Learning to listen to the right voice

In the year 386, there was a man by the name of St. Augustine. And Augustine was a lecturer, a teacher in the Roman Empire. He would go around from different places and gather students and teach and lecture on various topics. He was well educated and this type of lifestyle put him in all sorts of nice circles of comfort, affluence, being liked by those around him. But Augustine had this uh deep longing to really even as a lecturer and a person of knowledge to really understand and make sense of the world around him. Augustine really was always on this if you will spiritual pursuit to make sense of life's deepest questions. And he had explored Christianity. He had explored other different faiths out there at the time and different philosophies. And yet he always was because he was brilliant finding a way to dissect them and see their inconsistency or the ways that he at least fell felt that they came short. This began to more and more plague Augustine over the course of his life. He came to Milan and uh and in that journey ran across a pastor by the name of Ambrose. Ambrose of Milan. And Ambrose was also very well educated, very knowledgeable. and he met with Augustine and began to have conversations with Augustine to help him work through some of his objections to Christianity to show him maybe how he didn't fully understand the scriptures or didn't think about it from this different perspective. And that really was very helpful to Augustine. But there was one problem. Augustine was a ladies man. He had an illegitimate child and he lived kind of a free lifestyle and he understood what the teachings of Christianity were and he knew how his life was and the two did not mesh. And so he knew that if he ever really truly believed the Christian faith, if he ever truly really submitted and adopted it, things about his life would have to change. He would have to let go of some things. And in a way that kept him holding on to unbelief and objections with Christianity. But this began to burn more and more in his mind and in his spirit. And Augustine one day was sitting uh in a courtyard and he was hearing some teaching going on about uh from the book of Romans. And and he wasn't even really listening to all of that. He just was overcome with just this need to decide, this need to to to reconcile his objections and this inconsistency with his life and he didn't know what to do and and it greatly upset him so much so that he walked out into the park of this courtyard in the city in Milan and he was overcome with grief and began to to to sort of cry and and he and he and in the moment of that he began to hear this child's voice and it said take up and read take up and read and he looked around and he he didn't see any children around. He he couldn't make sense of where the voice was coming from. But in this moment, he saw it as a sign he needed to take up and read. So he runs back to the courtyard where he was, finds his Bible where it's open in the book of Romans and he reads basically a verse that essentially says, "Put away the darkness and this kind of lifestyle and debauchery and all these things and take hold of Jesus Christ." And he said, "I read these words and I looked up and it was like light flooded my eyes and I became a Christian." And Augustine's life was forever changed in that moment because he listened to a certain voice. Not just the voice of the child, not just the voice of Ambrose, which were also good voices, but the voice of God speaking through the word to him. And in that moment, it forever changed Augustine's life. Augustine would go on and for the next thousand years would be the strongest most theological voice in the church. Even today, theologians still point back and look at Augustine. The things he said, the doctrines that he set forth, the way that he explained scripture, they were eloquent. He was brilliant because he listened to the right voice. His life was forever changed. You know, there are a number of voices in this world. They're all around us all the time. We wake up in the morning, we open up our phones, things that we hear, sound bites, images, words, videos, everything. They're coming at us. You drive down the road and there are signs, there are images. You go into the shopping malls. You get on the internet and you're internet shopping and there's advertisements and all of them are saying something. They're all trying to shape us and pull us in various directions. If you buy this car, it will fulfill this need in you and you're going to feel this way and you're going to be this kind of person and it's going to give you this kind of meaning and identity. And there's other voices, too. We hear them all the time telling us, "Believe this and you'll be this way. Adopt this pattern. Vote for me." Whatever it is, right? There's all sorts of things that will tell you one thing is true and this is not. And how do we make sense of the world? Because we are profoundly shaped by the voices that we listen to. We're influenced by all of these different things. Make no mistake of it. The books you read, the media that you consume, the people that you hang out with greatly determine who you will be in the next 5 years. You're shaped by those things. And so it's so important to make sure that you decipher the right voice. Augustine that day finally listened to the right voice, the true voice. But unfortunately today we're going to look at the story of a man who's presented with various voices and he listens to the wrong voice and because of that it sends his life in a terrible and sad trajectory. So we have the right voice and the importance of listening to it and the danger of listening to the wrong voice and what the result of it is. Today we're going to be looking at 1st Samuel chapter 15. This is a very powerful narrative. So I'm going to read most of the chapter for us today. I am not going to be able to preach everything that's in this text. It's a marvelous and amazing story and there are so many implications that come from it. But the reason that I'm talking about voices today is because you can't see it in your English Bible. But the Hebrew writer is doing things in here where he mentions a word eight times in this chapter. It's translated various ways because sometimes he's doing a word play. But it's the word shama. The word shama in the Hebrew means several things. It means to hear, to listen, and to obey. Because in Hebrew, the idea of hearing and obeying are synonymous. In fact, if you don't hear, you don't obey. And if you don't obey, you're not really hearing. You can have ears to hear, but not really hear. And so, there's a synonymous and link between hearing and doing and obeying Shama. And so that's what's put forth from us. I wanted to preach this different ways today, but it just resounding over and over. The author wants to call us to listen to listen to the right voice. And what happens when we listen to the wrong voice? So 1st Samuel 15:E 1, and Samuel said to Saul, "The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel. Now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I have noted what Amalecch did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalecch, and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. So Saul summoned the people and numbered them in lame, 200,000 men on foot, and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalecch and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kennites, "Go, depart. Go down from among the Amalachites, lest I destroy you with them, for you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came up out of Egypt." So the Kennites departed from among the Amalachites. And Saul defeated the Amalachites from Havila as far as shore, which is east of Egypt. And he took Aag, the king of the Amalachites, alive, and devoted all to destruction, the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Aag and the best of the sheep of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. The word of the Lord came to Samuel. I regret I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. And Samuel was angry. And he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel. Saul came to Carmel. And behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul. And Saul said to him, "Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord." And Samuel said, "What then is the bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the loing of the oxen that I hear?" And Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalachites. For the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction." Then Samuel said to Saul, "Stop. I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night." And he said to him, "Speak." And Samuel said, "Though you were little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel, the Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission and said, "Go devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalachites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what is evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, "I've obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I brought Aag, the king of Amalcch, and I've devoted the Amalachites to destruction." But the people took the spoil, sheep, and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and the presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king." Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin. Return with me that I may bow before the Lord." Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." Samuel turned to go away and Saul seized the skirt of his robe and it tore. And Samuel said to him, "The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day,

and he has given it to your neighbor who is better than you."

also the glory of Israel will not have regret, for he is not a man that he should regret. Then he said, "I have sinned, yet honor me before the elders of my people, before Israel. Now return with me that I may bow before the Lord your God." So Samuel turned back after Saul. Saul bowed before the Lord.

This is God's word. Let's pray.

Lord, it can be such a tragedy in life to not listen to you, to not follow after you. You are the source of all that is good and all that is true. And when we listen to other voices, we are deceived. We deceive ourselves. And the result is just a life of darkness and loneliness, isolation. We cut ourselves off from the life and the blessing and the goodness of God. And what a great tragedy it is. Father, I just pray that your word today would be true and that you would help speak and convict our own hearts to hear your voice today from the word. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see. Jesus name. Amen. So, as we look at this text, ultimately it's about listening to the voice of the Lord. God gives a clear mission here. And as we look at it, I'm going to break it down in a in just a few ways here. We're going to look at how this happened. We're going to look at why this happened and what is the result of all of this for Saul. So, how does this happen? Well, ultimately it's because he trusts himself and not God. And this isn't this isn't just in this moment. Saul has not been listening to the voice of God. If we recap and think about just the events leading up to this moment, we can see that Saul offered sacrifices without Samuel in chapter 13. Things were looking shaky. If you'll remember from a few weeks ago, and the Philistines were upon them, and they were gathering an army, and and Saul was supposed to wait 7 days for this sacrifice. Samuel's going to come. He's going to sacrifice. He's going to give him probably a word from the Lord in the next steps. And he's like watching everybody trickle away. And he thinks, I've got to take hold of this moment. And and I I need to make something happen. And so he disobys the command of God. He doesn't listen to the word of the Lord. And he decides to offer the sacrifice and step into a priestly role that was not his. Then we see last week in chapter 14 that uh that that there's another scenario and situation going on. And Saul decides he wants to inquire of the Lord in this moment. And it seems like, okay, you know, maybe maybe this is good. And then he has the priest sort of inquiring in that process. And then he tells him, "No, never mind." You know, he kind of senses the urgency of the moment and what's going on around him. And he feels like we're going to lose momentum. We need to do something. And so he decides to abandon inquiring of the Lord. He's trusting his own instincts and his own intellect and his own impulses instead of waiting for the voice of the Lord. And then we we see Saul make this rash vow to God where he's like, you know, nobody eats at all for the rest of the day until we win this battle, you know, and if anybody eats before the Lord, he's going to die, right? And he even swears at the end, Jonathan is found to have eaten honey. And he says, you know, as the Lord lives, you you shall die. May God do so more to me moreover also if I don't put you to death. But then the people say no. And he's he's put himself in a hard spot. He's sworn to God. But then the people and so now he's in a tough spot. He's made a rash vow. He needs to honor that. But then there's the people as well. And what's he going to do? Saul has just shown himself foolish. and he's shown himself not to listen to the Lord or to be rash with the way that he uses God's name and the ways that he makes these vows to him. There's just this inconsistency in his life. He doesn't ultimately trust God. And even here, Saul hasn't been listening to the Lord. And it's almost like in verse one when Samuel comes, you know, he's like, "Listen to the voice of the Lord." I'm just going to read it real quick for us, but he just says, "And Samuel said to Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people." Now therefore, listen, there's that word to the words of the Lord. This is like a softball. This isn't even a tenuous moment. This isn't like the Philistines and he's losing people. He's like, "Simple command. I need you to go and I need you to go on this mission and here's the guideline and here's what you need to do. Go do it." And Saul starts off. He musters the people. He gathers them together, puts them, he looks like he's standing like the king he should be. God has given us a command and I'm going to call. By the way, that word summon is a word play there. It is the word shama. It it literally means that he made the people listen and he stands as God's representative here as the king that he's supposed to be. He says, "We got a mission. We're going to go do it. Here's what we're going to do." And it all seems good. But somewhere along the way they defeat the Amalachites and then they decide to improvise the command of God. See armies armies like they like a reward when they defeat. They like plunder. They like spoil. We won. We need to celebrate. But this is about the judgment of God. This is about them going on a mission because the Amalachites were a cruel and wicked people. so wicked that when the Israelites were refugees, they came up behind them and started picking off the weak, which is probably the elderly and the children. This is the kind of people they are. So God sends him on a mission to punish and bring justice upon the Amalachites. And by taking the spoil, they were no longer being the representatives of God's justice. They're being like any other army that's ravaging and spoiling, that's just out for the gain instead of carrying out the judgment and the justice of God. And and one of the reasons that they that they want to do this, they like to celebrate is because when you offer sacrifices, so this is the guys of it. Hey, let's keep some of the animals alive. We'll offer them as sacrifices to God. See, when you sacrifice, you usually burn off the fat and then you get to keep the meat. So, everybody gets a steak dinner. People get some of the spoil. And Saul sort of rationalizes this in his mind. Well, the people are happy. I need to keep them happy. And then we also have, you know, God's happy. I mean, eventually the animals are dead, right? Steak dinner seems like a good compromise. And so he's rationalized. He's listened to the voice of other people and found a way to try to play both sides of the fence. But God and he and and God has called him on a mission and given him a simple command. And he thinks at the end of the day that the end justifies the means. He thinks that like, well, you know, we're eventually going to kill all the animals. we're eventually going to do what we're supposed to do. And so how we do it and how we get there, what's it really matter? And that's what we can do in our own lives is we can have the truth of God, but then Satan doesn't come in usually with necessarily an alternate voice. And the voices of our world even, they will take the truth of God and just turn the dial a little bit, just twist it a little bit. Think about the Garden of Eden. Has God really said there's a modification there? And this may look like a small thing, like, oh, what's the big deal, right? What's the big deal about the fruit in the garden? What's the big deal about Saul maybe turning the plan? At the end of the day, they got to the same place. They got to the end of the road. All everybody's dead. At the the end of the day, they've they've carried out the will of the Lord, but they've not done it the way that God said. And our choices and the voices we listen to create habits and patterns and trajectories in our life. And for Saul, this is one where he listens more to the people, and he shows more love for the people, more fear for the people than he does for God. And that's how that can happen in our own lives as we can begin to make small compromises. And the path to unbelief isn't a light switch. Slow ways that we rationalize and compromise in our own life. And why can we trust God? Why trust him above the other voices? And I I want to mention that sort of pause on that for just a second because it's important to really think about especially for someone that doesn't follow Jesus or you don't know uh things like why should we trust the voice of God? And I'm going to give you three really quickly here. Okay. So one of them is the fact that fundamentally you have to trust something that even to reject the Christian faith or to reject God is to ultimately place belief and trust in something else out there. And so ultimately even if you look to yourself and say I'm going to trust my own opinions they have been shaped by something by other things that you've heard other voices around you that the culture or whatever it is that have shaped these things. And so ultimately all things whether you believe in a science or you say I'm going to ground my belief system in nature and and natural processes or I'm going to ground it in what the culture around me says which changes all of the time. All of those things cannot present a coherent and consistent narrative. It takes faith to even believe in those things. But God ultimately has proven himself good. See, nature hasn't proven itself good and consistent. Nature is kill or be killed. Survival of the fittest. You know, our culture hasn't shown itself consistently good. We we know that. And every other culture of the world of all time has never shown itself consistently good all the time. In fact, often times it spirals more and more into chaos as time goes on. So, we can see though that God has proven himself good number one for this only reason. If anything else, he sent his son to sacrifice and die for our sins. No other god says that no other god acquieses and gives of himself. The gods of all other faiths are you serve us. We created you. We made you and you do what we want. You obey the rules and we might throw you a boat and give you heaven or nirvana or whatever at the end of the day. Only the only the God of the Bible says, "I love you, and you're never going to get here. You're never going to be able to obey enough or do enough to measure up. So, I'm going to make a way. I will be the one who sacrifices for you to make that PL. I will make the payment for you." That's goodness of God. We don't just say God is good. God has demonstrated himself as good. And then even in your own life, you can see how God, if you just look at the pattern of life, the grace of God operating in your life, calling you and wooing you. Sometimes we think, "No, I'm a self-made person. The goodness I experience is because of my own hand." But you're not the end of yourself. You can't control where you were born. You can't control the different things that came together that worked out. Sure, even your smarts or your intellect or anything that made you successful. Who gave you that? Where did that come from? Was it just yourself? Sure, you might have worked hard. You might have done those things. But if you were born on a mountain in Tibet in the 11th century, you would be born poor. You would die poor. Life would be a struggle. God's sovereignty places you somewhere. God's sovereignty gives you the talents you have. God's sovereignty arranges and moves things in life to bless you and to work in your life to pull you to himself. Ultimately, the goodness of God is operating even personally, individually, in our lives. We have much reason on a macro and a micro level to trust that God is good. His voice is trustworthy. And the other voices of this world have never shown themselves consistent, true, and trustworthy. So, you can hold fast to that in your life. But will you or will you begin to look around like Saul and begin to trust and maybe need the affirmation of other voices? So why does this happen in Saul's life? Where does he go wrong in this? And ultimately it's because Saul places his personal achievement and his kingship and his need to keep that going and to make it all look good and right and perfect. I'm the kind of king everybody needs above character. He places personal achievement above character. And that's ultimately one of the things that Saul is is driving at because at the first thing he does is it says right there in verse 12 that Saul had made an image to himself. Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul. And it was told Samuel. Saul came to Carmel and behold he set up a monument for himself. God sent him on the mission. God's the one that gave them victory. But Saul's like, "Look at me. I'm great. I'm going to set up a monument for myself. Look at all I'm accomplishing. My kingdom's going great. I'm so successful. I'm awesome. And this this happens in our own lives. You get success. The grace of God operates in your life. And pretty soon you can begin to believe it was all you. Look what I've done. Look who I am. And the eyes begin just to turn on you and not on God. They begin to listen to your own voice and your own reasoning. And you know, we all have voices. We all have not just the external voices of the culture around, but these internal voices. But when it all starts to land on you and you've got to maintain that image, you've got to maintain that monument and who you want to be, your reputation, and you got to post on Instagram and make yourself look good and happy and perfect and everything because that's what we do in our culture. We hide all of our problems behind the mask. The lawns are mowed. Everything looks fine. The posts on Instagram are happy people, but sometimes there can be brokenness inside. And sometimes the fear or the anxiety are playing out in our lives and we're trying to keep up that image. And that's what happens. The more that we begin to trust ourselves, the more that we begin to listen to our own voice instead of God's, the more that we feel vulnerable because we've got to keep it up. And ultimately at some point in life, something hits and we recognize you're not in control. You're not fully in control. We're always trying to hedge against that day. We try to save up the money. We try to to protect ourselves from the dangers around. Saul does the same thing in his life. Tries to make himself look good. Tries to appease all the people so that everybody loves him so he can continue to have his kingdom established. And yet at the end of the day, we begin to learn that we're not in control. And so we either continue to try to make it happen and to set up that house of cards so that it all seems okay or the joke is up and we have to bow our knee and trust in something outside of ourselves. But what happens in Saul's life is because he's trying to keep that going, that image, he grows fearful and insecure and he looks for the security of others. Verse 24 tells us that we can see Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned for I transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and I obeyed Shama their voice. I listened to them. I feared the people. I looked and said, "I'm not going to stand and be God's representative. I'm going to try to figure out how to please these people. How to listen to They have a They have a reasonable argument. I could kind of see how this could be a good idea. I need their affirmation. They're the ones that look to me as king. I need them to love me. I need them to revere me. I need them to be happy." And so, he's trying to appease his constituents, if you will, in this moment. He doesn't think about God set you up as king. God is the one who ultimately is making you successful in battle. God is the one that is steering. No, I need these people. I need them for military victory. I need them to sustain my kingdom. I need their glory and their taxes or whatever. I need them. And his eyes begin to shift from God to his own kingdom and therefore to the people around him. And he begins to fear them more than he fears God. and he begins to listen to their voice instead of the voice of God. Finally, also this fear going on in him, it reveals ultimately that he doesn't trust God. He doesn't ultimately fear God's voice above all other voices. And that's ultimately what Saul needs to do. And so, but he fakes a false repentance because he's ultimately trying to just save face to look good in front of everybody else. But it's not a true religion. We see there in verse 30 that Saul said, "I have sinned. Yet, honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me that I may bow before the Lord your God." So, there's a few things here. one, he he confesses his sin, but it's a it's a false repentance. Saul isn't worried, and he says this also, I believe it's in verse 24, but in one of the other verses, he says the same idea in it, is that he is more interested in looking religious before the people than he is in what God actually thinks about him. And he says this multiple times, this statement, and even even theologians and Bible scholars have picked up on this, you're God. And that that that doesn't mean that sometimes people don't say your God in the Bible, but because it's repeated several times by the author in the narrative, there's something going on here where he's not really it's not his personal God. It's not Saul's God. It's Samuel's God. And I'm just trying to appease that God. And I want to look religious, but what we really find is that Saul isn't a man of faith. He doesn't really trust God. It's not even really his God. Saul's God is not a strong God. Saul's God is not a wise God. Saul's God doesn't know what to do. Saul knows what to do. Saul trusts himself. And that's what happens. And when you begin to look in your own soul and say, "I got a better plan." At some point, you begin to actually start looking around, too. How am I going to form that plan? cuz it's all on you and you're not the end of yourself. And so you try to trust the people and you try to trust the events and the circumstances and everything else. And you know what it does to you in the end of the day? It makes you unstable. We talked about that from the book of James. That someone that lacks faith is unstable in all his ways. Saul is unstable. Listening to other voices, pivoting around, always trying to work the momentum of the moment instead of standing true and still and faithful and trusting the Lord. It would make him the kind of king that God wants him to be. Like a pillar, one who follows and teaches and lives out the command of God in his life. And like a tree, it would just it would expand. It would grow and bless the nation. God's blessing through his kingship would be so powerful and effective. But that's not his God. Saul worships a different God. And because he worships a different God, it's not a God that he can fear. It's not a God that he can trust. And so in in essence, he rejects it and he keeps up false pretenses. Bow before the elders. I need to look good. I need to look religious because we are a religious nation after all. But that's not who Saul is. It's all a guys. It's all a pretense, a facade. And so the question is for our own life sometimes is what do you believe? What voice or voices are you listening to? And who is your God? What God do you have faith in? Is it your the God of your own internal voice? your self-made God, trusting in the circumstances and what you can see or putting faith in what is unseen,

listening to that voice, the only voice that has always been true.

So finally we see what is the result in all of this and ultimately the result is found uh in verses 26 and 28. We see uh Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you for you have rejected the word of the Lord and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." This is this is incredibly tragic because God has done so much for Saul. Pulled him from the tribe of Benjamin. He was a nobody and he called him into this great role. And Saul all of his days has never just turned and said, "You know what? God has been so good to me. I should trust his voice. I should follow out. He's always shown himself faithless. Faithless with God. And I think Samuel grieavves over that reality. As Samuel turned away to go, Saul sees the skirt of his robe and it tore. I mean, there's just such a dramatic moment. And then he says to him, "The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. The house of cards is falling." Saul may look good in front of everybody. He's trying to keep up the pretenses and he's working really hard, but inside there's so much turmoil and emptiness in his own life because he's not connected to the voice of God. And he's built a house of cards that will not stand. And we're going to find that for the rest of Saul's life, he is going to grow more and more paranoid, more and more inconsistent, more and more controlling at times and manipulative. He's going to look like a fool at times. He's just wavering all the time because he would not listen to God's voice and it all begins to come apart and s Sam Samuel knows it is only a matter of time and the author begins to show the power shift of David rising throughout the rest of the book and Saul waning decreasing and the house of cards falls. Samuel leaves uh verse 34 because he knows that it's just a matter of time. Samuel went to Rama and Saul went up to the house of Giba and Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death. But he grieved Samuel grieved over Saul and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. These are sorrowful words. Samuel will never speak into Saul's life ever again for the rest of his living day. And Saul it will be left alone. And we see the tragedy of all of it falling apart because at the end of the day when this prophet leaves, God is left. God has chosen another man. He's moved on. We're going to see in the next chapter the spirit of God even just leaves Saul and departs. Saul wanted to listen to his own voice. He wanted to be his own king. And so God says, "There you go. Go your own way. Listen to your own voice. Be your own king." And he's going to find that's a very vulnerable, anxious, fearful kind of place to live and to be.

Um years ago there was a there was a famous sort of interview that took place. Um a man by the name of Lee Strobble uh interviewed a man by the name of I believe it was Charles Templeton. Templeton had been with Billy Graham uh early on in their evangelical ministry um in these tent revivals and so forth. And Templeton uh at some point began to really wrestle with faith. He was actually a pretty new believer as well. And there were questions he couldn't answer. And I had this famous conversation with Billy Graham. We won't go into all the history of it, but Billy eventually just said like there are things I can't answer about life. I I understand that, but I'm just going to trust because really ultimately God's voice is the one that's shown itself consistent. God's the one that's given his son behalf. God has shown himself good. And I I can't know all these other things, but sometimes I just have to have faith because everything requires faith. Well, Templeton walked away from the faith. He rejected it and he left the ministry and near the end of his life he had uh he was starting to grow with dementia um and all and and uh least struggle they went to interview him because if you've my grandmother and probably others have seen there are moments of like where a person is very clear they can remember their past especially the older and the further back the past goes and in this interview it was very interesting to listen I'm going to read just some of it because this was a man that listened to a different voice he stopped listening to God's voice in his life. Um, and so anyway, he he he he this is the interview. He says, "How do you assess this Jesus?" Seemed like the next logical question, but I wasn't ready for the response. And Templeton begins to say this. He says, "The greatest human being that ever lived was he was he was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was intrinsically the wisest person that I've ever encountered in my life or in my readings. His commitment was total and led to his own death, much to the detriment of the world. What could one say about him except that it was a form of greatness. Strobble says, "I was taken aback. You sound like you really cared about him," I said. He says, "Well, yes, he is the most important thing in my life. I He shuddered, searching for the right words. I know it may sound strange, but I have to say I adore him. Everything good I know. Everything decent I know. Everything pure I know. I learned from Jesus. Yes. And tough. Jesus. Just look at Jesus. He was castigated by people. He was angry. People don't think of him that way, but then they don't read their Bible. He made a righteous. He had a righteous anger. He cared for the oppressed and the exploited. There's no question that he had the highest moral standard, the least duplicity, the greatest compassion of any human being in history. There have been many other wonderful people but Jesus is Jesus but he said slowly he is the most he stopped and then started again in my view he declared he is the most important human being who ever existed and that's when Templeton uttered the words I never expected to hear from him and if I may put it this way he said in his voice and it began to back. I miss him." And with that, tears flooded his eyes and he turned his head and looked downward.

This is a man that listened to another voice in his life. And near the end of his life, I think he began somewhere in there to realize he'd been missing. missing Jesus, missing the voice of God, the voice of truth in his own life because he had chosen earlier in life to listen, to place faith in, and believe in a different voice. God shows himself trustworthy because he sent his son. It's a son and a king who perfectly obeyed and made a way for us to believe and obey and trust. And God is at work. He's working. Will we trust his voice and his plan in our lives and in our world? Let's pray.

Father, I just this story is so raw and so powerful and such a warning to us because like Saul, we are tempted with those same voices. Saul is no different than us. We still have these same things that so easily we can look to the voice of fear to these other voices of false promise and think if I only listen to this voice it will give me what I want. I can trust it. That's the great temptation of life is to begin to stop listening to your voice and listen to other voices instead. But God, how beautiful is your voice and your gospel that says, "I love you. And I want you to believe and trust and come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and you will find rest." So, Father, I just pray that we would begin to each day walk in trust and relationship with the voice of God that speaks over us day by day, speaking life and promise and hope over us and in us and not believe the lie of this world or the enemy. Empower us by your spirit. We love you in Jesus name. Amen.