The Enemy Within

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Greetings to each one of you in Christ's name. I've titled this message, The Enemy Within. And I know that that's the title of a book. Maybe some of you have read that book, but it has nothing to do with what I'm about to say. [00:00:31] When I speak about the enemy this morning, I'm speaking about the sin that we harbor, the sin that we carry with us, that we don't get rid of, the sin that brings separation between me and God. And I would like to look at the life of King Saul this morning. We are reading our family devotions that we're having presently, or did have, we were reading about King Saul. And I saw this in a totally different light for some reason. [00:01:06] I've known the story all my life, I've heard it. Let's look at 1 Samuel, I'm going to begin and I'm just going to give a general overview of some of the things that happened and I cannot, there's no way that we could go through the whole thing. But let's look first at how King Saul, Saul began, where he was. Let's notice the qualities that Saul had. 1 Samuel chapter 9 verse 1 and 2 read this way. [00:01:43] Now there was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zer, the son of Bekarath, the son of Aphiai. I don't know if I say those words right. A Benjamite, a mighty man of power. And he had a son whose name was Saul, a choice young man, a goodly, and goodly. and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he. From his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people. I would say he was, the Bible says, a goodly man. [00:02:17] He was the cream of the crop in my own words, I would say. I don't know if that's probably a generic term. I don't know if it's important to notice these qualities here, but the Bible does make note of them. And I want to focus on Saul, but maybe we should talk about what was happening in Israel at that time. They wanted a king. They were asking and pleading, begging for a king like the heathen. [00:02:48] And Samuel tried in vain to explain to them that if they would have a king, he would tax them. He would take their men from them to fight. He would take the best of their crops and their sheep for his. And he tried to explain. Nevertheless, they would not listen. They wanted a king. They insisted on it. And 1 Samuel 8.22 says this, God told Samuel, hearken unto their voice and make them a king. And so he did. Now the focus is on the character of Saul. [00:03:23] But maybe we should focus a little bit on how this happened. And so, I think we're all familiar with how these donkeys were lost and they were looking for these donkeys, his father's donkeys. And God arranged circumstances so that Saul and Samuel got together. And Samuel was looking for a man to lead. And that could be a message in itself. [00:03:56] All of us have met God that have made a commitment, have at some place or another, we have intersected, we have met God, I should say, I want to say, somehow, maybe not in this manner. Nevertheless, the food was gone. They had just enough money to pay a seer or a prophet to tell them where the animals had gone. And that's where Samuel enters the picture. The Bible says he communed with Paul, or Saul, I'm sorry. [00:04:27] Now let's read 1 Samuel chapter 10, maybe I'll read verse 1 to 10. There's quite a bit of reading to do. I'm not sure what to skip and what to leave here. But I think I'm going to read the first ten verses here. This is about the anointing of Saul. And we're speaking about anointing a king this morning. Well, let me just read. Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon his head and kissed him and said, [00:05:00] Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? When thou art departed from me today, then thou shalt find two men in Rachel's sepulcher in the border of Benjamin at Zelza, and they will say unto thee, The asses which thou wentest to seek are found, and lo, thy father hath left the care of the asses and sorroweth for you, saying, What shall I do for my son? Then shalt thou go on forward from thence, and thou shalt come to the plain of Tabor, and there shall meet thee three men going up to God to Bethel, [00:05:39] one carrying three kids, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a bottle of wine. And they will salute thee and give thee two loaves of bread, which thou shalt receive of their hands. After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines, And it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a company of prophets, coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tablet, and a pipe, and a harp before them, and they shall prophesy. And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man. [00:06:15] And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as occasion serve thee, for God is with thee. And thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal and behold I will come down unto thee to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings Seven days shalt thou tarry till I come to see thee and show thee what thou shalt do And it was so when he had turned his back to go from Samuel God gave him another heart And all those signs came to pass that day [00:06:48] And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. Now, as I said earlier, we are talking about anointing a king. But, I believe this morning that God has called each one of us, each one of us has been called by God To be his child. And some of us have answered that call to some degree or other. We've answered that call. [00:07:26] And I want to notice this. I want to say this. God does not call us because of who I am or what my my family looks like or my status. But God calls us and he calls us where we're at. But then he sees what we can become if we allow him to work in our lives. And when we call, when we answer the call that God has placed on us or the way that God has called us, he places a claim on our lives. [00:08:03] He wants to claim us and the devil has, we have to get rid of the claim that the devil has on our lives. And there's several phrases in this passage that I just read. In 10 verse 6, the spirit of the Lord will come upon thee and thou shalt prophesy with them and shall be turned into another man. I think all of us, I hope all of us that have made a commitment to serve the Lord have felt that difference, that change. If we haven't, I wonder if there's been a change. [00:08:36] He was turned into another man. I would like to notice also, well maybe I'll just say this, Saul at that point had everything going for him. It seems like he had everything going for him. And I thought of this this morning when Juan was speaking. Most of us here have been raised in a church setting. We've had some kind of church experience. And what I fail to realize is that a large percentage of the world doesn't have that opportunity. [00:09:12] We have an advantage, just like Saul had an advantage. We have an advantage. We have an advantage. I would like to notice Saul's humility. I didn't read about Samuel's public declaration of him as a king, But he was a humble man at that point He was not proud And if only he could have hung on to that humility His destiny would have changed and that of his people [00:09:45] That's our responsibility Hang on to the humility that you have You know when God calls us When people respond to the call of God I've noticed this over and over again When people get to the end of themselves There's a spirit of humility. It's not what I can do, but it's what we need God. And we're willing to do whatever it takes to be in God's camp. Chapter 921, he says, Am I not, am not I a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of Israel and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? [00:10:24] Wherefore then speakest thou so? He had a spirit of humility. What I would like to notice this morning is Saul's gradual demise, going downhill. You know, the weight that I've been feeling is this. We have people, we have opportunities. And as we look around, we see people that gradually lose out and sometimes quickly lose out. And all of a sudden you notice that these people that had been so on fire for God just don't have a testimony anymore. [00:11:04] That's the burden on my heart this morning as we look at Saul's life. Why was it that Saul left off? Why was it that he failed so miserably? It's the thing that I would like to look at here. He refused to listen to the voice of the Lord And there's more that enters in Let's look now at some of the things that took place It wasn't long and I'm not reading this We're well aware of what happened [00:11:35] And so I'm going to skip large portions of this But about the first thing that we read That he was faced with was because the people at Jabesh Gilead were threatened by, I think, the Ammonites, if I have it correctly in my head. And I think they were going to put out their eyes. I'm not sure. I'm just saying this from memory. And Saul rallied the people. [00:12:08] And he was, he was, he, I don't know if he asked the Lord or if Samuel advised him, but he was successful. He, he did what God wanted him to do. And he was, he had 300 and some thousand men that rallied to fight. And he was able to deliver these people. But let's keep going. First Samuel, it wasn't long until he was put to the test again. [00:12:42] And maybe I'll just make this practical. If you have committed your life to Christ and serving the Lord, you will be put to the test, maybe on a daily basis. It's not that you're facing the physical enemy, but temptation. You'll be put to the test. 1 Samuel 13 There was a second test that I noticed And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel [00:13:12] 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and people As the sand which is on the seashore in multitude He was faced with an insurmountable enemy in front of him He was faced with a huge enemy But I would like to look at the heart of Saul Somewhere he lost his dependence on God He lost it Look at what his response was Samuel was supposed to come and offer the burnt offering [00:13:46] In chapter 13 verse 9 it says this Saul said bring hither a burnt offering to me and peace offerings And he offered the burnt offering Saul wanted what we all want. He wanted results. He wanted to get things done. But he was willing to sacrifice obedience. Only the priests were allowed to offer that offering. He was under tremendous pressure. He was losing people. His people were leaving him because nothing was happening. [00:14:21] You know, I think sometimes we face pressure and finally we get to the point where we feel like we just have no option but just to cave in to that pressure, pure pressure, whatever the pressure might be. What happened? He disregarded God's command and took things in his own hands. Now what I want to notice here is the enemy. Where was the enemy at? [00:14:53] Where was the enemy at that took Saul down, that made him fail? It was not the Philistines. The Philistines were innumerable, practically. But where was the enemy? The enemy was right here in his own heart. His lack of obedience. Because he was not obedient, the enemy was right there. If he had dealt with that enemy, you know, if we don't deal with the enemy right here, the enemy within, the sin, if we don't deal with it, we are powerless to go forward. [00:15:32] We just can't go. And how does sin enter in? How did that happen? There's a progression. Temptation is the first. I believe Saul was tempted. He was tempted to take things in his own hands and do it his way because he was faced with an enemy. And that's how sin enters our lives as well. James says this, But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. [00:16:06] Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. You know, if there's still that enemy within, if there's still a sin that isn't taken care of within us, and it resonates with what we're facing, we have no power to resist. I know this is off on a, maybe on a totally different vein, but I see people, I see myself sometimes, instead of dealing with this enemy within, I just fight a little harder, I just try to get rid of this temptation that's out here, and there's just no power to go forward. [00:16:56] My son got a book from the library and I had read this book years ago but I forgot about it and I don't know what the title is. I think he gave a book report of it at school. But in the German army there was a man, his code name was Werther I think or maybe Werner, I'm not sure. But this man was second in command in the German hierarchy, whatever. He and he was when the army, the German army attacked Russia. He had direct channels to the Russian army. And for some reason, he was the enemy within. Germany had I don't know if they had a million man army. They were up against Russia. And for some reason, the German army would make a decision. They would turn their men and their tanks over here. And they were they were fighting a war. [00:17:55] A real battle. But before they got their tanks over here, the Russians were over here. Why do you think that was? There was an enemy within that was directing over there. You know, it's kind of the same way for me. When there's still a little bit of, I just still kind of long for something. For some reason, I just can't do battle with the enemy, with the devil. Now that's off on the side, but it does bear looking at. [00:18:33] We have to deal with the sin that is in our heart. If we toy with that temptation long enough, it becomes sin. The temptation in itself is not sin, but if we look at it long enough. But you know what, it doesn't have to be that way. 2 Peter 2.9 says this, The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. There we are able to stand. [00:19:06] Saul continued down the road of self-destruction. It's very unfortunate. It's a sad story. Saul ended up in a totally different place than he started. He kept going. Chapter 15. I would like to focus on chapter 15, and I know that we've all heard this many times, but again he was faced with a test. First of all, there was a command. He was commanded to do something. In chapter 15, the first three verses, Samuel also said unto Saul, [00:19:42] The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ox. It was the command of God. [00:20:16] This is what he was asked to do. Now let's skip some of this and read verse 8 and 9. Now this is what Samuel did. This is his response. 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 a Gog 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 [00:20:49] but everything that was vile and refused that they destroyed you know it's almost right it's almost right he almost did the right thing but he did not obey to the extent that God asked him to do what happens if we do that We're on the wrong road, going the wrong direction. I think I'm going to read from verse 10 to 30. [00:21:22] I'm not going to comment on everything. This is quite a bit of reading. But I think I'm going to read it. Why don't we stand? I don't want anybody to fall asleep on me. Verse 10. Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has 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 came to Carmel, and behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. [00:22:03] And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleeding of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites from the people, 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 to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. [00:22:38] And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, was thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel. And 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. 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, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. [00:23:15] But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Had the Lord as great delight in burnt offering and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord, behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. [00:23:51] And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord. And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee, for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. And as Saul turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent. And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, [00:24:25] and hath given it to a neighbor of thine that is better than thou. And also the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he is not a man that he should repent. Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, Before Israel and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God You may be seated There is no, I don't think I could cover everything that was said in this portion But there are some things that I noticed [00:24:57] And it was a continuation of the path that Saul was on And he kept going that downward path The blatant disrespect that he had for God's command You know, it was almost right. It was almost right, but not quite. Isn't that our temptation? We're almost right. We do it almost right. But we have a responsibility. Verse 13, Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of God. [00:25:35] And I didn't think to do this until it was too late this morning, but I wonder how many things you could draw out of this. Sins that Saul did, things that he did against the Lord. He lied, he had pride in his heart, he was rebellious, and you make a list. But if we don't root out and pull out what's in our heart, the sin that's in our heart, it'll just keep going that direction. [00:26:10] It's obvious. And Samuel noted the pride that was in his heart and the resistance of God that was upon him because of this. There's one more that I would like to highlight. And this is kind of a negative picture of Saul. Let's look at chapter 18, verse 6 to 11. I'm going to read that. And this is now a different sin, totally different. [00:26:48] This was his jealousy. It was another sin that Saul didn't deal with. and ultimately it became the enemy within, he just could not, it brought him to ruin, the sin of jealousy and it came to pass as they came when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine that the woman came out of all cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tablets with joy and with instruments of music and the woman answered one another as they played and said [00:27:19] Saul has slain his thousands and David has his ten thousands And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him, and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands. And what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day forward. And it came to pass on the morrow that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house, and David played with his hand as at other times. [00:27:52] And there was a javelin in Saul's hand, and Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. You know, jealousy is such an awful thing. Saul had gotten to the place where he was jealous. There's something about jealousy. It's so elusive. It not only brings spiritual death to me, but it also is out to destroy my brother in the church, or whoever, or sister. [00:28:32] You know, Saul should have been blessing David. When we're jealous, we should be blessing our brother and sister. We should not, many times, it's a person or something that has higher value or it's something that we would like to attain to but we just can't get it. So it becomes the object of our jealousy. But it need not be that way. Because of David's popularity, Saul could not bless him, but he hated him. [00:29:07] And ultimately, Saul did what we do today when we're jealous of someone or something. He wasted a lot of time and energy in pursuing that thing when he could have been about the Lord's work. He got to the place where he was downright miserable because he did not deal with it. He did not get rid of it. He got so bad that he had all the priests killed because of David. [00:29:40] They gave him some bread. And I'm just going to quickly get to the end of Saul here, the end of his life. You know, when he was faced with the enemy again, where did he go for guidance? He went to the witch at Endor. Now we think that's awful. But when we have sin, when we're hanging on to things, we go to the wrong source for our comfort. [00:30:12] You know, a lot of times when there's something that I do that I just don't want to get rid of, I like it when other people do the same thing. And I just kind of feel comfortable if I have maybe several brothers in church or a man at work and we kind of comfort each other. Now that's a far cry from a witch. But what I want to point out here is that we go to the wrong source for our comfort, for our direction. And that's what happened. And ultimately Saul committed suicide at the end of his life. [00:30:46] We can commit spiritual suicide if we don't get rid of the enemy within, the sin that's within us. Now, I'm sure that Saul was discouraged many times through his life. He was discouraged. He fought so hard and he tried so hard to be the man that God wanted him to be. But somehow he was not victorious personally, personally or as a leader. You know, the thing that spoke to me is this lack of victory. [00:31:21] And I don't know if it's just me, but I've noticed that as I look across the Christian landscape, there's a lot of people that are struggling and there just doesn't seem to be a degree of victory over sin. It seems almost that we've gotten to the point where we accept that we cannot have victory, that we cannot live above the level of sin. But God forbid, that's not what God wants [00:31:53] And I don't know if I should even share this Probably, well, I'll just say it quickly Years ago when I was working for another company We used to have a man, the vice president of operations would come in And he'd give us a pep talk And he would always have some stories to say Try to get us fired up How many of you have heard of Zig Ziglar? Most of you, yeah I don't put a lot of stock in motivational speaking unless you put God in the equation [00:32:26] Because it can make you feel good for a little bit But this is what I remember this man saying And I think Zig Ziglar said it And it's kind of humorous actually And I know it wouldn't work But he said that How many of you have heard of the way that he trained his flies? Nobody? Okay. He put, he had flies and he put them in a mason can and put a lid on top. And these flies would fly up against that lid on and on and on and on. [00:33:05] they kept flying, they kept bumping their head and this kept going well, this is a story, I don't know, probably never happened but he said that finally he took the lid off the jar and the flies just stayed down they knew they couldn't go any higher is that the way we view our Christian life? you know, God doesn't want us to live on a level of misery God wants us to be victorious over sin have peace and joy in our lives but if we do not deal with the enemy the sin that is that so easily besets us now how how do how do we go about doing this forsaking sin is the first step to getting rid of that enemy getting rid of it but we have to go beyond that it doesn't work [00:34:04] Just to forsake. If we want to have power in our Christian life, we have to get beyond just forsaking the sin. That's the first step. But I want to share with you something that I believe is vital. And I wonder if we're missing some of this sometimes. I think repentance is what we need. If there is no power to go forward, I wonder if we've truly repented from sin. [00:34:42] I wonder. What was the message that Jesus had when he was here? Matthew 4, 17 From the time Jesus began to preach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Have we lost the value and the true meaning of repentance? Do we understand what repentance actually means? Do we understand godly sorrow for sins and abhorrence of the things that I once loved? [00:35:14] You know, we look at sin sometimes as something gross, something that's out there. But sin can be very, it can very easily penetrate right here. and be right there. Abhorrence. The biblical meaning of repentance. What is the biblical meaning of repentance? It's a change of heart that results in a change of action. [00:35:50] You know, it's so easy to change my action and not change my heart. But if that heart doesn't change, if there's not a different pursuit, There will not be victory for very long. It'll just go back little by little, sometimes drastically. I remember, and I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about my own experience, but I remember a certain sin that I was in. And I wanted so badly to leave. I wanted so badly to have a vibrant walk with the Lord. I wanted a change. I have forsaken that sin, but I was tempted with it again. I had not repented. I took a hold of it again. But the Lord convicted me. You know, we have to do more than forsake. We have to repent. There's no victory. There's no power in our life if we don't repent. There are many people that go to the wrong source for victory. [00:37:00] He needed to play the harp, but that didn't do it. He needed to get rid of that enemy that was holding him down. And that's what we need to do. We need to repent. You know, it made me sit up straight when Brother, what was the brother's name that was here? Melvin Bontrager. When he said this, how does sin get into the church? How does sin come in? When the door opens? No. So, if I allow sin to keep going in my heart, if I have just a little bit of lust, if I just love that ball game, if I just love the way I used to dress or was able to dress, I walk in the door. Sin sits down right in the pew. Right there it is. We have to deal with it. And then, that's the difference. Now sin is in the church. [00:37:58] If we do not repent of sin, it will come in the church. On an individual basis, if we are not aware of the things that are going on in our lives, it will get right into the church. There's a question that I hear a lot, and maybe I'm just a little cynical because I hear it so many times, I hear a lot of people questioning these days saying things like this. Well, what's really wrong with this? What's wrong? And then you fill in the blank. Why do I have to wear a beard? What's really wrong? And then you keep going, keep going. And I mentioned a beard, but it could be it has been many things. What's really wrong with it? [00:38:46] But there's something behind that question that bothers me. If that question is asked for something that pleases my flesh or makes me comfortable, I believe there's an unrepentant heart behind it. It must be that way. It must be that way. You know, Saul shifted blame. And that's many times what happens when there's an unrepentant heart. The people did it. It wasn't me. Or give me another chance. He had a false confession. He said, I'm sorry. But you know, the way back to God, the way to get rid of that sin is to repent from the heart. Repent and confess. [00:39:38] As I was sitting here this morning thinking about this, how do we know if a person has repented or not? Have you ever seen revivals where the book came out of the drawer and into the fire and people got up and confessed? How do we know if there has been a repentance? How do we see it? It's evident. When there's repentance from the heart, confession just flows forth. [00:40:14] There's no forced confession anymore. It's right there. It's on our lips. We can't contain it anymore. Now I want to close with this thought. And I want to encourage us with this. There's power to live above the level of sin. And I've seen that in many of you here. many of you have exemplified that the gospel of John first chapter verse 11 and 12 have been a comfort to me many times [00:40:45] he came unto his own and his own received him not but as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name as many as have received him You know, there are many people that name the name of Christ in our day, but I wonder if they've received him in their hearts. I will put that question mark there. If we do not live a life of repentance, have an attitude of repentance, where we're willing to say sorry from the heart, we have not received the Lord in our heart. [00:41:27] I think we can make that statement. I think that's a qualified statement. But as many as have received him, to them gave he power. There's power at hand. When we become a son or a daughter of God, we don't have to live on the...