• Scripture: I Samuel 15:22
• Broadcast Date: 09/21/2015

Have you ever thought of how wonderful it must have been for our first parents, Adam & Eve?  Boy, did they ever have it made.  There was no sin to disrupt society and bring all sorts of temptation to do evil, because evil was absent, totally absent.  So they had a perfect environment.  You know, Adam and Eve would have a hard time sinning.  For instance, they could not commit adultery.  They couldn’t steal from anybody and they definitely could not covet.  And, oh yes, they couldn’t dishonor their father or mother.  They couldn’t harm or hurt their neighbors because they had none!  Pornography was out of the picture and it was a cinch they couldn’t go to the bars, or honky-tonks as they called them when I was a kid in the last century.  But, by George, they found a way to sin.  Remember the story, they ate of the fruit.  People usually think it was an apple, but I think it was a lemon.  The fruit was so beautiful and I believe, when Eve took the first bite of that lemon, it was sweet and delicious, but by the time poor Adam took his bite, it was sour and bitter, like a lemon is.  Be that as it may be, they sinned and they sinned big time!  Hard to believe.  Both were sinless and there was no sin in sight in the garden, but still they could sin.  You know what their sin was?  It was disobedience to God!  Many of us do it all the time and don’t think a thing about it.  Oh boy, we would never commit adultery, or kill anybody, oh no.  We might gossip and break hearts, but after all, gossip is one of those little, accepted sins.  Like “little white lies” or evil thoughts that no one can ever know that we have.  So in our book, we look pretty good.  But in God’s eyes, we are just as sinful as Adam and Eve ever were.  You know why?  Because the great and grievous sin of our first parents was the sin of disobedience.  And if we are disobedient to God in any way, even in the way of little white lies, we are as guilty as our first parents.  The old prophet Samuel demonstrated that when he reprimanded King Saul for disobeying God.  Listen to him fearlessly challenge the king, “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”  (I Samuel 15:22).  Saul had just disobeyed God, so in order to make amends, he offers a ton of sacrifices.  Samuel, in disdain, tells the king in so many words, “You can do all the giving you want, the big thing in God’s eyes is not what we give him of our substance, but if we are obedient to His Word.  So, we must not do as King Saul did, and play games with God.  Instead, read the Word of God, Listen to the Word of God, and Obey the Word of God.  Remember what Jesus told us, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  (John 14:15).  And you know what else?  St. John tells us in his first epistle, “his commandments are not grievous.”  (I John 5:3).  So, there we have it, we must trust and obey God.