Confession Without Repentance - 1 Samuel 15:24-35

Confession is a powerful thing—but only when it is genuine.

Many people believe that saying “I have sinned” is enough. They assume that if they admit their wrongdoing, everything is made right. But true repentance is more than words—it is a forsaking of sin, a turning of the heart towards Christ, and a sincere pursuit of obedience to Him.

In 1 Samuel 15, we see a striking example of confession without repentance. King Saul admits his sin, saying: “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.”

But instead of truly humbling himself before God his heart remains unchanged.

Which is the overarching point of our text this morning: Saul’s actions remind us that just because you confess your sins doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve repented of them. In fact, we see several things about Saul’s confession: first, we see that he confesses his sin without taking responsibility (v. 24-25), second, he confesses his sin and expects restoration (vv. 26-29), and lastly, he confesses his sin without genuinely turning from it (vv. 30-35).

Last week, we looked at Saul’s disobedience to the Lord. If you remember, Saul was instructed to devote the Amalekites to complete destruction, however, he refused to obey the word of the Lord.

Instead he rolled back into town with King Agag in tow along with the best of the Amalekite livestock. And then he tried to spin his disobedience as obedience. He told Samuel that he kept all the livestock in order to make sacrifices to the Lord.

But God could see his heart. Remember how Samuel told him to “obey is better than sacrifice” and “because [he had] rejected the word of the Lord, [the Lord had] also rejected [him] from being king.”

Confession without responsibility (vv. 24-25)

And so this morning we’re picking up right where we left off. Samuel had told Saul that God had rejected him as King in Israel and so what we’re looking at this morning is Saul’s reaction to that sad news.

And so in verse 24, Saul said, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words…”

On the surface, it sounds great doesn’t it? Saul is exactly right. He didn’t devote the Amalekites to destruction in direct opposition to the word of the Lord. He did transgress the commandment of the Lord.

So again, on the surface, it would appear that Saul is doing a good thing! He’s confessing his sin… but with an exception.

Did you catch what he said on the back end? He said, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.”

In other words, “I sinned, but they made me do it!” He’s trying to absolve himself of complete responsibility for his actions. Of course the idea is, you can’t punish someone for something that wasn’t their fault.

I’m currently reading a book entitled, Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. I’m sure many of you have heard of it, it was the number one New York Times Bestseller in 2015. Willink and Babin were Navy Seals who fought in the battle of Ramadi in Iraq and from their experiences on the battlefield they’ve distilled leadership principles. And their primary leadership principle is what they call Extreme Ownership. The main idea of the book is that as a leader you have to take total responsibility for what happens in your team, family, or business.

Saul doesn’t take extreme ownership of his sin does he? Instead he shifts the blame onto the people. He said, “I have sinned and transgressed the commandment of the Lord because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.”

There is only one person responsible for your sin – you. Just as there’s only one person responsible for my sin – me. And in order to seek forgiveness from the Lord you have to be able to stand before him and say, “I sinned. I did that. Please forgive me.”

I’m reminded of Psalm 32:5. David said, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,' and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”

David took extreme ownership of his sin.

Because true repentance requires you and me to shoulder the responsibility for our sin. We have to stare our sin in the face and acknowledge it before the Lord.

Thomas Watson in his classic work, The Doctrine of Repentance wrote, “The eye is for both seeing and weeping. Sin must first be seen before it can be wept for.”

Saul isn’t willing to look at his sin honestly. He’s willing to admit that he’s made a mistake, but he can’t be held responsible for what happened! The people told him to do it! He deflects responsibility from himself.

Genuine repentance requires taking ownership and responsibility for specific sins.

Confession doesn’t mean restoration (vv. 26-29)

I’ll go out on a limb and say that all of us at some point or another have mistreated a sibling or friend, and then Mom or Dad finds out. And what did they say? “You need to apologize to your sister or there will be consequences.”

So you sheepishly go back to your sibling or friend and say, “I’m sorry for punching you in the face.” But of course, the apology is totally insincere. You don’t actually feel bad about what happened. The only reason you’re apologizing is to avoid punishment and pretend like nothing happened! You just want things to go back to the way that they were.

Do you think there may have been ulterior motives that spurred Saul's confession? How about the fact that he was told the kingdom would be ripped away from him?

Twice in verses 26-29 Samuel told Saul that the Lord was going to rip the kingdom of Israel from his hand.

Look at verses 26-29.

“And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” 27 As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. 28 And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

In other words, Saul’s perpetual disobedience to the Lord cost him the kingship. The clock had run out and now God was removing him as king and would install another man, David to take his place.

This is God’s will. It’s been providentially ordained, which means there is no turning back. That’s why Samuel says God does “lie or have regret” in verse 29. From time to time, Scripture adopts emotional language in order to help us better understand God’s character. I mentioned that last week, it’s called anthropomorphism.

But the crux of what is being said here is that the consequences for your sin are set and there is no going back. Because that’s exactly what Saul wanted! He wanted to be able to confess his sins and have everything return to the way they were before, while avoiding any consequences.

Which is why Samuel has to keep telling him, “you’re no longer going to be king.” And Saul doesn’t want to accept that. What’s clear from these verses is that Saul is not worried about offending God, rather, he’s worried about losing his position. He’s worried about the consequences of his sin. Saul doesn’t say, “I made a mistake, please let me remain as king,” but that’s the implication of the text.

Again, it’s like punching your sister in the face and then offering a fake apology. The apology isn’t coming from a sincere place, it’s primary motivation is to restore things back to order. To return things to the way they were before.

Which is exactly what Saul wanted. He wanted restoration without repentance.

And here’s what I mean by that: when an individual admits a sin, he now believes he’s entitled to immediate full restoration. Any consequences for their actions have been completely short-circuited because they admitted wrongdoing. Therefore, everything has to be fully restored to exactly the way that it was before. Everyone has to pretend like nothing happened.

Now of course, I’m not encouraging anyone to hold a grudge against anyone or regularly bring up someone’s sin simply to rub their nose in it.

Jesus told Peter that he should forgive not just “...seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

That is Christians should always be willing to forgive. We forgive because Christ has forgiven us.

And what I’ve seen happen is that people are accused of unforgiveness if someone isn’t fully restored.

And so, we’re sometimes led to believe that if someone confesses their sin true forgiveness is manifested in full restoration. The pastor ran around on his wife, but he asked for forgiveness, and we’ve forgiven him, so we’ll continue to let him preach.

That’s maybe an extreme example but hopefully you get my point. Often we conflate forgiveness with restoration.

But the truth is, there can be genuine forgiveness without full restoration.

Joseph forgave his brothers in Egypt, but before revealing himself, he tested their hearts to see if they had truly changed.

Later in 1 Samuel, we’ll see David forgive Saul but that never meant he foolishly put himself within Saul’s reach.

Most significant of all, Jesus forgave those who crucified Him, but that didn’t mean that everyone within earshot of Him was automatically saved right there on the spot.

But sometimes a confession of sin can be used as a way to demand restoration. Saul thought that if he acknowledged wrongdoing (to a certain extent), then he’d have God over a barrel. Because he confessed his sin it would be unjust to remove him as king.

But doesn’t this demonstrate a lack of repentance? It’s not really about turning from sin and turning towards the Lord. It’s about avoiding consequences and maintaining the status quo.

But true repentance is demonstrated in genuine brokenness before the Lord.

Confession without turning (vv. 30-35)

Saul didn’t hate his sin as much as he hated the effects of his sin. He hated the consequences of his sin.

Which is exactly what we see again in verse 30: “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.”

Notice how Saul wanted Samuel to “honor” him before the elders and the people of Israel. Perhaps if everyone found out that God had rejected Saul as king of Israel, it would have caused confusion and chaos. Maybe Israel would have descended into anarchy!

But that doesn’t really seem to be what lies behind Saul’s comments. Saul’s comments seem to indicate that he was concerned about losing his reputation. Once everyone finds out that God had rejected him and was going to tear the kingdom from his hands – no one would respect him anymore!

Again, Saul isn’t thinking about his sin as an offense against a holy God, but rather, as something that would negatively impact his life. He wasn’t broken over his sin, he was broken over the effects of his sin. He was broken over the consequences of his sin.

Perhaps even more telling was Saul’s slip of the tongue in verse 30. Did you catch it? “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.”

The Lord wasn’t Saul’s God, He was Samuel’s God. Of course, that tells us a lot about the state of Saul’s heart, but equally as telling was Saul’s request that Samuel honor him before the elders and before the people of Israel.

Saul wanted Samuel to go before the Lord his God and do a little crisis management for him. As I’ve heard people say it before – Saul wanted Samuel to put a good word for him with the big man upstairs.

It’s all so revealing of his heart isn’t it? And it really forces each of us to ask ourselves a similar question: which is more important to you? Your relationship with God or your reputation? Which upsets you more: the fact that your sin offends God or that it could produce some sort of negative consequence in your life? How you answer those questions reveals so much, don’t they?

It’s the difference between Judas Iscariot and Peter. Both sinned grievously. But felt remorse and sorrow over their sin! Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver he took for betraying Jesus. But where did they turn in the midst of their remorse and sorrow over sin? Judas’ grief was self-centered, while Peter took the sorrow over his sin to Jesus.

And that ladies and gentlemen is the classic illustration between true and false repentance. And then Peter went on to live in humble obedience to the Lord. Because that is a key marker of true repentance - do they seek to live in new obedience to the Lord?

The Westminster Shorter Catechism 87 has this to say about repentance:

“What is repentance unto life?”

“Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.”

Obedience to God is a sign of a repentant, humble, Christian life. That’s what is meant by turning from sin. It means a rejection of sin and a pursuit of living for Jesus Christ.

Which is precisely what we see from Samuel?

Once again Saul’s sinful disobedience is contrasted with Samuel’s humble obedience. Saul failed to kill the Amalekite King Agag so Samuel faithfully fulfilled the Word of the Lord and killed the wicked King Agag. Just as Agag had killed women before they were able to have children, so Samuel made Agag’s mother childless.

And with that Samuel left Saul. Again, it’s a dramatic picture because the Old Testament prophets represented the word of the Lord. And so, there’s a metaphorical picture of the word of God departing from Saul.

Which is exactly where a refusal to repent will take you. Your heart will be hardened to the point you won’t hear from or listen to the Word of the Lord.

What a warning? Because Saul grew up in the Old Testament church. He heard the word of God preached by the prophets of Old. He knew about the promises of God. He knew about the worship of God. He knew how to look and act like a believer, and yet his heart was far from the Lord.

I’ve heard it said that whenever the gospel is preached one of two things are happening: it’s either softening your heart towards the Lord, or it’s hardening your heart towards the Lord.

As we have seen in 1 Samuel 15:24-35, Saul’s story is a tragic warning about the difference between mere confession and true repentance. He admitted his sin, but his heart remained unchanged. He was more concerned about his reputation before men than his standing before God. His confession had nothing to do with his relationship with God but about escaping the consequences of his actions.

Saul’s downfall should lead us to ask a sobering question: Are we truly repentant, or are we just sorry that we got caught? It is easy to admit wrongdoing when the weight of guilt or the fear of consequences presses on us. But true repentance—the kind that brings transformation and restoration with God—goes beyond words. It is marked by a changed heart, a forsaking of sin, and a turning to God in obedience.

Contrast Saul with David, who also sinned grievously. When confronted by the prophet Nathan, David did not make excuses, shift blame, or try to save face. Instead, he cried out in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Unlike Saul, David’s repentance was genuine, God-centered, and led to restoration.

Today, God is not looking for empty words or surface-level confessions. He desires hearts that are truly broken over sin and lives that bear the fruit of repentance (Matthew 3:8). If you have been living like Saul—offering words without real change—God is calling you to something greater.

The good news is that Christ offers true forgiveness and renewal to all who genuinely turn to Him. It’s why I love reading the assurance of pardon each week. Passages like 1 John 1:9 remind us: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” True repentance does not leave us in despair but leads us into the arms of a merciful Savior.

So the question remains: Are we just confessing, or are we truly repenting? May we not be like Saul, but instead, like David—coming to God with a broken and contrite heart that He will never turn away.