What do Adam, Eve, Aaron and King Saul all have in common?
They all blamed someone else for their sin and never took personal responsibility for their action.
When sin made its entrance into the world and God confronted Adam and Eve, notice who Adam and Eve blamed.
Which two people did Adam blame?
Who did Eve blame?
Adam blamed God for putting the women there in the first place and then he blamed Eve, Eve went on to blame the serpent. It appears the fall of mankind was everyone else’s fault.
The same line of denial continued in later generations. Israel grew impatient waiting for Moses to arrive, so they made their own plans and constructed a golden calf to worship. When confronted by Moses, Aaron defended himself.
Who did Aaron blame?
At no point did Aaron accept personal responsibility for his actions, instead, he blamed the people by saying, ‘these people are prone to evil’.
He further attempted to distance himself from the event by saying that he put the gold into the furnace ‘and out came the calf’. Aaron was saying, it’s not his fault, others are to blame.
Saul received clear instructions from God to destroy everything possessed by the Amalekites.
When the prophet Samuel confronted him, he defended himself.
Who did Saul blame?
Saul was in denial, refusing to take personal responsibility for this act of disobedience. It was the soldier’s fault, they’re to blame. And, in an attempt to gain some credibility, he said that they intended to offer the animals as sacrifices to God.
Adam, Eve, Aaron and Saul all made bad choices and then blamed others.
Why did Adam, Eve, Arron and Saul blame others for their sinful actions?
Why do people blame others for their mistakes?
Can you think of any other examples where people blame those around them?
For example, if a person makes a commitment to the Lord and is baptised, they become part of the local church. Later telltale signs begin appearing, irregular attendance to worship, conversation with them indicates a disinterest in spiritual growth and behaviour inappropriate for a Christian.
And if you listen carefully you will hear excuses being offered to justify that unfaithfulness. Pressure from peers, the pressure of work, the many demands on their time and their overcrowded schedule. They appear to put the blame anywhere except where it belongs.
The God who is revealed in the Bible is a God capable of sustaining His people, helping them remain faithful irrespective of how severe their difficulties or how pressured their lives are.
What can we learn about God from this verse?
The text tells us three things about God.
1. Our God is a faithful God.
2. Our God won’t allow a temptation to come our way that is stronger than we are able to endure.
3. Our God will always provide a way of escape, in other words, He will help us through those times of temptations.
Our culture has little respect for the ways of God and, as a result, sin is all around us. But so is God’s divine power and strength, none of us needs to become another spiritual casualty.
It’s not a requirement that young Christians ‘sow their wild oats’ or that older Christians have ‘a mid-life crisis’. Every day we are faced with making a choice to live for God and we must choose to obey or disobey.
And when we are disobedient, we have only ourselves to blame, no one else. And should we try to justify our behaviour, we place our name alongside Adam, Eve, Aaron and Saul.