A Reason or an Excuse

I was on the Internet looking for excuses that children give to teachers. Of course, you can always find sites like that that give lists, you know, maybe they're school sites or whatever. But I found one interesting site that not only had excuses, but just various conversations that teachers have had with children, things they don't understand or things they mispronounce. It was hilarious. But there was one that I thought was really interesting. A little girl was telling her teacher that Jonah in the Bible was swallowed by a whale. And the teacher said, you know, Jonah's just a story that's not true. It's just ridiculous. Whales have big mouths, but they have small throats. A whale could not swallow a man. And the little girl said, well, yeah, the Bible says that Jonah's was swallowed by a whale. And the teacher said, that's just ridiculous. It can't happen. And the little girl said, well, I guess when I get to heaven, I'll have to ask him. And the teacher said, but what if Jonah went to hell? She said, well, then I guess you'll have to ask him. That's a sharp little kid. I would. Here's some excuses.

Real excuses the kids have given for not doing their homework. I didn't do my history of homework because I don't believe on dwelling in the past. I didn't want the other kids to look bad. Our furnace broke and we had to burn my homework to keep ourselves from freezing. This is going to be a lawyer. I'm not at liberty to say. It was a good time.

It was destroyed in a freak accident involving a hippo, a toaster, and a bag of frozen peas, and you don't want to know the details. My mom used it as a dryer sheet. Now, this one I've actually heard. We had homework. But this one, now, this is a politician. I spent the night at a rally supporting higher pay for our hardworking teachers. And I spent what is the difference between a reason and an excuse? I actually read someplace about a woman who actually had her dog eat her homework.

No, my dog ate it. She said, but who is ever going to believe it? She said, in 988, my homework, the dog would chew up and eat the book. The teacher never believed me, but it actually had happened. Now, that's funny, because you think about it, how many times has a child said, a dog ate my homework? That seems to be something children say. And it's an excuse, right? But when the person had a reason, it was a real reason, no one would believe the real reason, because all they learned is excuses.

And that's really the difference between a reason and an excuse. A reason is a statement of reality. And we're very good, though, at turning a reason into an excuse, because an excuse is an attempt to make ourselves look good or twist the situation to escape responsibility. I'm sorry I'm late. I missed the bus. As if to be honest, I'm not. As if it is the bus's fault. Right? Well, why did you miss the bus? Oh, well, the alarm went off and I kept turning it off and I slept in.

Ah! So the reason is you didn't get out of bed, but we sort of blame it on the bus. We turn it into an excuse. It's real important in our lives to know the difference between real reasons and excuses.

In all of our relationships, it's important to know that. But I tell you, one relationship is absolutely necessary. And our relationship with God, it is very important to know the difference between a reason and an excuse. What kind of excuses are we giving to God all the time? How many times are we saying, God, I'm sorry, I just missed the bus.

I'll do better next time? But God really isn't interested in excuses. What we're going to do today is we're going to look at a number of cases in the Bible that deal with people giving excuses. Excuses to God. How God responded to those excuses. And how God responded to the excuses.

And the lessons we can learn. It's a very simple sermon. It's a number of stories. We're going to go through the Bible, and we're going to read, and we're going to look at the person's excuse. We'll look at God's response to the excuse, and then we have to ask ourselves, are you and I guilty of a very similar excuse? The first one I'm going to look at is the parable that Jesus gave in Luke, Chapter 14.

He's going to Luke 14. Luke, Chapter 14. The context of this parable is very interesting, because it's a Sabbath, and Jesus goes into the house of a Pharisee who's having a big banquet. So all this food is out there. All these important people are invited, and they're having this big meal on the Sabbath. He's sitting there eating with them, and there's some question asked, first of all, because he heals a man. So he heals somebody on the Sabbath, and now there's some question about, well, why are you working on the Sabbath?

And then he gives them a parable. That parable is talking about, if you understand the parable, you look at it, it's talking about the Kingdom of God. And so one of the men there gets the parable, and that's what we have in verse 15. Verse 15 of Luke 14. Now when one of those who sat at the table with him heard these things, he said to him, blessed is he who shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God. He got the parable. Blessed are those who will be there at this supper, because the parable was about a supper, who will be at this supper in the Kingdom of God.

He got it. Now Jesus' response to him is very interesting, because he responds with another parable. Verse 16. Then he said to him, certainly, he was a parable man, gave a great supper and invited many. That's another supper parable. And he sent his servants at supper time to say to those who were invited, come, for all things are now ready. Now this is very important to look at the point he's making here, the lead-in to the next part of the parable.

It's time for the supper. It's not like the invitation went out, and it's like, hey, we're going to have a supper three months from now. These people knew of this supper. It's now time to sit and eat. The time has come to respond to God. And so they're called. It's ready to eat. It's not like, hey, go get dressed, get prepared. You know, it's next week. You know, next Wednesday we're going to have a supper. You're invited to eat. The time's now, folks. You know it. It's time. The food's ready. It's on the table.

Let's sit down and eat. Verse 18. But they, with one accord, began to make excuses. Of course, I guess the question you have to ask here, what kind of valid reasons could you have not to come and sit down in the kingdom of God and have supper with God?

I mean, remember, at least this one man understood what the previous parable meant. There are no reasons why not to respond to God. But what are our excuses to not respond to God? They began to make excuses. The first said to him, I have bought a piece of ground. I must go and see it.

I ask that you have the excuse. Now, remember, the point he's making here is this seems like a valid reason to the person who's saying it. Look, I have some real financial issues I have to deal with here. I have some real business issues I have to deal with. And these are important. Let me go take care of these.

Can we make it another night? Can we reschedule this? Because I have these financial issues I have to deal with. I'm about to make a lot of money. And if I miss this appointment, I lose the deal. So I'm just going to have to reschedule. And of course, the point he's making is he's basically saying, God, we have to reschedule your timetable here because I get some things I want to do. Verse 19, and another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen. I am going to test them. I ask that you have the excuse. I have some work responsibilities.

My job requires me to do some things. And I'm a good hard worker. Maybe it's not my job.

Maybe it's my house. I need to go paint my house. I'm a hard worker. I do work. I need to do my work first. So the first example is financial. The second is work. I've got to get my work done. Let me get my work done, God, and then I can have time for you.

Still another said, verse 20, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come. You know, I've got a wife now. I've got to spend some time with her. You know, give us a few months to get into our place, get settled down. Then let's make it a night to go, you know, have something to eat. But I need to spend my time with my wife now. So in other words, you have my relationships, my family. I need to spend all my time and effort with my family right now, God, and I'll have time for you later.

Now notice in all three of these, these seem like good reasons. You can argue, hey, we all are supposed to work hard and make money. So hey, making money is the most important thing right now. Or we're all supposed to work, so my work right now is most important. So finances work, or my family is the most important. And they all had excuses that seemed like good reasons to them at the time, at the point Jesus is making.

Where is God in your life? Isn't He more important than finances? Isn't He more important than work? And is He more important than even your family? Verse 21, So that servant came and reported these things to his master. The master of the house became angry and said to the servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. He simply says, Go get other people to come. Get people who are hurting and suffering because they'll come, because they'll want to come. Verse 24, For I say to you that none of those men who are invited shall taste my supper.

That's a scary thing. Basically, what He says here is that the people I asked that had excuses, they won't be sitting with me at supper in the kingdom. Now think about that. They won't be sitting with me. It's not like God says, I'll make a date another time. That's okay. I'll go ahead and postpone my plans to fit your plans. Let's notice how the excuses make sense. You can see why each one of those people would say, but this is a valid reason, and it's not. So we get our first lesson. See, these are simple lessons. Our first lesson is we all struggle with finances.

We all struggle with work. We all struggle with our relationships. These are burdens of life. But we have to be careful that we don't make these things excuses for not living in total dedication to God. These can never become excuses. I'll get, you know, it's my marriage is a mess. Therefore, once I get this cleaned up, I'll get right with God. But you will never clean up your marriage if you're not right with God. Well, when I finally get my job right, you know, then I can when I get the right job, then I won't have to work with the Sabbath.

Then I'll get right with God. Well, once I get the house fixed up, then I really plan on serving widows. I have these excuses. And the point Jesus makes here is God accepts none of those excuses. You know, any of us who have had children have heard children's excuses. Now we have to be careful as a parents, as parents, because sometimes they'll actually have a reason. And we get so used to excuses, what do we say?

I don't want to hear any of your excuses, young lady, right? But the truth is sometimes they have a reason. But children are great at excuses. I didn't clean up my room because, you know, my little he-man and my little GI Joe got in a fight. So I couldn't clean my room up. I had a son too, so. Now that's an excuse. We know that as a parent, but sometimes we forget they also have reasons. God always listens to our reasons. If they're real, I got sick, God. I couldn't do it. Okay, I know you got sick, so that's the reason.

Most of the time they're excuses. You and I need to examine our lives to make sure He's number one.

God's the number one priority. And we don't have excuses.

Does God get the dregs of our time?

Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't do those other things. I can show you lots of scriptures that says, taking care of your finances is a command. That work is a command. And that relationships, having good relationships, are part of the commandments themselves.

Part of the Big Ten. And I'm saying those things are to be set aside. If you set those things aside and say, all my time goes to God, then you're not going to be doing what God wants either.

But God has to be the priority. He always has to be the priority. Does He get very little Bible study from us so that He can't talk to us? Do we never meditate about His ways during the day? So we don't even use His principles as we make decisions. You know, all of us only have a finite amount of time here. We only have a finite amount of time. We better use it wisely and not end up, well, use it wisely and without excuse.

You'll want to appear before Christ someday, and He says, okay, what's your excuse today?

The second story is in 2 Kings, Chapter 5. So look at our second point. Our second excuse.

Now, this is an interesting story because the man gave an excuse and then changed it. So this actually has a good outcome. Naomi was a general in the Syrian army. Now, Syria and Judah and Israel were with each other all the time. And he was a general, but he was a leper.

And the king of Syria said, go to Israel and get one of those priests, their prophets, to pray to God and you can be healed. And so here is a man who was used to being seen as a great man. He's a man who thousands of soldiers follow every command. He has power beyond belief. Only the king of Syria is more power for him in his country. Here's a man who has power and authority and is treated like royalty. And he goes to Israel, which is, you know, that's sort of a humbling thing in itself. But notice what happens. Pick it up in verse 9. Then the onman went with his horses and chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha's house.

Elisha, of course, was the great prophet at the time of God. And Elisha sent a messenger to him saying, go wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh shall be restored to you and you shall be clean. Now, you can imagine the shock of this. Usually when he shows up in his chariot, slaves come out, help him out, honor him, people clap, people bow, and they invite him into his house where somebody washes his feet and gives him a big glass of wine. Okay? Elisha doesn't even come out of his house. Oh, look, there's the onman. He does what he will serve us. God tell him to go take a bath. He's talking about, you know, he's not used to this kind of treatment.

Notice what happens. Verse 11, But Nahabib became furious, and what a way I said, indeed I said to myself, he will surely come out to thee, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and heal the leprosy. You know, I expected a big show and song and dance. Here comes Elisha coming out of his house, holding up his hands, a big prayer, does some hocus pocus. A crowd gathers around, and I'm healed, and everybody, you know, prays the God of Israel and prays Deamid, the commander of the host of Syria. And that's not what happens at all. He doesn't come out of the house. Ah, go tell the guy to take a bath.

Not once, but seven times. And so, it becomes his excuse.

I'm not being treated the way I want to be treated, so this must not be what God wants.

How many times? Now, I've seen over the years so many people. Well, I have to admit, I've struggled with this at times. Well, I'm not being treated the way I want to be treated by this person. This must not be what God wants. When God's saying, well, why did you just do what I want? What other people do has nothing to do with it. But he now had already made excuse. In fact, I had a guy go home, and I'll tell the king of Syria how insulted I've been, and he'll give me 20,000 troops, and I'll just march on this little place where Elisha lives, and I'll burn the village down.

That's seeing what they think of me now.

His excuse now, I'm not going to do what this God of Israel tells me to do. Of course, he was still a leper. He hadn't been healed. Now, fortunately, we have in verse 12, well, first of all, now his excuse even expands.

Are not the Abeta and the far part, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the water of his Israel, could not wash them and be cleaned, and he turned and went away in a rage.

Not only does he make me go take it, I mean the Jordan River, a little creek out there. Where? He wasn't going to wash in the Jordan River. What is with this man? And he's just in a rage. He now has an excuse, an excuse for his anger, an excuse for his rage, because I have been abused, I have been hurt, I've been mistreated, and he has an excuse for his rage. Verse 13, in his service, came near and spoke to him and said, My father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it?

How much more would he say, just go wash and be cleaned? I mean, what if he would have told you to go slay one thousand sheep and goats to the God of Israel? Would you have not done that? Would you not have sacrificed a thousand animals to Yahweh? Would you have not done that? Well, yeah, it's been a nice big show. I mean, we would have had tens of thousands of people come. We had this big sacrifice. You could have seen the smoke for 50 months. Yeah, I'd have done that. I'd have dressed up in my finest robes, put on my armor as the commander of the host of Syria. Yeah, that would have been great. All I ask you to do is go wash and be healed. So he went down and dipped seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God. And his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him, and had said, And, indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Now, therefore, please take a gift from your servant.

What a different man! But he had to give up his excuse. He had to let his excuse go.

See how dangerous excuses are? Excuses usually come from emotions. His excuse was based on his pride. His need, and I am proud, is a need. It is a need to receive recognition that you are more special than everybody else. The pride leads us to all kinds of excuses. Pride leads us to be in constant conflict with others and to blame others for the conflict. We will be in constant conflict with other people, and it is always somebody else's fault. It allows us to be angry. See, all excuses allow us to do something. In the first lesson I talked about from Jesus' parable, suddenly they allowed themselves not to go to the very supper, though God invited them, because now God's schedule had to meet their schedule. Here, God had to meet His need for pride, for recognition, for power, for acclaim.

And God wasn't going to. And when He was healed, He now went before God and said, you're God, and I'm nothing. I get this now. I understand.

Our next lesson is from a story that's the exact opposite of the pride of the young man. This is in Judges. Judges 6. You know, the preface is a little bit, all of us, every human being has some kind of emotional scars, hurts because of the past. Maybe just because of sins you committed in the past, you're suffering terrible scars from that. Maybe you were abused as a child. Maybe you had, you know, your wife committed adultery, or you were betrayed by a friend, or your children betrayed you, or your parents betrayed you.

Or maybe you went an extended period of time with an illness, and it left you just emotionally devastated from it. It's easy for us to get emotionally and spiritually stuck in the past so that the past becomes our identity. The past becomes our identity. I am the man I was ten years ago, right? So you're stuck there, and you think everything is through a lens of ten years ago. That's a dangerous place to be. And if we do that, if we stay in the past, and we stay locked in to what has happened to us in the past, then we'll begin to make excuses for the present.

And even those excuses can be given to God. Why we will not move forward in our lives. Look at Judges 6. We know at this time in Israel's history, they didn't have a king. They are oppressed by the Midianites. And God decides to call a man to help lead these people out of their oppression. Judges 6.11. Now the angel of the Lord came, and under the terribist tree was an ophra which belonged to Joash, the Abinazirite, and his son Gideon threshed wheat at the winepress in order to hide from the Midianites. They actually had to hide to prepare their own food because of the taxation that was upon them. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. Now you have to understand Gideon did not see himself as the mighty man of valor. Now he knows this is an angel. This is a supernatural being. He knows it's from God. Actually, it's the one who later would become known as Jesus Christ, the angel of the Lord. The messenger of God appears and says, God's chosen you. You are a mighty warrior. And Gideon said to him, Oh, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? So his first thing is, I'm a victim.

I'm hiding out in the middle of the night, threshing wheat, scared to death that some Midianite's going to see me, go turn me into the local constable. And then this thing I know, some Midianite soldiers are going to come here, beat me up, and take everything I have and burn my mother down. And God sends a messenger and says, Oh, you mighty warrior. This is going to be a joke, right? I'm a victim here. We're all victims. Why aren't you doing something, God? If you're with us, why is this bad thing happening? And where are all the miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? Now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. Then the Lord turned to him and said, Go with this night of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?

Huh? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Here he is complaining that God is forsaken. Have you ever do that? Have you ever gone to God and said, I don't understand this. Why are you doing this to me? Why did you allow this to happen? Why did you allow me to lose that job? I worked on that job for 20 years. They fired me or they let me go over nothing just because of my age. You know, everybody over the age of 45 got fired. Why did you do that? Why is this happening? You used to give me jobs. Now I don't have a job. See, this is human reasoning. And you begin to create excuses for not getting up and moving forward. And we get stuck in the problem.

Verse 15, So he said to him, O my Lord, how can I save Israel?

Indeed, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. He said, wait a minute, let's start out here. Manasseh is one of the smallest tribes.

And inside that tribe, there's like, we're the people from the other side of the tracks.

My clan is considered the hillbillies of Manasseh. And I am the laughing stock of my own family.

My background, my past, will not allow me to do what you're asking me to do.

It won't allow me to do that. You'll just have to get somebody else.

Anybody can see I'm the least qualified to do it.

Well, he was about to learn an important lesson. Verse 16, And the Lord said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the many and I says one man.

He said, oh, no, no, no, I'm going to do this through you. I am going to do this through you.

How many times do we limit God? Because we literally try to do it ourselves.

We get trouble all the time. Give an example. Ever try to convert a neighbor?

Doesn't work out so good, does it? Unless God's going to work in that person, you can do all you want. It doesn't going to happen.

And so here, Gideon says, won't work, can't do it. I'm too weak. I'm too small. My back row won't let you do this in me. And so we get trapped.

Oh, I know God, I should, but now how do you fill in the rest of the sentence?

But you know, I came from a broken family. But you know, God, I never got a good education.

You know, God, it's just I had this temper and it's just it's part of nature. It's never going to overcome it. So I can't do this. And you just think of what we plug in there.

I can't do this because we have this past and this background and we're living in it. And we don't see what God where God can take us because we don't see the power of God. We actually believe our puny little limitations are greater than God. Now, what do you think about the excuse? Because the excuse is based in a belief that our puny little limitations are greater than the power of God. You can't do that through me. Oh, yeah, you can do it through other people. But you can never do that to me. I'm too great in my limitations. I'm bigger than you, God. That's what we're actually saying. I'm too big for you to work through because I'm too small.

It's human reason. Human excuses are just as crazy as what I read with the little kids, say it to the teachers. As adults, it's no different. Our excuses are just as weak.

So he tells him to go out and create trouble. And so in Judges 7, verse 1, He's named gets changed here. Then Jerubabel, that is Gideon, and all the people who are with him rose early, and they camp beside the will of Harid, and they camp with them. And then he nights with the north side of them by the hills Pohra in the valley. It's interesting, his name has changed here because he speaks out the middle of the night and tears down the statue of Baal that the Midianites had.

And now his name gets changed to, let Baal plead. That's what that literally means. His name gets changed to, okay, let Baal save you people now. Now remember, this is a man who says, I don't mean it, I mean the smallest tribe, smallest clan, and the smallest, most important man in my family. That means in the totem pole, I'm not even on it. Okay? I'm at the bottom of the totem pole. I'm not even on this thing.

So he sticks out the middle of the night and tears down the statue of Baal, and God's reward is to change his name to, okay, let's let Baal plead his case now. And now he's facing a huge Midianite army. Well, you know what happens in this.

Gideon says, okay, man, let's get together. Now, he doesn't even get the message out to all the tribes of Israel, and some of the tribes of Israel don't want to participate. So he gets an army.

And we know that from the Scripture, the Midianite army numbered about 135,000 men.

That's a huge army. 135,000 vicious warriors, okay? This isn't some pushover. The Midianites are famous warriors. And Gideon puts together 32,000 men.

He's outnumbered a little better than 10 to 1. You're not going to win that.

You're just not going to win it. You're going to get slaughtered, and you're going to get massacred.

And he goes to God and God says, okay, we've got one problem here. I know the problem.

First of all, I shouldn't even be in charge of this. And second of all, there's a lot of people mad at me, both Israelites and Midianites, because I tore down Baal.

But yeah, we're in real trouble. I need about another 200,000 men. Then I can win. And so still the problem is your army's way too big. You're still thinking you're going to do this, Gideon.

You're still looking at yourself. You're looking at your resources, and you have an excuse for failure. The excuse is, I just don't have the resources to do this, and I'm really not the person that should do it anyways. So what he does is he reduces his army to 10,000 men.

You can read the story. Now he's only outnumber about 13 and a half to one.

Finally, he says, you've got a problem, Gideon. The army's too big. So he brings it down to 300 men.

He's now only outnumbered about 450 to one. God says, oh, good. We got it right where we want him.

Now he's looking at these 300 guys that says the battle will probably last all four minutes, and we'll all be dead. That's what's going to happen here. We might kill a couple of them, but it's just going to be like a wave. Most of the Gideonites won't even know we were there. They'll be trampling over top of us and say, where are the Israelites? Well, they're all killed.

Well, we know what happened. If you read the story, what happened is God destroyed the many-night army, and the Israelites stood around and watched them kill each other.

They stood around and watched them kill each other in absolute chaos, because this is what God brought into their lives.

An important lesson here about excuses. Gideon had all the excuses in the world because he saw himself. He didn't see God.

We refuse to get over our past, because the past is our identity, and our identity should be the children of God. Our identity should be tied in with God and with Jesus Christ as our brother. That should be our identity. And when that is our identity, resources, power, they don't mean anything. God's behind me. God's with me. God's doing it, because I can't.

That's how we begin to view life. I can't do this. Like, God can.

God can fix problems. God can lead His church. God can do what we should do.

You know, God wants to heal us of our past. God actually wants to heal you of your past.

No matter what's happened to you. No matter what sins you've committed.

He wants you to let that go and live now for the future.

Actually, to live now for the supper that was talked about in our first lesson.

So we have to learn from Gideon not to use our past as an excuse. How small we are. How little we are.

But be humble before God and let God do His work.

Fourth lesson. This is the lesson of Saul.

1 Samuel 13. 1 Samuel 13. It's amazing. I put this together and I have enough for a whole other sermon, a whole other part two.

Just going through where people made excuses.

1 Samuel 13. Saul now was faced with the fact that he was at war with the Philistines.

1 Samuel told him, get the army together, stay there, and out come in seven days and do the sacrifice before God, and God will say He will be with us.

You have to understand, Samuel was the high priest.

Only Samuel could do the sacrifice.

You think Saul, the king, Saul, with all the power, the leader of the army, the man in charge of the entire economy of the nation.

Here is Saul with all this power, but Saul didn't have absolute authority.

You'll find everybody in the Bible had somebody else they had to deal with that had authority from God too. In this case, he could not do what Samuel was supposed to do.

He could not do that sacrifice. But after seven days, Samuel doesn't show up.

We get verse 5 here.

Then the Philistines gather together to fight with Israel. You notice so many of the situations we're dealing with are situations where there's trials, there's trouble, there's difficulties.

And the excuse comes, why I can't do this. It may be as simple as, I just got married, and I really don't have time for you right now, God.

Two, my army's coming apart, and the Philistines are really bad people.

Then the Philistines gather together to fight with Israel. 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore. They came up the Nickmash to the east of Ben-Haven.

And the men of Israel saw that they were in danger, for the people were distressed, that the people hid in caves and thickets and rocks and holes and pits.

Israel's army had not really come together. They had numbers. They just never showed up, or they didn't very often. And they said, we're going to get killed. We don't have chariots. We don't have horses. And they went and hid. They were hiding in caves, in ravines. Wherever they fought, they can't get a chariot in here, so we'll hide here.

We can't get horses in here, so this is where we'll hide.

And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

As for Saul, he was still a gilgal, and the people followed him, trembling. Then he waited seven days according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to gilgal, and the people were scattered from him. And so Saul said, bring a bird offering, a peace offering here to me. And he offered the bird offering. Who could blame him? When you think about it, Samuel hadn't showed up. Who knows? Maybe the Philistines had captured Samuel and killed him. He didn't know.

Samuel did not show up. Things were working out the way he expected. His army was falling apart.

The very existence of Israel, hung by a thread of whether God would protect them or not, and nothing had showed that God would. There was no proof that God would.

Now, wherever Samuel was, God worked things, but Samuel wasn't there anymore.

So he's the king. He has to make a decision. He decides to go and do the bird offering. And he doesn't. And then Samuel shows up. First, then it now it hasn't happened. As soon as he had finished presenting the bird offering, that Samuel came. That Saul went out to meet him. He might greet him. That Samuel said, what have you done? Saul said, when I saw that the people were scattered for me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines were gathered together at Nickmash, that I said that the Philistines will now come down with me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord. Therefore, I felt compelled and offered a burnt offering. I felt compelled. That's an interesting statement. There reached a point where Saul said, I had to do something. I must take action. And here is the great excuse. You know, there's times to take action, and there's times you have to wait on God. And when we take action, when we're supposed to wait on God, we feel compelled. I must. I must. If I don't, God will not be with me. All Samuel says, wait. This is so hard. This is hard for all of us to do. But there are many times in life where what God said is, wait, and we are compelled. I must do this. What is the real issue here?

Saul didn't believe God was going to fix the situation, that he had to do something.

Now, there's times in life when God doesn't fix a situation, and you have to do something, right?

But remember, he'll never have you do something against his instructions.

When God wants you to fix something, it'll be never against his instructions.

His instructions were, wait.

Saul could do that. I am compelled. I must. I was afraid. I lost the people.

I was no longer king. I had a couple of hundred scared soldiers left the nation and collapsed.

And notice what he says. See, this seems like a good reason. But really, at the heart of it, it's a lack of faith. Verse 13, Samuel said to Saul, you have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord. He says, I understand your stress. I understand what you are going through, but you were given specific instructions. And in this case, it was simply wait. And you did not do it. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, in which he commanded you. But now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.

But now your kingdom shall not continue. For the Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. The Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded. He tells him over and over again, the problem here is you did not do what you were supposed to do. I understand Saul. Saul's reasons make sense, but they're actually excuses for lack of faith. How many times do we, in our lack of faith, make excuses? It happens all the time.

Think about what would happen if all of us really, really, really believed Jesus Christ was the head of the church.

I think we really believe that. How many times would we wait for Him to take six?

Or wait for His instructions? Or find out what the Scripture says as instructions?

But many times what we do is, okay, I've got to go fix my neighbor.

I've got to go fix this. I've got to go fix that. I mean, there's times that could, right? We talk about confronting our neighbors.

When you see someone sin, we go through Matthew 18. I'm talking here about an approach to life of panic all the time. I've got to fix this. I've got to fix this. I've got to fix this. No, we don't.

In fact, we can't fix everything. That took me a long time to figure that out in the past.

Well, I'll fix it. It's hurting Ken.

God fixes things. God fixes things. Christ is the head of His church.

But we're like Saul. We lose that vision. We lose what He's doing. We become panicky.

Now when you're panicky, you will do things, and then you'll make an excuse, which is, I panicked. Actually, if Saul would have said, I panicked and have sinned against the Lord, it might have been a different story. But what did he say? Well, the people ran all over the place. I was losing my kingship. I was compelled to do this. I had no choice in this.

Samuel, you didn't show up. I had no choice. That's his excuse.

And because of that, he lost his kingship.

There's so many other places we can turn to. There's so many places in the New Testament where Jesus talks about excuses and gives excuses. I mean, just think of the situation there in Matthew 25. He talks about when he comes, and he'll be the sheep of the goats. And he'll say to the sheep, come enter the kingdom. You came to me when I was sick, and you came to me when I was in prison, and you fed me when I was hungry. And they all say, well, when did we do that?

Well, you did it to the least of these my brothers. Remember what the goats say?

When did we not do that? Well, you didn't do this to the least of my brothers. Well, you should have told us who your brothers were. You should have told us who to do this. Why didn't... Well, why wasn't there a better church visiting program? I would have visited the widows if there was a good church visiting program. That wasn't my fault. That was a deacon in charge of the widow's fault. I find it interesting in that discussion because the people who did it didn't even know they were doing it. They just did it because they loved. The people who weren't doing it had an excuse. We didn't know this. When were we supposed to do this?

There's an excuse. You'll find lots of excuses in the Bible.

What excuses are you living in your life that are causing you to have a lack of commitment to God?

What excuses are you using that are actually keeping God from working in your life? What excuses do you have that are keeping God from blessing you? You want to do something interesting?

Sit down, take some quiet time, and think about all the things you know you should have done in the past few months. It didn't do. You know, all the things you should have done, or didn't do, or did and know you shouldn't do. In other words, the things that you said, well, okay, God wanted this for me and I did this. And write down a few of them. And then write down your excuse. Actually write your excuse down.

Yeah, but I did that because my husband was mean to me.

Now, if you really want to carry that exercise to the next point, get on your knees, confess what you did, and read your excuse to God.

And he already knows it anyways. I find when I take my excuses to God, it doesn't take long before it sounds like a little kid telling the teacher the dog ate my homework.

He just is like, you're not buying this, are you? You just know it. You're not really buying into this. Well, let me give you a better excuse. Okay, but I think I'm going to something better than that.

He just doesn't buy it. Go read your excuses to God. Go ahead. And you'll find out, you'll know he's not buying this. And that gives you a chance to repent. It gives you a chance to repent.

It gives you the opportunity to say, okay, God, that's an excuse. The reason I did that was because I just wanted to be mean, and I'm sorry for that. That's not, now we're going someplace. Okay, now we're getting something done now. You'll find God is very receptive to that kind of discussion.

God is committed to each of you. Actually, more than any of us are committed to Him.

He's committed to each of us. And He's made a personal promise that He will finish the work that He started in each one of you. That's a promise from God.

Get rid of the excuses and allow God to do His work.