1 Samuel 15:9
“But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.”
Sin is an every age and every person problem. It doesn’t matter who you are, or from what age you came, you are a sinner. When it comes to sin, your attitude towards sin will ultimately determine whether you will get victory over it. I find in the Scriptures there were three attitudes towards sin that kept people from conquering sin.
The first attitude towards sin is making peace with it. Joshua 9:15 says, “And Joshua made peace with them, and made a league with them, to let them live:…” This is the story about Joshua making peace with the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites deceived Joshua and the leaders of Israel in saying that they came from a far country and had no food and little water to drink. Joshua didn’t think it was that bad, so he made peace with them. The problem is that God told them to destroy all the people. They were not to make peace with anyone, they were to destroy them all.
Many people think they will never be able to overcome their sin, so they make peace with it. They just decide they are going to have to live with their sin for the remainder of their lives. This is a wrong attitude towards your sin. You must never make peace with your sin. You must decide that you will never be at peace with your sin until it is dead.
The second attitude towards sin is found in the story above when Saul spared his sin. In other words, instead of completely conquering it, he just kept it around just in case he needed it. I find many Christians hurt themselves because they keep remnants of their sin around just in case they want to go back to it. They don’t want to completely destroy it because in the back of their head they may one day want to do it again. May I tell you that if your sin is hurting you today, it will hurt you again tomorrow. Never keep remnants of sin around, but destroy it all.
The third attitude towards sin is keeping the best of sin. Again, Saul didn’t destroy the “best” of the livestock. God told him to destroy everything, but he kept the best. You must never get the attitude that there is a good part to sin. Let me remind you that all sin is sin, and all sin is bad. You may think part of your sin has not hurt you, but it all has hurt you. Let me explain. Many people get rid of their sin, but they don’t get rid of the crowd with whom they sinned. You can try to get right with sin, but if you go back to the crowd with whom you sinned, then you will eventually go back to the sin. You must not only get rid of the sin, but of those things that belong to your sin.
The only attitude that you should have towards sin is to completely destroy it. You should never be happy in your life until your sin is totally destroyed. Sin is not a friend or a pet to keep around, it should be completely destroyed. Whatever your sin may be, don’t make peace with it, don’t spare it and don’t keep the best of it; completely fight it until every bit of it is destroyed.