Obedience Will Be Tested (vv. 1-9)
1 Samuel also said to Saul, "The LORD sent me to anoint you king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the LORD. 2 "Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. 3 'Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' " 4 So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men of Judah. 5 And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and lay in wait in the valley. 6 Then Saul said to the Kenites, "Go, depart, get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt." So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7 And Saul attacked the Amalekites, from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. 8 He also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.
Amalek Put under the Ban of God’s Judgment
Most ancient nations viewed war as intrinsically religious – a contest between rival “gods.” Human life was cheap, so few eyebrows were raised when the Lord told Saul to exterminate the Amalekites. Their specific crime was an old one – attacking the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. Moderns are grieved by this command, but Israel was God’s hammer of vengeance against idolatrous nations in that region. No one has the same function in the new covenant, certainly not the church. Rather than criticizing the Lord or Israel, we should rather rejoice in his long memory and justice, for God’s vengeance against his enemies is good news, even part of the gospel (Isa. 61:2). Our Savior takes vengeance upon men and nations who persecute his people and wolves that scatter them (Rev. 6:9-10). It is “a righteous thing with God to repay tribulation to them that trouble you” (2 Thess. 1:6). Because Amalek attacked God’s people, Amalek was placed under the cherem, the ban of total judgment – men, women, children, cities, possession. All was to be burned up.
There is no duplication of the ban in the new covenant, at least, not until the end, when sin, death, and hell will be thrown into the lake of fire that burns forever. The church is not God’s ambassador of hate and judgment in the world, but of love and mercy. We must bear patiently with injuries and persecution, for the Lord is showing through us a pattern of longsuffering. This is the not the age of final judgment but of longsuffering and the Spirit’s working to convict men of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:9-11). Even so, there are times when the Lord will “come down with fire from heaven” to judge his enemies before the final judgment, scatter them, and punish them for attacking his people. It is a great support of our faith in hard times that the Lord does not forget all the crimes and schemes of the wicked against us. He will repay vengeance to his adversaries, who will not bow the knee to his Son. If we would enjoy his protection, we must “possess our souls in patience” (Luke 21:19) and “revile not when we are reviled by our enemies, or threaten when we suffer, but commit our souls to him who judges righteously” – as our blessed and triumphant Savior did (1 Pet. 2:23).
Saul Tested to See If He Will Obey
The kingdom has been taken away from Saul, but not yet the crown. Perhaps this is a chance for personal reclamation through submission to the Lord’s will. He is the Lord’s anointed king, and therefore, he must hear God’s voice. Whatever Saul’s past failures, the Lord is speaking to him again through Samuel. Does he not often give us more opportunities to learn obedience? Saul received God’s direct command to exterminate Amalek, and he therefore had God’s promise of power and victory. Saul gathered a major army of two hundred thousand. He warned the descendants of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, to leave the area. Saul and Israel’s armies attacked the entire Amalekite region, as far south as Egypt and as far east as Arabia. It was a smashing victory, but they were unwilling to obey the Lord. They left King Agag alive and kept the best spoils for themselves. Whatever was worthless, they destroyed. We should tremble at such brazen, blind disobedience on Saul’s part. We should also expect that the Lord will test our obedience. He tests the righteous. He tests families to see if parents will love him more than their rebellious children. He tests fathers and mothers to see if they will train their children in the Lord’s ways, pray daily for them, and trust his promises. Expect and prepare for these tests (2 Cor. 10:13). The righteous Lord loves righteousness (Ps. 11:7), and he delights in obedience.
Sin Will Ooze from a Disobedient Heart (vv. 10-23)
10 Now the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, 11 "I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments." And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the LORD all night. 12 So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, "Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal." 13 Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed are you of the LORD! I have performed the commandment of the LORD." 14 But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" 15 And Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed." 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, "Be quiet! And I will tell you what the LORD said to me last night." And he said to him, "Speak on." 17 So Samuel said, "When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel? 18 "Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' 19 "Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD?" 20 And Saul said to Samuel, "But I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 21 "But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal." 22 Then Samuel said: "Has 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 heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king."
Sin’s Many Ugly Faces
Tragic is the interchange between Samuel and Saul. It also reveals the marks of a disobedient heart that is pretending to be obedient. The Lord expressed to Samuel his grief that he set up Saul to be king. This does imply any change in the Lord’s purposes, as v. 29 plainly states. As Matthew Henry said, “He does not alter his will, but wills an alteration.” This is an important difference. The verb nacham implies a regret or sorrow. The Lord in his unchangeable majesty is able to enter fully into the affairs of men and the sufferings of his people. Moreover, he does not delight in the death of the wicked, as he will later tell Ezekiel (Ezek. 33:11). The Lord is not maniacal. His sovereignty is not a cold impersonalism. He relates fully with his people – as the self-sufficient God and our Maker, our Redeemer and Friend. The Lord saw what Saul had become and the horrors of his disobedience as the king of his people. He was grieved to the heart. He would replace Saul with a man after his own heart. The Lord knew that such a king would be a blessing to his people, not a grief and oppression as Saul. The Lord knows us. He loves us. “In all our afflictions, he is afflicted” (Isa. 63:9-10) – without change or helplessness, fully sovereign and transcendent, covenantally near to his people. There is none like Him.
But the Lord is a stranger to Saul. He set up a monument to his “obedience” (v. 12). He has left the scene of battle, likely to avoid Samuel, but the Lord told Samuel where to find him. Saul saw him coming. The first words out of Saul’s mouth: “I have performed the commandment of the Lord” (v. 13). The sinner substitutes his own works for obedience to God’s will. The hypocrite believes his substitute obedience will work just as well as true obedience – like Cain. God says “do this in worship,” but the rebellious sinner offers man’s commandments (Matt. 15:9). The Bible says, “God is sovereign,” but the rebellious say, “This is not what the Bible says to me.” Samuel’s response to Saul’s saintly claim was direct and crushing – “If you have obeyed the Lord, why do I hear bleating sheep” (v. 14). Saul quickly excused himself – we kept the best to make a sacrifice to the Lord (v. 15). But the Lord does not want or accept obedience we make up; he wants us to obey his word. Confronted again, Saul began blaming the people (v. 15).
But all the while, Saul is lying. He saved the best of the spoils because he and the people wanted them (vv. 9,19). “To the victor go the spoils.” All of his pious excuses were cover-ups. They are in fact a little horrid window into the plight of the rebellious religionist when he stands before the Lord, the just Judge. He will make all kinds of excuses to justify himself, blame everyone around him, and cover up his true motives. All the while, he sins against the Lord’s goodness. Samuel reminds Saul of how kindly the Lord treated him in raising him from nothing to be king (v. 17). When the Lord then gave him a commandment (v. 18), he should thankfully have obeyed. Instead, he and the people preferred the spoils of war to obedience to the Lord’s will. Even with all this, the sinner will not relent; the rebel will not bend. “No,” Saul declaimed, “I have obeyed the word of the Lord” (v. 20). Fearing and yet proudly defiant, Saul again blames the people (v. 21). I have brought all this to sacrifice to the Lord in Gilgal, the place of covenant renewal in Israel’s history. Saul’s claims are preposterous and wicked. He is breaking God’s covenant and his coronation vows, even while claiming audaciously to be keeping them. His sins have blinded him, and he is now bound over to sin.
Obedience the Lord’s Delight
Samuel cut Saul to the heart. All your proposed sacrifices are rubbish. It is not that Samuel speaks against God’s commanded sacrifices, offered in faith, love, and obedience. But Saul intends to offer sacrifices of his own devising that replace obedience to the Lord. Do we not often promise to the Lord some trifling and easier obedience, knowing that we are disobeying him but not wanting to bend our wills to his? This was Saul. Samuel beautifully and powerfully asks: “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord” (v. 22)? The Lord delights in obedience, Saul. This is Samuel’s simple statement. It rings down through the ages and impacts every soul, from Adam to Christ, from our Lord to us. Who is his mother and son, his disciple and friend? “He who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Mark 3:33-35). Men, secularists, blatant idolaters, and professed friends of God and Christ ever create new ways to delight the Lord. There is only one – to do his revealed will. And if he has taught our hearts by his Spirit, we will grow in delight to obey him – not because obedience pays well in the short term, or is always clear and easy, but because it delights our Father. As his Spirit works in us, nothing will delight us as much as obeying his voice – his voice, our Savior’s voice. Did he not say the same? “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:12). This is not the language of threat or bargain but of love and tenderness. Love obeys and delights in obeying. One day, we shall know the delight of obeying our Father’s voice much more than now. For, now, “when we would do good, evil is present with us” (Rom. 7:21). Later, there will only be the raw delight, without reserve or fear or guilt of doing our Father’s will, for the sheer delight of pleasing him, and the delight of living in harmony with him.
Nothing Provokes the Lord as Much as Opposing His Will
Better than all burnt offerings – and this was in the days before Jesus Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice! – is obedience. Disobedience is like witchcraft – a false and demonic way to manipulate God and discover his will. Stubbornness is exalting oneself to be God and idolatry – a false and deadly religion. Samuel was telling Saul that nothing provokes the Lord as much as setting up our will in opposition to his. He has spoken in his word; this is his will. The only true religion is that which obeys the will of our Father in heaven. This was revealed most clearly in the Lord Jesus Christ, who though a son, “learned obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). In the shadow of Calvary, in Gethsemane, he prayed, “Father, not my will but yours be done.” We are all rebels by nature, and it required the Son of God to humble himself and utterly dedicate himself in our flesh to obeying his Father’s will in order to save us from our stubborn idolatry (Heb. 10:10). How serious is the Lord about obedience? Look at the submission and sufferings of the Son of God in our flesh. How evil is disobedience and how certain its punishment? Again, look at the stripes the Son of God incarnate received to atone for our lawlessness. Look and worship; look and believe; look and commit yourself into the hands of the Savior who redeems us from all sin and works an obedient heart in us by his Spirit.
Disobedience Will Be Punished (vv. 24-35)
24 Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 "Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD." 26 But 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 And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. 28 So Samuel said to him, "The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent." 30 Then he said, "I have sinned; yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD your God." 31 So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the LORD. 32 Then Samuel said, "Bring Agag king of the Amalekites here to me." So Agag came to him cautiously. And Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." 33 But Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." And Samuel hacked Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal. 34 Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. 35 And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, and the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel.
Saul: Proud to the Bitter End
Saul was crushed: “I have sinned.” He never blamed himself – I was afraid of the people and obeyed their voice. Saul asks Samuel’s forgiveness – not the Lord’s. Sin is a dark and bottomless pit; only the Lord can pull us out. Saul digs his pit deeper by his proud refusal to bow to the Lord. Samuel told him that he would now lose the throne. Still, Saul’s pride will not release him – he thinks only of keeping up appearances. He begs Samuel to stay and attend the very sacrifice that the Lord has not required and compounds his disobedience. Samuel turned to leave, and Saul grabbed his robe, which then tore. “The Lord has torn the kingdom from you. You are rejected. The Lord will not change his mind. He is not a man that he should repent.” Saul’s response: more stubbornness, more attempted manipulation. “I have sinned; honor me now” (v. 30). Sin’s unrelenting war against us and our willingness to join the war against God’s Word is one reason hell will last forever – we will never stop resisting him. Without his grace working a renewed heart in us, we will rebel to our everlasting ruin. Let us please turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only Deliverer.
Agag: Hacked to Pieces before the Lord
Samuel turned and attended Saul while he worshipped. It was Samuel’s last public act of unity with Saul, likely to preserve national unity and sanity at a critical hour. But there was something else. He called for Agag. This pagan king did not think he would stand before the heavenly Judge in less than two minutes. Surely, he deceived himself, the passions of war have cooled, and this is nothing but an interview. Not so, for Samuel was obedient to the voice of the Lord from his youth. Old as he was, he confronted Agag – you have made many childless; your mother shall be childless. Taking a sword, Samuel hacked him in pieces before the Lord. Those who love the Lord may tremble at his justice, but they also bow to it. It will be this way in heaven. As much as we fear for loved ones who perish without Christ, in heaven, this thought will be banished by the wonder and worship of God’s justice. See in Samuel a man who wept over Saul. He was tender. He also hacked Agag to pieces, for his tenderness did not make him soft in doing God’s will. He was bold. God had specifically decreed the death of this king. Saul refused to obey; Samuel refused to disobey. Herein lies the difference between heaven and hell, light and darkness, joy and misery.
Lord: Not a Man That He Should Repent
What are we to think of the Lord’s grief that he made Saul king, then the declaration that “he is not a man, that he should repent” (v. 29). First, the Lord is speaking to us in baby talk. His sovereignty over all and his dealings with us are beyond our full comprehension. By His illumining Spirit, we can understand what he reveals to us in his word (Deut. 29:29). Therefore, on the one hand, the Lord was grieved that he made Saul king. He ordained that Saul be king, his grief over Saul’s failings, and his response to Samuel. There is, therefore, no change in his purposes or his will. At the same time, he is not an unfeeling, detached machine. He is our Father. He is communicating to us at a level as creatures we can understand. He was grieved at Saul’s disobedience and Saul’s reign. This was not his best for his people. He can relate to our pain, our afflictions, and our struggles. On the one hand, then, we must maintain God’s aseity, his independence of the creature, his sovereign, eternal will. “Known to the Lord are all his works from the foundation of the earth” (Acts 15:18). On the other hand, being God, being our covenant Lord, he knows our ways and the pains of our soul. He knew Samuel’s pain. As Maker-Redeemer, he is able to relate to us. He wants to walk with us, dwell with us, and be our portion, even as we are in a marvelous humility of grace his portion. Beyond this, we cannot go or penetrate into his secret counsels. It is our humility to confess with Job: “We see but a shadow of his ways.” What we see is sufficiently wonderful to occupy all our thoughts.
Us: Hold Fast to Christ, Love, and Obey Him
The Lord delights in obedience. Do we? Where is he testing our obedience? He tests the righteous, and his tests are whether or not we shall obey – Abraham – will you go out, not knowing where you are going, because you trust and obey? Joseph – will you obey my command to be pure, in a strange land, when temptation and opportunity to sin are all around? David, Daniel, Mary and Joseph, supremely our Lord – will we obey and do our Father’s will? In our age, we should ask: is obedience very important to us? Have we become too preoccupied with our feelings, so that we ask the wrong question: not, how do I feel about this or that? But, how can I obey the Lord in this instance? Have we ever prayed for grace to obey the Lord? Are we passionate about obeying him? If something delights a good friend that we want to please, we do it. Do we love our Savior and obey him? Why are we so neglectful when it comes to obedience? Do we obey his word when he tells us something about his actions in history or his character that our age hates? He will test our obedience. He does not want the sacrifices we make up in our heads. He cannot be manipulated, for he does not alter his will and purposes. He has given us his Word. We must hold fast to our Savior, for in him, there is abundant strength to love and obey our great God. This is not because we would try to earn heaven. What a foolish response to a call to obedience! Earn heaven? Appease God by our obedience? You may as well as try to create a universe – a real one, not a virtual, fake one. No, we seek to obey God, seek passion to obey him, and seek more love to obey him more because to delight him is our privilege. He has purchased us. We are his. Why he would want us, we can only worship him for his grace and mercy in his Son. Worshipping him, let us grow in the desire to walk worthy of him and obey him in all things. Delighting in him, we will grow in the desire to please.
What obedience are you withholding from the Lord?
What replacements to obedience would you offer him?
Where is he testing your obedience?
Where would obedience make you more joyful?
Are you seeking our Lord’s grace to obey more fully and joyfully?
Are we growing in love for Jesus Christ?
Comments