Notice the first thing he said, he was in total denial: I've done what God said. Verse 20: I've obeyed the Lord, I've done what - now notice this. He's in total denial about the fact actually he didn't do what God wanted him to do; but he come along, and he said: bless the Lord, I want to praise the Lord now, I've done what God wanted me to do. This is the condition of so many Christians, he's in denial, he's not facing he didn't do what he's supposed to do. God says to the husbands: love your wives, marriage is in a problem, did you love your wife? Probably not. I hear bleating, the bleating of your wife. Why didn't you do what God said to do? Oh, not my fault, you don't understand what kind of woman she is. [Laughter] Oh really? Bleating, I hear bleating, see? So notice what he said, Verse 15, now he passes the blame, and excuses himself. Hey listen, don't talk to me. The people, they bought them from the Amalekites, it's the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen. So now he's come into ways of excusing. So first he denies that there's a problem - when faced with the issue and reality, he carries on like there was no problem whatsoever, ignores it.
Then when he says: what about the bleating of the sheep, well he then excuses it: well listen, I realise there's a problem here, there's sheep here, but don't look at me. It was the people. Hello, aren't you the leader? Oh yeah, but it was the people, they did it. See him passing the blame, excusing himself, taking no responsibility. You know what he was really saying was: well yes, but you can't blame me, because it's them. It's amazing isn't it? It's a very powerful story this one, and then he minimises it: well you know, we did actually get rid of the bad stuff. We really got rid of the bad - now listen, Samuel, don't you hit on me now. We got rid of the bad stuff. That's trying to minimise the issue. He's trying to make it smaller than it is; but he had a clear command, he just didn't do it. He just chose what bits he'd do, and the rest he didn't do. First he denies it, second he tries to minimise it, third he blames someone else, and then finally he tries to reason - now get this, this is the best of all. He spiritualises it. [Laughter] Well, of course we bought these sheep and oxen so we could give them to the Lord. [Laughter] What a fob-off. He's trying to fob-off a prophet of God. He's trying to use every kind of defensive way possible, to do one thing: he blew it, and he wouldn't own up. That's what people do.
They blame someone else, minimise it, deny it, pretend it isn't there, try and spiritualise it, all kinds of things. They just didn't do the right thing, and they won't own it. Now here's the problem: if you don't own it, then you are in a problem. Defensiveness is a major way of avoiding responsibility, and blame shifting; and if you are a defensive kind of person, for whatever reason, when faced with failure, difficulty, challenge, set backs, if you become defensive, you are not taking responsibility. You are acting like a victim, and you're playing the blame game. We have to get out of that. We have to make decisions to get out of that, to be able to be what God called us to be. So notice this, that he experienced the consequences. The consequences were, he lost his right to rule. Now let's just stop there a moment. We're trying to get it out of the Old Testament and into today, so let's have a think about it. God calls you and me, children of the Father, we're children of God, we are kings. What does that mean? We're anointed kings. That means we have the baptism in the Holy Spirit, we have the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we are able to go into the community, and through prayer and faith, influence the outcomes of what's happening.