[Samuel said to all Israel, including Saul]...“If you will fear the LORD and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God, it will be well.” (1 Samuel 12:14, ESV)
“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.” (1 Samuel 15:24, ESV)
“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.” (1 Samuel 15:24, ESV)
If you read very closely the two scriptures above, they contain a very important message for you to carry in your everyday activities. This important message will determine not only the effectiveness of your faith but the success of your life. Many people fail to follow the directions set forth by God for dealing with fear and peer pressure that come into play in this scripture and in everyday life. To remain faithful and successful in God’s eyes, the interplay between what you fear along with outside pressures will determine God’s view of your level of faith. If you fail miserably at this interplay, you may end up ruining everything just as did Saul in the scriptures for today.
In 1 Samuel 12:14, Samuel explicitly warns the people of Israel that if they and their King Saul do not “serve God and obey His voice” by not “rebelling against the commandment of the Lord”, things would “go well” in Israel. Samuel saw the weakness in both Israel and in King Saul to ignore the commands of God in order to pursue political power or self-promotion. For Israel to function well, its leader and the people needed to keep God’s commandments front and center, not to relegate them to worldly powers and pressures. Politics and the pressures from groups of people should not determine how you live your life. God’s commandments should be your impetus for action. If you set aside God’s commands in order to follow a political or social agenda, chances are you will not only ruin the social fabric of society but your own relationship with God.
1 Samuel 15:24 lists what happened soon after Samuel gave his warning to Israel. Going contrary to the Samuel’s wisdom, King Saul did the opposite of what had previously been warned. Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned.” What did Saul do? Instead of respecting God and obeying God’s voice (1 Samuel 12:14), Saul “feared the people and obeyed their voice”(1 Samuel 15:24). Saul did the opposite of what Samuel had warned. Saul wanted to look good to the people in the land. Therefore, when push came to shove, Saul set aside God’s commandments to follow the will of the people. In doing so, he sinned. Only then did Saul see clearly that in fearing and obeying the people instead of God, Saul had not only disrespected God, Saul was endangering the social fabric of Israel while ruining his own relationship with Heaven.
Don’t for one moment think this doesn’t happen every day with ordinary Christians. Every single Christian has the same danger of fearing people and obeying their voice while setting aside the commandments of God. Many Christians struggle with looking good to other people so much so that they set aside following God’s ways in order to be admired or idolized by other people. This is seen in obvious form in social media today. Some people are so enamored by getting likes or pokes or views or accolades on social media that they gladly set aside their ethics for self-promotion. In the workplace, Christians can be so pressured to be socially accepted that they set aside their obedience to God by focusing on being politically and socially correct first and foremost. Some Christians even change their faith-views in order to be accepted by others.
As an example of this, let me point to Cassandra. I have changed her name but not her circumstances. Cassandra began a social media presence a decade ago. She started on My Space, then transferred to Facebook, branched out into doing YouTube videos, then to Twitter, Instagram and more. Along the way, she garnered millions of views and thousands of subscribers.
On one Youtube video, Cassandra wore a shirt that just had the word “FAITH” emblazoned on the front. After airing the video, a dozen people complained that she must be a “wacko Christian”, and they urged others to stop watching the videos. Maybe a dozen people unsubscribed to her YouTube channel. Cassandra was so distraught at losing a dozen people, so worried about “looking bad” to her viewers, that she took down the video and reshot it without the shirt. Since that day, she has never talked about her faith publicly, has made a determined effort to hide any evidence of her faith in videos, and even refuses to be photographed at her church. In essence, to please her viewers and in fear of repercussions, Cassandra has abandoned any public expression of her faith. 99% of her fans don’t even know she is a Christian. Some even think she is an atheist!
For fear of looking weak before the people of Israel, Saul sinned before the Lord. Afraid of how they might appear to others, many people make the same mistake today. You need to decide if you are going to “fear the people and set aside your faith” or “fear the Lord and obey HIS commandments”. You might think this decision would be easy. However, when people start to put pressure on you to do things that go against your faith in God, you might find it easy to go with the flow and follow the crowd. You might be surprised how easily or quickly people set aside their faith in order to look good to the adoring public or to their friends or to their constituents. Many a politician has abandoned his or her faith in order to save face in the public sphere.
I guarantee you that there will be many times in the days ahead when you will have to choose between looking good and being faithful. I just hope you make godly choices on those days. No doubt God will be watching. Today’s scripture warns you against the same mistake that made Saul stumble. I hope in your day of trial, you don’t stumble as well.
In 1 Samuel 12:14, Samuel explicitly warns the people of Israel that if they and their King Saul do not “serve God and obey His voice” by not “rebelling against the commandment of the Lord”, things would “go well” in Israel. Samuel saw the weakness in both Israel and in King Saul to ignore the commands of God in order to pursue political power or self-promotion. For Israel to function well, its leader and the people needed to keep God’s commandments front and center, not to relegate them to worldly powers and pressures. Politics and the pressures from groups of people should not determine how you live your life. God’s commandments should be your impetus for action. If you set aside God’s commands in order to follow a political or social agenda, chances are you will not only ruin the social fabric of society but your own relationship with God.
1 Samuel 15:24 lists what happened soon after Samuel gave his warning to Israel. Going contrary to the Samuel’s wisdom, King Saul did the opposite of what had previously been warned. Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned.” What did Saul do? Instead of respecting God and obeying God’s voice (1 Samuel 12:14), Saul “feared the people and obeyed their voice”(1 Samuel 15:24). Saul did the opposite of what Samuel had warned. Saul wanted to look good to the people in the land. Therefore, when push came to shove, Saul set aside God’s commandments to follow the will of the people. In doing so, he sinned. Only then did Saul see clearly that in fearing and obeying the people instead of God, Saul had not only disrespected God, Saul was endangering the social fabric of Israel while ruining his own relationship with Heaven.
Don’t for one moment think this doesn’t happen every day with ordinary Christians. Every single Christian has the same danger of fearing people and obeying their voice while setting aside the commandments of God. Many Christians struggle with looking good to other people so much so that they set aside following God’s ways in order to be admired or idolized by other people. This is seen in obvious form in social media today. Some people are so enamored by getting likes or pokes or views or accolades on social media that they gladly set aside their ethics for self-promotion. In the workplace, Christians can be so pressured to be socially accepted that they set aside their obedience to God by focusing on being politically and socially correct first and foremost. Some Christians even change their faith-views in order to be accepted by others.
As an example of this, let me point to Cassandra. I have changed her name but not her circumstances. Cassandra began a social media presence a decade ago. She started on My Space, then transferred to Facebook, branched out into doing YouTube videos, then to Twitter, Instagram and more. Along the way, she garnered millions of views and thousands of subscribers.
On one Youtube video, Cassandra wore a shirt that just had the word “FAITH” emblazoned on the front. After airing the video, a dozen people complained that she must be a “wacko Christian”, and they urged others to stop watching the videos. Maybe a dozen people unsubscribed to her YouTube channel. Cassandra was so distraught at losing a dozen people, so worried about “looking bad” to her viewers, that she took down the video and reshot it without the shirt. Since that day, she has never talked about her faith publicly, has made a determined effort to hide any evidence of her faith in videos, and even refuses to be photographed at her church. In essence, to please her viewers and in fear of repercussions, Cassandra has abandoned any public expression of her faith. 99% of her fans don’t even know she is a Christian. Some even think she is an atheist!
For fear of looking weak before the people of Israel, Saul sinned before the Lord. Afraid of how they might appear to others, many people make the same mistake today. You need to decide if you are going to “fear the people and set aside your faith” or “fear the Lord and obey HIS commandments”. You might think this decision would be easy. However, when people start to put pressure on you to do things that go against your faith in God, you might find it easy to go with the flow and follow the crowd. You might be surprised how easily or quickly people set aside their faith in order to look good to the adoring public or to their friends or to their constituents. Many a politician has abandoned his or her faith in order to save face in the public sphere.
I guarantee you that there will be many times in the days ahead when you will have to choose between looking good and being faithful. I just hope you make godly choices on those days. No doubt God will be watching. Today’s scripture warns you against the same mistake that made Saul stumble. I hope in your day of trial, you don’t stumble as well.