Saul & the Danger of Self-Deception

Don't fly too close to the sun.

It's a reference sometimes made when people are getting a little too cocky, isn't it?

A little too overconfident.

In Greek mythology, Icarus and his father Daedalus were imprisoned on an island and to escape the island, Daedalus, who was a master craftsman, was able to take wax and feathers and create wings for Icarus to fly.

And so, the legend, the myth says that he was told to fly, but with the stern warning from Daedalus to his son, don't fly too low because your wings might touch the water and that will ruin the flight and you will fall.

And the other thing, the main thing not to do is don't fly too high because the sun will melt your wings and you will fall.

And of course, the story goes that Icarus started to fly and was thrilled with the fact that his wings were working and he flew higher and higher and higher until the sun melted his wings and he fell to his doom.

Don't fly too close to the sun.

Our next character in this series, Kings & Characters, is the first king of Israel, Saul, a man who flew too close to the sun.

As we frequently mention here, there are two great challenges in life.

One is failure and the other is success.

Whether it's climbing your career ladder at a dizzying speed or just a purple patch, things are just going so well for you in life, in health, in finances, in relationships.

When things are going great, it can be mesmerizing, can't it?

Success can go to your head.

And often, frequently, we can be promoted to the point of least competence.

We can be given power and responsibility in life, which outstrips our character formation.

Does anyone agree?

It outstrips our life disciplines, our structures of accountability.

And when this happens, it doesn't feel right, because we're meant to be achieving something or performing a certain way, but we just know we can't handle it, and it doesn't feel right in sight.

So often, we tend to self-medicate at that point.

We take substances and have emotional outbursts that make us feel a bit better for a short period of time.

We use manipulative behavior, sometimes bullying, sexual promiscuity, binge eating, binge anything, because life is meant to be lived in a balance with healthy rhythms of self-care and in the harness of biblical truth.

Like Icarus, we can all fly too close to the sun.

That's what King Saul did in our study today.

We're going to sort of look at a whole bunch of aspects of his life.

We can't look at them all, but as we saw a few weeks ago, Israel came to Samuel and asked him for a king, a human king just like all the other nations.

And when Samuel took it to the Lord, God said, listen to all that the people are saying to you.

It's not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king, 1 Samuel 8.

The text goes on to say, when Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord.

The Lord answered, listen to them and give them a king, 1 Samuel 8.19.

So, let's begin with the story of Saul's kingship.

It's found in 1 Samuel chapter 9.

And there's a bit of text that we will read today.

It's actually really interesting and at times quite funny and also very sobering.

There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish, son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bekorath, the son of Afia, of Benjamin.

Kish had a son named Saul.

As handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else.

1 Samuel 9, 17 says, when Samuel caught sight of Saul, the Lord said to him, this is the man I spoke to you about, he will govern my people.

And in verse 21, Saul answered, but am I not a Benjamite from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin?

Why do you say such a thing to me?

First Samuel 10, Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul's head and kissed him, saying, has not the Lord anointed you, ruler over his inheritance?

First Samuel 10, six, the Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, Saul, and you will prophesy with the prophets, and you will be changed into a different person.

That's what happens when the Spirit of God comes on a person or in a person, they're changed.

And so once these signs are fulfilled, Samuel says, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.

It's looking great for Saul.

About a week later, Samuel gathered the nation at a place called Misbah.

He announced that according to their demands, God would be giving them a king.

He singled out the tribe of Benjamin and the clan of Kish, then Saul individually as the chosen king.

And if you remember the story, what did Saul do at the start?

He hid in the luggage or among the supplies, but God revealed where he was and he was presented to the assembly.

In 1 Samuel 10, 24 tells us, the people shouted, long live the king.

Saul became Israel's leader and as the Lord had said, he became a different man.

Empowered by the Spirit of God, he rescued men at Jabesh, Gilead, and called the people to worship the Lord for their success.

He was then confirmed as king in his home of Gilgal, 1 Samuel 11.

King Saul reigned 42 years over Israel and he had many military victories with his son, Jonathan.

It was pretty tough for them.

They normally had a volunteer army, and yet they were victorious on many occasions against the Philistines, some of the descendants of Ham, Moabites, Edomites and Amalekites.

There were times early on that Saul was truly God's man, but things started to fall apart as he flew a bit close to the sun.

They fell apart in 1 Samuel 13.

Let me read you that story.

The Philistines assembled to fight Israel and they had a mighty army.

They were so much more powerful than Israel.

It wasn't funny.

Sometimes we don't realize that.

But they had 3,000 chariots, 6,000 charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore.

They went up and camped at Micmash, east of Beth-Avin.

When the Israelites saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets among the rocks and in pits and cisterns.

Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

So, they are pretty scared.

Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him, and they were quaking with fear.

He waited seven days.

The time set by Samuel, but Samuel didn't come to Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter.

So, he said, bring me the burnt offerings and the fellowship offerings.

We talked about them with the Ark of the Covenant.

There were some of the offerings the priest was meant to do in worship of God and seeking his direction.

And Saul offered up the burnt offering.

Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived and Saul went out to greet him.

What have you done?

asked Samuel.

Saul replied, well, obviously, when I saw that the men were scattering and that you didn't come at the said time and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmush, I thought now the Philistines will come down against me.

Gilgal and I have not sought the Lord's favour, so I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.

You have done a foolish thing, Samuel said, you have not kept the command of the Lord your God that he gave you.

If you had, you would have established, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time, but now your kingdom will not endure.

The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people because you have not kept the Lord's command.

What a sad story.

It was going so well.

It seems to be over before it started.

God says, now your kingdom will not endure.

We make mistakes, don't we?

We make mistakes.

In fact, one thing is pretty much for sure.

What do you reckon?

You're going to make more.

Mistakes, it's part of the human condition.

We're going to make them, but it seems like how you recover, how you respond to your mistakes might be the most important thing because we're going to make mistakes.

Saul needed God's direction.

He needed things to hurry up, so he took things into his own hands.

He was impatient regarding God's timing.

I mean, who hasn't been impatient regarding God's timing?

But this is what Saul did, and in the level of responsibility he had as King of Israel, he was very highly made accountable, held accountable to God.

And so there is a fierce judgement made on him.

But we can relate to being impatient with God's timing, can't we?

Saul's mistakes don't end there.

There are too many to catalogue, but I want to mention another doozy over in 1 Samuel 15.

As I said, there's a bit of text today.

God had said to Saul through Samuel, I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you, King over his people, Israel.

So listen now to the message from the Lord.

This is what the Lord Almighty says, I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.

Now, the Amalekites had killed a lot of the women and children and it was seen as an evil act.

And so God was bringing back judgement on them.

So he says, now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them.

Do not spare them.

Put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Now, that's a confronting command for God to make.

And so that's a whole other area called Holy War that we could think a lot about.

I guess I want to acknowledge the fact that that's an awkward thing to hear.

Nevertheless, it was God's judgement on the Amalekites.

And he asked his instrument, his king, to execute that judgement.

Verse 7.

Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Sheur, near the eastern border of Egypt.

He took Agag, king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.

But Saul and the army spared Agog, and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs, everything that was good.

These, they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak, they totally destroyed.

Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel.

I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.

Samuel was angry and he cried out to the Lord all night.

Early in the morning, Samuel got up and went to see Saul, but he was told Saul has gone to Carmel.

Interestingly, there he has set up a monument in his own honour and has turned and gone down to Gilgal.

When Samuel reached him, Saul said, excitedly, The Lord bless you, Samuel.

I've carried out the Lord's instructions.

But Samuel said, What then is this bleating of sheep I hear?

What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?

Saul answered, The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites.

They spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God.

But we totally destroyed the rest.

Sounds like Adam in the Garda, doesn't it?

Eve gave me it.

Enough.

Talk to the hand.

I'm adding that.

But Samuel said to Saul, Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.

Tell me, Saul replied, He still hasn't got it.

There's a judgment coming.

Samuel said, Although you were once small in your own eyes, meaning you were humble, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel?

The Lord anointed you king over Israel and he sent you on a mission saying, go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites.

Wage war against them until you have wiped them out.

Why did you not obey the Lord?

Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?

But I did obey the Lord, Saul said.

I went on the mission, the Lord assigned me.

I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agaad, their king.

Are you picking up this?

Something's going wrong with how he understands what God wants from him.

Again, he blames the soldiers.

The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to do what?

Sacrifice them to your God, Samuel.

In verse 24, then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned.

He has a moment of clarity.

I violated the Lord's command and your instructions.

I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them.

Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord.

But Samuel said to him, I will not go back with you.

You have rejected the word of the Lord and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel.

Verse 30, Saul replied, I have sinned.

Again, he's getting close to repentance and then we get the reason why he's confessing.

But please honor me before the elders of my people and before the people of Israel.

It's breathtaking how strange his heart is all screwed up, isn't it?

Come back with me so that I may worship the Lord, your God.

So Samuel went back with Saul and Saul worshiped the Lord.

Do you pick up any flaws in this king's character?

He built a statue in his own honor against God's laws.

When confronted by his own sin, what does Saul do?

He dodged, he blamed others, he whinged and he complained.

He directly disobeyed the Lord, keeping the spoils of battle.

He needed to look good in front of the elders and his soldiers.

That mattered more to him than how he looked in front of God.

And if we kept reading Saul's story, we would find, as many of us know, an immensely jealous man, wouldn't we?

Who established a personal vendetta for years against David.

We see a man who suffered from depression, a man who suffered from demonic oppression.

I wonder what we would say would be the root problem of King Saul's character deficiencies.

I thought it was jealousy when I first looked at this.

But then I looked further and thought more and prayed, and I thought I'd say self-exaltation.

But the root of self-exaltation for Saul surely is self-deception, isn't it?

He just didn't get it.

No matter how many mistakes Saul made, no matter how many times Samuel pointed them out to him, he was blind to the truth.

Self-deception is a very unhelpful problem to have, and Saul suffered from self-deception.

In self-deception, a person is both the deceiver and the deceived, and that's a tough spot to be in.

You're both the deceiver and the deceived.

Self-deception, think about it, hides behind pride, hides behind anger and bitterness and contempt.

In fact, all of the sins we looked at in that series a few weeks ago, his grace is enough.

All of those sins, they're fuelled by self-deception.

It convinces a person that they are not in the wrong, that it's always someone else's fault.

Self-deception creates both pride and self-loathing, because a deceived person can't see the good in themselves either.

Would you agree?

Both pride and, oddly, self-loathing, which is what we see in Saul.

An American survey, I find this hard to believe, but I think it's true from where I found it.

An American survey of one million high school seniors, that's what it said, one million high school seniors, found that 70% thought they were above average in leadership ability, and only 2% thought they were below average in leadership ability.

In terms of ability to get along with others, all students thought they were above average.

60% thought they were in the top 10%, and this is my favourite one, 25% thought they were in the top 1%.

Clearly, a lot of people are wrong about how they stack up in comparison with their peers.

I think us humans do a pretty good job of self-deception.

Life just offers us a deal, and the deal is this, you can be above average, you can believe you're above average without doing the work of becoming above average.

How do you do that?

You just believe.

Take the deal.

I am above average.

I don't care what anyone else says.

I'm going to believe that I am above average.

The beliefs we believe about ourselves and others don't need to be true to bring us satisfaction.

Isn't that a wonderful thing?

We only need to believe them.

Or so we think in a self-deceived state.

Saul chose very early in his life to take the deal.

Believe that you are a God-fearing King who obeys and does right by your people and make sure you don't catch yourself in the act of disobeying this.

Attention management, if you're taking notes, that's what self-deception is all about.

Just don't catch yourself not doing what you think you should be doing.

It's easy, just look away.

You can enjoy all the benefits of righteousness without the cost.

I love this quote.

I hope you can just follow it because it's a bit wordy.

It's from Soren Kierkegaard in the Sickness Unto Death.

He describes a moment.

I've got it up there.

Excuse me.

Describes a moment familiar to all of us.

It is the little tiny transition from having understood to doing.

Here's what he says about it.

If a person does not do what is right, the very second he or she knows it is the right thing to do.

Then for a start, the knowledge comes off the boil.

So you get some knowledge about something, but you don't do it.

It starts to come off the boil if you put it off.

Next comes the question of what the will thinks of the knowledge.

The will is dialectical, quite logical, and has underneath it the whole of man's lower nature.

If it doesn't like the knowledge, it doesn't immediately follow that the will goes and does the opposite of what was grasped in knowing, so just disobeying what you know to be true.

Such strong contrasts are presumably rare, but then the will lets some time pass.

There is an interim called, we'll look into it tomorrow.

During all this, the knowing becomes more and more obscured and the lower nature more and more victorious.

And then when the knowing has become duly obscured, the will and the knowing can better understand one another.

Eventually, they are in an entire agreement, since knowing has now deserted to the side of the will and allows it to be known that what the will wants is quite right.

Self-deception simply requires a little procrastination, don't you think?

Agree with what is right, enjoy all the fields of acknowledging what is true and right, but put off acting on it.

I mean, giving to something like ICM, it's extraordinarily challenging and a great idea, but if you can just put it off for long enough, you can feel the conviction of wanting to give and sort of have a memory as though you gave, but you never gave because you procrastinated, are you with me?

This is the brilliance of self-deception.

What is the antidote to self-deception?

Before we get to it, I just want to say one more thing, dig a little bit deeper into what causes self-deception.

American social psychologist Leon Festinger first joined the term in 1957, cognitive dissonance, to refer to the disconnect that happens in our brains when our belief doesn't match our actions.

Most people, all of us, we don't like living in dissonance.

It just doesn't feel good.

I've got a picture up here, a slide.

It doesn't take much to agree, I think.

I could believe something, but when my actions just don't match my beliefs, if they're inconsistent, my actions, I feel like a hypocrite initially, and there is dissonance in my head and my heart, isn't there?

I know what I should do or I know what I think is right, but I see the opposite and it doesn't feel right in me.

There's this sort of angst and we might call it dissonance.

But humanity, the way we're designed or in the fall, maybe, if you go to the next slide, we don't want that.

So what could we do?

There's three options.

Clearly, I just have to change my actions to match my belief, and the dissonance will come down because I'm no longer hypocritical.

Or, I can easily change my beliefs to match my action.

Like, I don't believe that anymore, so I'm going to be consistent.

But the easier thing of the lot is just take the deal.

I keep my beliefs, I keep my actions, and I look away long enough to not catch myself in the act.

Right, that's self-deception.

Don't take the deal, and still dissonance will drop.

But that doesn't mean we're not going to suffer the consequences of disobeying what is right.

So, I wonder, you can see Saul lived with cognitive dissonance, I think, and then decided to find a way to accept the deal.

He kept on thinking with Samuel, I'm a godly king, it's someone else's problem.

So, I wonder if anyone knows in this room, they struggle with self-deception.

It's rare, if we have an altar call, I'm not thinking many people are coming forward.

That would be me, I'm self-deceived.

Because we live in that darkness, we don't know.

I want to suggest the answer to self-deception is to embrace dissonance.

Embrace it and deal with it.

Self-deception, I think, is always a kingship issue.

It's a sovereignty issue, which means a lordship issue.

The Christian faith causes us to come under another king, not ourselves.

Amen?

This is a lordship issue.

Overcoming self-deception is about laying down our right to be king of our own lives and allowing the king of the universe to take up that role.

It is to come to the one who is full of light, let the light shine in, and let him who is full of truth and grace do the work that he can do in our heart.

Amen?

This is exactly what John chapter one says, verse nine.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

That's Jesus.

He's the true light.

The word became flesh, made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, John says, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth.

I would put it to all of us that the answer to self-deception is to go to Jesus, the King of Kings and the rightful Lord of my life and say, would you shine your life into my head and my heart?

Show me where the inconsistencies are because I'm just accepting.

I feel it.

I know there's a dissonance between what I know to be right and how I act.

Please, let me feel the dissonance.

Light and truth will do that, but what else is he full of?

Grace, which says he's a safe person to go to.

He is safe with the light.

He is safe with the truth.

He doesn't just condemn.

He says, come, I'll show you a better way.

Amen?

The answer to self-deception is Jesus.

I love the Tim Keller quote, in the gospel we find that we are far worse than we could ever have imagined, and we are far more loved than we could have ever have dreamed.

That's the answer to self-deception.

We embrace the fact that we are fallen, that we will live with at times more of a sense of dissonance than we like, and it's the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

The light and the truth of Jesus and his word shines into our heart and says, that is not right.

Feel it, feel conviction.

Let the dissonance drive you to the one who can fix it by his grace and through repentance.

Jesus died on the cross for our sin because he had no illusions that we were okay.

He died for us not because we didn't have any dissonance, but because we did and the dissonance was there between us and God.

He died because he knew that we were sinners in need of saving.

I think every day we are susceptible to the temptation to wallow in our failure or take pride in our success.

Neither are the right path.

The answer to self-deception is to learn to be confident that there is a safe place to be in the light and truth and grace of Jesus daily.

So can I encourage us, as we think about King Saul, there's probably not a lot we want to take from him to copy.

But I hope next week you'll hear when Lord Willing, Ben will be preaching on David.

We'll see a different way to respond to failure in David.

The answer to self-deception for us is to allow people who are filled with the Spirit of God to get close enough to us that Jesus can use their heart and mind and vocal cords and arms to hug and bring truth into our lives.

The Spirit will do it through the word and he will speak to us, but so often he will use those who love us.

Don't you agree?

He will come and walk with us and share and in discussion, in community, we start to realize, I don't think I've got that right.

What a loving thing to do to point out an area of self-deception that I could bring to the Lord and find his grace.

Don't fly too close to the sun that your wings melt with the pride of life.

Lord God, we are so grateful for this table that we have been invited to come around.

Oh Lord Jesus, the bread and the cup never cease to powerfully communicate what you have done.

Some, you were not deceived in any way about what was required by the Father.

We want to say together as we come to the table, we believe you lived the perfect life, and we remember it as we eat the bread.

Your perfect life was enough so that you could offer your perfect blood.

We want to say together as this group of people meeting in Hornsby that we believe, Jesus Christ, you are the saviour of the world and you are our saviour.

Your blood was enough shed once and for all for the forgiveness of our sins.

And by faith, you fix the dissonance.

You have made a way for us to be truly at peace with God, ourselves and those around us.

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