-23. David did not justify his sins and – contrary to Saul - he accepted God’s judgment upon him without making excuses.

Because the history of the disobedience of Saul and David is not pleasant reading, some may tend to disregard it as inappropriate, negative teaching that offers no positive encouragement to a relationship with God. However, one of the most outstanding Old Testament lessons is this account of how to react after God disciplines one of His children.

“Then David arose from the earth, [He had been in prolonged fasting prayer for the life of the child conceived as a result his adultery with Bathsheba] and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped . . .” (2 Samuel 12: 20).

According to His own purposes, God chose to not grant David’s request for life of the child. David accepted God’s will without question and entered the house of the Lord and worshipped. He thus acknowledged the justice of God’s dealings with him.

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