If we’re honest, we’ve all tasted guilt because we’ve sinned against God. For the Christian, you know that sinking feeling that comes the moments after you sin. You’ve heard His commands, you want to obey, and you genuinely love Jesus, but you still decided to rebel. You’ve grieved your wonderful Master, and you wonder how, as a Christian, could I continue sinning against the One I love? Why, when I know His commands are for my good, do I disobey? All He’s done is shown me mercy, and right know, I’ve spit right back in His face. Will He still love me? What will He do?
If you’re not a Christian, you don’t put your guilt in those terms, but you certainly are familiar with guilt. Something comes to your mind when I mention sinning against God, and you probably have a specific event replaying in your head. What have you done with that guilt? Do you ignore it? Do you take it out on other people? Have you harbored it inside of you all this time?
God is not silent on this issue, and He addresses it through a glorious passage starting in 1 Samuel 12:19. Before the timeframe of 1 Samuel, the nation of Israel did not have a king. Their society gathered around God Himself as their king, and they governed it accordingly. As we get into 1 Samuel, Israel starts to grumble and ask for an earthly king so they can be like other nations. God warns them against their desire, but ultimately He hands them over to their sinful wishes and appoints the prophet Samuel to anoint an earthly king for them. They eventually choose a man named Saul to be their king, and coming to 1 Samuel 12:18, God punishes them for their actions through sending thunder and rain during their wheat harvest.
Now, this sounds like history so far, and it sounds like it has nothing to do with our sin and guilt. To understand the connection, we need to understand why God was angry at Israel for choosing a king. 1 Samuel 10:18-19 gives us some insight:
This says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I brought Israel up from Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the power of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’ But you have today rejected your God, who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses; yet you have said, ‘No, but set a king over us!’
God was angry because Israel rejected God in choosing a king. In light of all He had done for them, they rejected Him. He freed them from Egypt, delivered them from enemy nations, and lovingly shepherded them to their promised land. He delivered them from all their calamities and distress, yet they still boldly told Him through their actions, “We reject You”.
It’s the same for us when we sin. In light of all He’s done for us, in creating us, giving us food, health, shelter, and air to breathe, we reject Him. He even became a man and died for our sins on a cross, yet when we sin, we reject His great love. We prop up a different king called greed or sex or pride or entertainment or self, and in doing that we boldly tell God, “I reject You”. Sin is not only disobeying God’s commands. It’s not just treating other people poorly. It’s rejecting God as your King.
Going back to 1 Samuel, we can learn what to do when we sin from Israel’s reaction and Samuel’s preaching. As we said before, God sent thunder and rain on the people during the wheat harvest to exercise His judgment. He’s not pleased with their rebellion against Him. Notice how Israel responds:
Then all the people said to Samuel, ‘Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king’
1 Samuel 12:19
We see here that Israel admits their sin! In the midst of God’s thunder and rain, they see their own rebellion against God and confess it to Him. Most people today tell us to deny our sin or blame others or blame our upbringing or chalk our sin up to inescapable circumstances. That is not the proper way to deal with sin in the thick of it. The first step is admitting it. As John Piper says, “Guilt is to the mind as pain is to the body”. When we’re caught in the aftermath of our sin, guilt is a wonderful gift of God that reminds us that we’ve done something wrong. That guilt should move us towards honest confession.
But, confession is not the end. Even after we confess, our guilt lingers and eats away at our soul. Sometimes, the reason we’re so guilty is that we know the wrong we’ve done! If you’re a Christian, you may have even contemplated just giving up the whole fight. Why keep on striving? Why try to obey? God’s probably mad at us anyway, right? Our guilt tempts us to hide from God in shame. Adam and Eve did it in the garden, and we do the same today. We’re afraid to approach our Father because we’ve let Him down for the last time.
Or have we? Listen to Samuel’s response to Israel:
Samuel said to the people, ‘Do not fear’.
1 Samuel 12:20a
What? Do not fear? But, we’ve offended God haven’t we? Let’s keep reading.
You have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.
1 Samuel 12:20b
First, Samuel’s honest. We’ve committed all this evil. Again, the message here is not to downplay what we’ve done. We’ve sinned against the Lord! We’ve done evil. But, acknowledging your sin, do not turn aside from following the Lord. Continue serving Him with all your heart! Samuel continues
You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things, which cannot profit or deliver, because they are futile.
1 Samuel 12:21
Even stronger, we must not turn aside from following the Lord! Even after we’ve sinned! Every other place to turn is futile. These places will not profit us or deliver us. They will kill us. Friends, the temptation in guilt is to run from God. But Samuel here tells us the opposite. He tells us to run towards God! When we’re in those moments after rejecting our King, we should not abandon Him. We should flee to Him for help and salvation. We should rest on the promise that He gives in Samuel’s next statement
For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself
1 Samuel 12:22
If you’re a Christian, you are part of God’s people. God does not abandon His people. Even when they sin. He desires that His people do not sin, and He even disciplines them when they do, but He will not forsake them. When we find ourselves grieving over our sin, let us confess that sin, turn from that sin, and rest on our God who’s already called us His own.
We will close with the apostle John’s words in his first letter in the Bible:
And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins
1 John 1:1b-2a
Do you know this Jesus? Jesus is righteous. He’s perfect, and the Father is pleased with the perfect life He lived on earth. He did not sin while He lived, and He never felt any guilt wrought by His own hands. The only guilt He’s known is from our sins that He bore when He was murdered on a Roman cross. This is what that unfamiliar word propitiation means. He took God’s wrath intended for you and me and placed it upon Himself.
And now, after He gloriously rose from the dead, He now stands as an advocate between God the Father and all those who believe in Him. When we sin, He pleads our cause before God, showing God His own shed blood for sinners. When you find yourself guilty in your sin, do not run from Jesus. Go to your Advocate for help! If you do not know this Advocate, know Him today. He’s the only one who can deliver you from your sins, and He’s the only one who can absolve your guilt. All other false kings cannot profit or deliver.
