1 Samuel 15. We spent several weeks in this particular passage. You'll recall in the first section we dealt with an ethical challenge, specifically verses 1 to 9, God's commandment to Israel, specifically to Saul, to go and to utterly destroy the Amalekites. We noted that sometimes people have a problem with that particular passage, both inside the church and outside the church.
And we sought to give some advice or encouragement on how to deal with that ethical challenge. Then we dealt with a theological challenge, because in the passage in 1 Samuel 15 at verse 11, and then again at verse 35, it says that God relented or regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. And in verse 29, it says, the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. for he is not a man that he should relent." So we dealt with the doctrine of divine impassibility as a theological challenge, or sometimes people look at this passage and they have a problem, and I think the doctrine of divine impassibility solves that particular problem. Then last week, we returned to the exposition.
We'll finish it up this evening. Specifically, we'll be dealing with verses 24 to 35, but I do want to read beginning in verse 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.
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. 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. So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Telam, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley.
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, and Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
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. Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and does not perform my commandments. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.
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. Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, blessed are you of the Lord.
I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Samuel said, what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 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. And 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. 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? 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.
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? 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.
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. So 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. 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. And Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now, therefore,
False Repentance and False Worship
please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord. 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. And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his rope, and it tore. 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.
And also the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man that he should relent. 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.' So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshipped the Lord. And 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. 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. And Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul.
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." Amen. So having dealt with the ethical and the theological challenges, again,
Introduction and Review
we're sticking strictly to the exposition of the passage. Remember in verses 1? to 9, the command to destroy the Amalekites. And when this command was given, it was comprehensive, it was complete, it was total. Notice in verse 3, go and attack Amalek, utterly destroy all that they have.
Do not spare them. Kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, oxen, sheep, camel, and donkey. That is precisely what Saul did not do. They go into the land and they spare Agag and they spare some of the best of the sheep.
Notice in verse 9. Verse 9 is important because throughout the remainder of the chapter, Saul continues to try and shift the blame. But the narrator tells us specifically in verse 9, Saul and the people spared Agag, the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them." Notice, everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. A hint of greed or a hint of a desire for stuff is certainly suggested by the author. in this particular passage.
So the text tells us Saul and the people. So when we read henceforth that Saul is trying to shift the blame, we can see through that and we know that he is not being true, he is not being accurate. And then as we move through the passage just by way of review, we get to this confrontation between Samuel and Saul. Saul, again with self-deception in his heart, thinks that he actually obeyed God.
Verse 13 is a real howler, to use a Dr. Renahan-ism. Notice, Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. He most certainly had not.
Agag is still breathing, as are much of the livestock. That is precisely what Samuel says in verse 14. What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? As Gil said, they preached against Saul.
The bleeding of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen were actually preaching against the lawlessness and the sinfulness and the disobedience of Saul in this particular instance. Samuel reminds Saul that God had called him. He was little in his own eyes. Verse 17, he was the head of the tribes of Israel.
Did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? You are the king. You are not subject to the people. If you go back for just a moment, notice in verse 15, there Saul shifts blame.
They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen. Well, if indeed that was the case, verse 9 tells us otherwise, but if indeed that was the case, Samuel reminds him, according to verse 17, did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? You are the man in charge. You are the one responsible.
You have the authority. You sit on the throne of Israel. You do not listen to the people. Rather, you lead the people in obedience to God the Lord.
And then Samuel indicts. 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? Again, Saul says to Samuel, but I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.
It's truly amazing, isn't it? Self-deception is a reality. Persons can actually think that they are doing good in the sight of God, and all the while they are in disobedience and in rebellion. We made the application last week. that 90% obedience is still disobedience.
If we are nourishing 10% or we are nurturing 10% disobedience, there's sin or patterns in our lives that we're not dealing with. We have no right to say, but I am obeying God. I am being faithful. No, we'll never be perfect.
We'll always have sin. But there is a difference between nurturing it, harboring it, treating it kindly, or seeking to deal with it, resist it, and pray to God for the grace to be killing sin. Owen said, if we're not killing sin, sin will be killing us, and certainly Saul is a great illustration of that. It's on the heels of this that Samuel gives him this question, assertion, comparison, and condemnation.
Notice in verse 23, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Certainly the question assumes an answer. And the answer is, the Lord delights in obedience. And that is precisely the assertion.
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. Note this comparison. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. We made that observation last week.
Many in the church probably would never visit a witch. Many in the church would probably never go see a fortune teller. They wouldn't have their palms read or their tea leaves read. I don't know how tea leaves in your cup could tell you anything about anything, but sometimes persons do that, though I doubt professing Christians do that.
I like to think professing Christians do that. But we all rebel in a whole host of ways. We won't visit witches, but we'll rebel in other specific ways. And notice what Samuel says.
Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. And then the condemnation follows. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he also has rejected you from being king.
The Rejection of Saul
Now we pick up with the rejection specifically of Saul by the Lord in verses 24 to 35.
The False Repentance of Saul
Note first the repentance of Saul. In my notes, you can't see it, but I have repentance in quotation marks. Because I do not believe he is genuinely repentant. Notice, verse 24, Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in your words.
So far so good, right? That's what we hope. When people are found out in sin, they say, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words. That is precisely the indictment that Samuel has leveled at him.
If the verse stopped there, we would have good reason to believe that Saul was, in fact, a repentant man. But the remainder of the verse and the remainder of the chapter indicates that what we have here is a fake. I have sinned for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
He doesn't say, I have sinned and have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words. You see, he's still trying to blame it on others. But again, verse 9 will not allow this. Verse 9 tells us, Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep.
Marks of Genuine Repentance
You can always tell genuine repentance, because genuine repentance or the genuinely repentant own their own shame. They own their own transgression. They own their own sin. They don't try and say, well, you know, I was pressured into it.
I was coerced into it. I feared those people. No, they take responsibility for themselves. And even if this was accurate, which I highly doubt, if he feared the people and obeyed their voice, That in and of itself was great transgression because he's the sitting king over Israel.
He's been given a command by Yahweh himself to go in and do a specific task and he is fearful of the people. He bows down to their particular whim. or to their particular desire, Saul's repentance is fake. He is not owning his sin, he is not dealing with his sin, he is not for real when it comes to this whole issue. And again, I think the rest of this particular chapter does indeed bear this forth.
But the very essence of this passage is because I feared the people. It's almost like they were too strong for me, or they were too mighty, or they were too loud, or they were too this. No, just own your sin. It's a general rule, brothers and sisters, when someone points out a particular sin, own it.
There's a marked difference between this confession and David's in 2 Samuel chapter 11. In 2 Samuel chapter 11, when David is found out through the preaching of Nathan the prophet, all we read in verse 13, David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. That's it. I didn't sin because I feared.
I didn't sin because I'm a red-blooded Israelite. I didn't sin because Bathsheba was in full view and she was naked. I have sinned against the Lord. That is owning one's sin and confessing it righteously and dealing with it.
We know that to be the case because Nathan goes on to say, the Lord also has put away your sin. You shall not die. You see, the issue is, is when we cover our sin, or when we hide our sin, we will not prosper. But when we confess it and we forsake it, we will find mercy.
We aren't in this particular path where we ought to try and minimize our sin. And that's in all of us, isn't it? When you're found out in sin, you probably don't want people to think you're as bad a person as you are. I don't.
I get defensive when people start to see how wicked I really am. The tendency is to say, but really I am a nice guy. Really I was set up, or really this wasn't my fault. We always want to defend ourselves to the nth degree.
But when it comes to us and God, we can't defend ourselves. He knows us the way we really are. He knows everything about us. He knows us better than ourselves.
He knows far more our wickedness than we ourselves even know. So Saul here has at least the presentation of a repentance. For I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Verse 25, Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord.
You see, this is all mercenary. This is all utility. This is all, I just want things to get back to normal. There is not a shred of genuine religion in Saul, as we have considered his downfall.
The moment he takes the throne, he's already sliding into the abyss. But here, notice what he does. Please pardon my sin. But you didn't repent.
You blamed others. You said you listened to the voice. Some would say, well, that in and of itself was a sin, which he's confessing. The sin he's under indictment for is letting agag continue to breathe.
The sin he's under indictment for is letting those livestock continue to breathe. That's the sin that's in view, not your fear of the people. That's a lesser offense. It is an offense.
It is a sin. You shouldn't have done that. But the issue here is the reality that Agag is still drawing breath into his lungs. such that Samuel himself, a prophet of God, is going to have to inflict the death blow upon Agag when the sitting king of Israel wouldn't do it. So what this man now says, please pardon my sin, return with me that I may worship the Lord.
Again, as we move through the remainder of the narrative, this is not true worship. What can we deduce from this reality? That when there's no repentance, there's no worship. When there's fake repentance, we can assume there's going to be fake worship.
When we say, I need to go to the house of God, but I got to clear my conscience first. Honey, forgive me, or son, forgive me, or whatever, forgive me. But our repentance is fake. We can't assume that when we're harboring sin, or when we haven't dealt with sin, that somehow God is pleased with our worship.
I think there is an impetus upon all of us in light of 1 Samuel 15 and what our Lord says to deal with sin before we go into the house of the Lord. You cannot worship if your heart is not right. You cannot worship the Lord God in spirit and in truth when you are harboring falsehood in your soul, when you are harboring sin in your soul. So that's the repentance of Saul.
Samuel's Response to Saul
Now notice, secondly, the response by Samuel in verses 26 to 31. Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you. Doesn't sound like Samuel believes Saul's repentance either. Right?
When David says, I have sinned against the Lord, what does Nathan say? Well, the Lord has provided atonement. The Lord has dealt with your sin. That's not what Samuel says.
Samuel sees right through Saul's fake repentance. If verses 24 and 25 were legitimate, then Samuel's response is really not very kind. I mean, if Saul had repented, if Saul really wanted to worship God, certainly the prophet of God should have facilitated this. But Samuel says, 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.
You see, it all comes back to that. You have rejected the word of the Lord. This has been Saul's downfall all the way, right? 1 Samuel chapter 13. What do we find?
We find Saul told very specifically that he is to wait for Samuel. Does he wait for Samuel? No. He offers up a sacrifice. 1 Samuel 14.
He makes this rash vow. He is a man that does not do what the Lord God commands. What should we conclude? Do what God commands as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Right? Samuel's already said, to obey is better than to sacrifice. Now
Saul's Petition and the Torn Kingdom
notice the petition by Saul. He seizes the edge of his robe and it tore. This is a symbol, a sign, a gesture of supplication, importuning, and submission to a superior. Remember that woman that grabs the hedge, or the hem rather, of Jesus.
Right? She has a petition. She wants to importune him. She wants to make a specific request of him.
And that's what Samuel or Saul does in this instance. Saul seizes the edge of his robe and it tore. 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. That would be a blow.
I mean, again, if his repentance was legit, if he was in a worshipful spirit, if he was ready to sing, shine Jesus, shine, this had to come as a big blow to his ego here. God is taking the kingdom from you and he's giving it to a neighbor who is better than you. This is the introduction of King David. It's already been stipulated in 1 Samuel 13 that the Saulide dynasty is going to fall.
It is going to be destroyed, which is quite a shame because in chapter 14 we see Jonathan as a valiant, godly man who would have been a great king over Israel. But because he had a louse of a father, he is not going to ever take that particular throne. So Samuel indicts Saul. Samuel announces to Saul that the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today.
He has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. Now notice, he says, and also the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For he is not a man that he should relent." It's the doctrine of God, theology proper, the immutability of God, founded upon the creator-creature distinction. Saul can know this of a truth, that he is being deposed, he is being rejected, he is being sent away by God Most High.
The throne will be taken by David himself, and that will start the Davidic dynasty. Now notice, Saul doesn't give up. We at least should give him props for continuing to try, right? I mean, he's not going to take no for an answer.
I've got to tell you, if someone said, the Lord has taken the kingdom from you and he's going to give it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you, that probably would have had me, you know, done. I'd have been like, who's better than me in my pride and arrogance? That would be a blow, wouldn't it? Well, look what Saul does.
Then he said, I have sinned. That's good. If the verse stopped there, that would be really excellent, wouldn't it? I have sinned.
Isn't that what you want when you see your child in sin and you rebuke them and you reprove them? You want them to say, I have sinned. You want them to do that Davidic confession of 2 Samuel 11. I have sinned against Yahweh.
Now notice,
Honour Before Repentance
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." This is to save faiths. This is to maintain stability in the kingdom. This is to maintain civil polity.
It isn't to maintain true worship. It isn't to maintain a pure heart before God. John Gill says, since should he be slighted openly by the Lord and by his prophet, he would fall into content both with the principal men and with the common people. Wherefore, he seemed more concerned for the loss of honor and reputation with the people than for his sin against God, which is always the case of hypocrites, you see.
It's another telltale sign of somebody. When you find them out in sin, it's what are they going to think? Or what is that person going to say? No, what does God say and how are you before him?
That's the true indicator of biblical religion. When we say with that particular publican that God be merciful to me, the sinner. Or when we say with King David in Israel, have you ever considered that statement in Psalm 51, when David says against thee, and thee only have I sinned and done this evil. Have you ever thought about that?
I mean Bathsheba got a pretty raw deal in that whole thing, didn't she? As far as we know, she was happily married to Uriah. There's nothing in the text that indicates Bathsheba was sort of on the prowl, says she went up to bathe. That may have been, you know, not the wisest idea when King David was able to see her, but there's no indicator that Bathsheba and Uriah had a problem.
It certainly didn't go well for Uriah when he was sent out to the front line of battle in order to be killed, and yet David has the ability to say against thee, and thee only have I sinned and done this evil? Absolutely. You see, he's not negligent of the fact that he caused a great deal of pain for Uriah and for Bathsheba, but when a sinner comes to repentance, it's between Him and God. You see, that's what's indicative of true repentance.
Not, 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. Probably Samuel is working hard to keep his lunch down by this point. I'm sure if we're able to see it dripping the way that we do, certainly Samuel knows that he's a fake. And yet he keeps saying, I want to worship the Lord, I want to worship Yahweh.
Listen to what Matthew Henry says concerning this text. He says, many seem zealously affected to good ministers and good people only for the sake of their own interest and reputation, while in heart they hate them. But his expression was very gross when he said, I have sinned, yet honor me. I pray thee before my people.
Is this the language of a penitent? No, but the contrary. I have sinned. Shame me now, for to me belongs shame, and no man can loathe me so much as I loathe myself.
That's the cry of the penitent. That's the one who's been humbled. That's what grace causes us to declare. I have sinned.
Shame me now, for to me belongs shame, and no man can loathe me so much as I loathe myself. Henry goes on to say, yet how often do we meet with the copies of this hypocrisy of Saul? It is very common for those who are convicted of sin to show themselves very solicitous to be honored before the people. Now notice, the prophet goes with him.
Isn't that interesting? Look at verse 31. So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord. You see, Samuel is not the strength of Israel.
Samuel can say, I'm not going to go with you, and then change his mind and go with him. Samuel is a man. Samuel does relent. Samuel does follow Saul in this particular instance, perhaps for civil polity, perhaps for the sense that there is a structure in place that he wants to honor and make sure things go well.
The End of Agag and Saul
Now notice, the end of Agag and Saul. The end of Agag and Saul, verses 32 and 33. Samuel said, bring Agag, king of the Amalekites, here to me. So Agag came to him cautiously.
That's wise, isn't it? Agag doesn't know what's happening here. As far as he knows, Israel spared him for a reason. He's not sure quite yet what it is.
Maybe he doesn't know the harem principle and the reality that he should have died in the battlefield. Whatever the case, he is cautious as he walks before Samuel. And then Agag said, surely the bitterness of death is past. I think he's casting his bread upon many waters hoping that this is all going to end well, that he'll be able to pillow his head at the end of this particular day.
Now notice, Samuel said, as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. As we saw when we looked at the ethical challenge in verses 1 to 9, when God sent Israel in to utterly destroy the Amalekites, it was not the case that the Amalekites were a lot of happy, innocent people just doing their own thing in the land. They were a wicked people. They had rebuffed Israel in previous generations when they were wandering in the wilderness.
They were a vicious and a vile people. Probably one of the only places that I know of in the Old Testament where a person group is called the sinners. Notice in verse 18, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. They're wicked.
They deserve judgment. They deserve punishment. God uses not-too-righteous Israel as the means of chastening, disciplining, and judging those other not-righteous persons in the land. And so then we read, the end of verse 33, Samuel hacked Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
What a scene. Did Samuel wield the sword or did Samuel give the order that the sword be wielded? Whatever the case, Agag is dead and he's in pieces before Yahweh in Gilgal. What do you think Saul thought about this in this instance?
I wonder if Samuel is going to come after me next. This is probably entering into his head here. I mean, he's leveled some very serious charges at Saul. So Samuel hacks Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
Now notice verse 34, then Samuel went to Ramah and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. That is the equivalent of being hacked into pieces. I mean, it may not be as graphic and as bloody and as smelly and as visually appalling as the hacking of Agag into pieces, but a sitting king on the throne of Israel with no contact with God's prophet.
That is as bad as being hacked to pieces in Gilgal before Yahweh. You've got the king of Israel who by his sin and rebellion has been rejected by God the Lord and the manifestation of the visible token of this is that no longer does the prophet of God go to see him. That is a bad, bad state of affairs when the king of Israel has no access to the prophetic word. And then we notice the end of verse 35.
Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul. It's interesting, isn't it? Samuel didn't hate Saul. Samuel didn't despise Saul.
Samuel didn't disdain Saul. Probably Samuel had an affection for Saul. Remember, it was Samuel, or it was Saul, when he went out looking for his donkeys, they come into contact with Samuel. Samuel has known Saul for these many years.
Samuel has seen Saul actually killing Ammonites until the heat of the day. Samuel has seen Saul exercise a degree of godly influence, or maybe not godly, but politically advantageous rule in Israel. If you notice at the end of chapter 14, there's a summary of Saul's reign. If we didn't have what preceded it, it would have been the account of a very good king in Israel.
So Saul, or Samuel rather, mourns for Saul and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. We considered in our study of the doctrine of divine impassibility That is an improper predication. It is spoken after the manner of men. It does not actually mean that God cries or God regrets the way that we do, the way that verse 29 tells us that He doesn't.
It is an anthropopathism designed to evidence to us something about the justice and the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and what the Lord thinks of that.
The Reign of Saul Assessed
Now let's conclude by considering the reign of Saul as a whole. Now I realize Saul continues. Saul's not dead. Saul is not thrown off the throne.
Saul fights for the throne while David is on his ascendancy. So Saul does not vanish from the scene. So on the one hand, to speak of the end of the reign of Saul at this point seems a bit premature. But we have to observe that with this transition in 16 and 17, The spotlight now comes upon David.
David is the anointed king, but for various reasons, Saul being one of them, David does not sit on the throne initially. So what do we learn?
Saul's Royal Appointment and Privilege
First, we learn concerning his royal appointment. I think it's important for us, before we look at how bad of a guy he is, we ought to look at the privilege that he had. We ought to see the privilege that he had. I think there is a principle in the Bible.
Those who have been given much, much is required of them. I don't think that's a principle. That is a principle in the scripture. When you have been entrusted with much, much is required of you, right?
Consider that the Lord directed Samuel to Saul. It was our brought them together through the donkeys. It was the Lord who brought this meeting together, and the Lord directed Samuel to anoint Saul as the king. Remember, the people cried out for a king.
We want to be like the nations around us. And Samuel had announced to them the type of king that they would get. Nevertheless, they want the king. And so God says, well, here's your king.
And it's this young man, Saul. The Lord equipped Saul for service in 10.9. The Spirit of God comes upon Saul. Now, some would say, well, if the Spirit of God came upon Saul, and then the Spirit of God departed from Saul, you Calvinists can't be right.
Because you Calvinists teach that when somebody's saved, they are always saved. Well, there's a difference here. You may not follow this completely, but I ask you to consider it. that Saul is a king in Israel. The Spirit not only regenerates sinners and brings them to Christ, but the Spirit also empowered the king of Israel to go and kill Ammonites.
The Spirit empowered the king of Israel to go and kill Amalekites. The Spirit served that particular function and role as well. What Saul received in terms of the benefit of the Spirit was not regeneration. It was not being born again.
It was this political equipping and this leadership so that Saul could effectively take Israel from point A to point B and destroy her enemies along the way. So the Lord equips Saul for service. The Lord sets Saul over Israel. Remember, after Saul killed Ammonites until the heat of the day.
You know, I love that turn of phrase. Saul was killing Ammonites until the heat of the day. He was doing his job. He was functioning properly.
That set the sign upon him and all Israel affirmed and confirmed and said, yes, this is indeed our king. And then, of course, the Lord granted him early victories, the Ammonites being a particular case of that. But then we see the degeneration, and we see the abasement, and we see the fall of Saul. And I think about this principle in Luke 10.
You can turn there for just a moment. Luke chapter 10. So you see, Saul has all this good stuff in place. is directed to Samuel. God brings Samuel and Saul together.
God tells Samuel to anoint Saul. God equips Saul for service. God sets Saul over Israel. God grants Saul an early victory over the Ammonites.
He had all these particulars in place, but he didn't have grace in his heart. We need to understand that great privilege does not necessarily equate to great grace. Do you see that? You'll see, people, that it appears that everything is in place.
Everything looks good. I mean, if you were in the audience when Jesus told the parable about two men that went to pray, before Jesus got to the end, you would have thought that the Pharisee was the champion of the story. Wouldn't you have? Well, we don't because we're Protestants and we're on this side of it and we know what he's talking about.
We've read the end, right? But if you were the original audience in Luke chapter 18 and Jesus says, two men went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee stood thus and prayed with himself, I thank you Lord that I'm not like other men. I pray, I fast, I tithe, I'm not like adulterers, I'm not unjust, and I'm certainly not like this publican or this tax collector.
And when the tax collector couldn't even look up into heaven, he beat his breast, he says, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I guarantee you, brothers and sisters, someone in that audience, when Jesus says, if Jesus would have said, guess which one is justified, they would all say the Pharisee. He was the shoo-in. He was the sure bet.
He was the religious one. He looked good. He had privilege. He had blessing.
He did the right things. That poor wretched publican couldn't even look up into heaven. Jesus says, I tell you, this one went to his house justified. Now notice in Luke 10, 17.
Then the 70 returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.
Privilege does not necessarily mean grace. Who was one of those? Who was one there? Judas, right?
Judas went on preaching tours. Judas went and did things like these. Judas had privilege. Judas probably preached.
Judas probably did the whammy on somebody, cast demons out. But Judas didn't have grace in his heart, did he? We go back to 1 Samuel chapter 15. And as far as we can tell, if the narrator hadn't told us all the other particulars, Saul is Israel's golden boy.
But when we go back to 1 Samuel chapter 15, if we just want to consolidate sort of the main lines of offense.
Saul Blames Others
First, Saul blames others. I tried to bring that out tonight. We need to deal faithfully and honestly with our sin. And we need to understand that we live among a people that sin.
We're all going to sin against each other. We're all going to hopefully deal with each other in that sin. And when we get confronted with our sin, it is best not to try and blame others. You know, I didn't do this because I was victimized when I was five because some kid took my lunch money.
I did this because I'm a wretch. Please forgive me. Right? We have a victim mentality in the world most certainly.
All you got to do is turn the news on tonight. You'll see it. We certainly have that victim mentality in the church today. You can't hold me responsible, you see.
You can't blame me, you see. And now we're kowtowing to this whole idea that homosexuality is somehow genetic. It's not a choice. It's just the way it is.
No, it is a choice. It is a responsible decision that persons have made. And the way to healing is to own it. It's to confess it.
It's to forsake it. The same is true with us in our daily lives. We ought not to blame others. Verses 15 and 21, 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.
It's almost like, you know, Saul's just sitting there watching this happen, or please don't do that, we're violating God's command. You are the king of Israel, stop them. But again, verse 9 tells us it's Saul and the people. And then in verse 21, same idea, same idea.
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.
Saul's False Piety
A second thing that we notice with Saul is he's riddled with a false piety. Isn't it interesting in Ecclesiastes it says, do not be overly righteous. Can we be overly righteous? Yes.
We can be Pharisees or we can be Saul, right? We can be more righteous than God commands. If we get somewhat near what God commands, that's most excellent. That's probably the best we can ever hope for.
To do more than what God commands, you're shooting for the stars. It ain't gonna happen. But remember, I mentioned it already, chapter 13, instead of waiting for Samuel, Saul offers a burnt offering. Davis says concerning this incident, God's prophet would give him God's guidance for the Philistine war.
Samuel was the bearer of Yahweh's word and Saul's task was to wait for it. Instead, he proceeded without it. For Saul, sacrificial ritual was essential, but prophetic direction dispensable. Saul's act was an act of insubordination, a failure to submit to Yahweh's word through his prophet.
By his actions, Saul confessed that certain emergencies rendered God's word unnecessary. When the chips were down, kingship could function on its own. Again, it has the appearance of piety, doesn't it? Samuel, you were late, so I went ahead and offered this burnt sacrifice.
Samuel says, you were supposed to wait. 1 Samuel 14, what happens? Saul makes this rash vow, or this rash oath, that nobody was supposed to eat. I mean, militarily, a very foolish decision. You feed soldiers so they can go out and kill people.
You don't deprive them of food so that they're limping along wanting to eat. And then he doesn't let them rest and wants them to go kill people. I mean, militarily it's terrible. But probably what Saul has in his noggin is this special religious act.
God will see it and he will bless us as a result. You see, brethren, when we do special religious acts thinking that God's going to bless it, we have sinned against the Lord. 1 Samuel 4, they trot the Ark of the Covenant out. Why? Because they treat it like a holy horseshoe.
They treat it like a four-leaf clover. They treat it like a piece of holy hardware that when God sees it, then He will come to their aid. The Lord does not work that way. Listen to David Samora on the 14 passage.
Saul imposes a fast upon the army in an attempt apparently to influence Yahweh by a grandiose gesture of self-denial in order to continue securing the Lord's help. Obey God. Don't engage in these grandiose, just do what you're supposed to do. That's what we need to get in our heads.
Ellison says on the chapter 14 section, Saul's oath belongs to those superstitions which think that God is more likely to listen if men indulge in unnecessary self-denial. Do we actually think God's going to look down and say, wow, that guy's sitting on the top of a pole. I'm going to give him whatever he wants. Wow, those persons have deprived themselves from honey for this amount of time.
I'm going to give them whatever he wants. Do we actually think that God is Baal? Do we actually think there's a formulaic approach? We do what we think makes him act, and then he acts on our behalf.
That is not the God of Israel. And we need to learn from Saul that we ought not to clothe our irreligion in this false piety.
Saul's Self-Deception
A third observation on his wickedness. He is self-deceived. I hope you've seen that. I've tried to bring it out.
Verses 13 and 20. I mean, the fact that he says, blessed are you of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. He actually is probably serious. I mean, do you ever notice there's certain persons, unfortunately, they find themselves in politics nine times out of 10, but they just lie so well that you've got the idea that they actually believe their lies.
They appear to actually believe their lies. No, no. It really is this way. And they seem to have a conviction and a steadfastness to that.
I mean, I think that's probably Saul's attitude. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. He's waiting to get a pat on the head from Samuel. I mean, notice already in verse 12, he set up a monument for himself, the conduct of kings, kings who were victorious, kings who had done their job, kings who had been battle proven.
They set up a monument for themselves to rejoice in their exploits. He thinks everything is good. Blessed are you of the Lord, Samuel, now give me my kudos, because I have obeyed, or I have performed the commandment of the Lord." Self-deception. Verse 20, Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me.
How could he say this with a straight face? How could he say this without, you know, collapsing in a mass? He did not do this. He completely disobeyed.
But again, sometimes even professing Christians can get to this place of self-deception. We start down a particular path, and we start to engage in patterns, and we don't deal righteously with sin, and we start to harbor sin, and we start to cuddle sin, we start to play with sin. Remember hearing a sermon by Pastor A.N. Martin on Cain and Abel.
He talks about sin is crouching at the door of your heart. or couching at the door of your heart. Isn't that what God says to Cain? And then God, or Al Martin, not God, Al Martin uses this illustration that sometimes we are like a person that has a kitty cat. We think that sin is like a little tiny kitty cat.
There's nothing harmful about kitty cat, is there? There really isn't. You pick them up and you pet them and you let them purr and you cuddle them and all that sort of thing. They're just harmless and then we put them down and we're done.
He says people treat sin that way. People think that sin is like a little kitty cat they can pick up, they can play with, they can put down at their leisure. And then El Martin, if you've ever heard him preach, uses that El Martinian voice and says, it's a beast of prey and the teeth and the claws go into you, you see. You can't have truck with sin and think that everything is going to go well.
We are sinners. We have remaining corruption, but we confess it. We forsake it. We pray against it.
The petition in the Lord's Prayer, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. We can't pray that if our consciences are dirty because we're in sin. You see, brethren, Saul thought, probably, really, that he did a good thing in the sight of God.
Samuel's Faithfulness and Divine Comfort
And then, of course, finally, he engages in this false repentance. Genuine repentance does not look like what Saul does in this instance. We learn something of the faithfulness of Samuel. I think, at least from my sense, at least from my time in the study in Samuel, I've grown to appreciate Samuel.
I mean, he had to deal with a difficult man, didn't he? And I've grown to appreciate Jonathan. I mean, these are godly men in an ungodly age. Notice that Samuel faithfully declares the word of God.
That's the task of the prophet, not to coddle the king, not to say you did your best, not to say you tried. Good job. Oh, that was a good idea. You spared the livestock.
I hadn't thought of that. Now we can sacrifice. That's not what Samuel does. Samuel maintains fidelity to the God of heaven and earth.
That's what preachers and ministers of the gospel must do. They don't kowtow to people. They don't coddle people. They don't pat them on the back and say, everything's great.
You did your best. You tried hard. The church is not a little league game. Do you ever notice in baseball, if someone doesn't swing the bat, they can be commended for good work.
You must never have watched baseball. Good work. Somebody gets a walk, good work. There's no work involved.
Baseball is the most affirming sport out there. I mean, hockey players lose limbs and teeth and they're all bloodied and, you know, they got the death threat of a skate in the head. Baseball players show up and they're told, good job. I mean, it's just an amazing thing.
They're affirmed all the way through it. That's not what the church is supposed to be. The church is to encourage. The church is to equip.
The church certainly isn't to berate people or to put people down, but it's not to coddle people or pat them on the back and say, good job when it wasn't. You need to repent and forsake and seek the Lord while he may be found. He sees through the blame shifting and the lies of Saul. Samuel isn't stupid.
Samuel can't be fooled. Samuel doesn't say, wow, your version sounds pretty good, Saul. Samuel hacks Agag to pieces in obedience to the Lord. That's hardcore.
I mean, there's a prophet that has earned his keep in Israel. I mean, of your prophets that you should see as heroic persons, Samuel ought to rate way up there. And then ultimately, Samuel rejects Saul as the Lord had rejected Saul. Of course, in the chapter we learn the priority of obedience, the wickedness of disobedience, and then we learn, finally, the goodness of God.
Note the comfort afforded by verse 29. And also, the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man that he should relent. There's a world of comfort in that verse. That's what that whole doctrine of divine impassibility and the immutability of God brings to bear upon the believer.
You get a good dose of this, you get a good dose of the parallel in Numbers 23, a good dose of Malachi 3, a good dose of James 1, 17, and the reality that our God does not change. The strength of Israel, He will not lie, nor will He relent, for He is not a man. There is a creator-creature distinction. He is not like us.
He is in a different category, a different order of being. He is not like his creatures. He is stable. He is steadfast.
He is the God of Psalm 46. When we are told, be still and know that I am God, that is not a promise that wavers or fluctuates based on the emotivity of God. It is a promise that is rock solid because this God, the strength of Israel, will not lie nor relent. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Our Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for this account. and all that we've learned concerning Saul. And I pray that you would keep us from this sort of wickedness, that we would not blame others for our sins, and that we would not be self-deceived, thinking we are doing well and we are disobeying. And God, help us not to try and clothe our wickedness with a false piety. And help us as well, Father, to be obedient to the truth of your word.
And Lord, as I pray these things, I know how impossible it is, and how we thank you for the Gospel, how we thank you for our Lord Jesus, and how we thank you for the empowerment of your Holy Spirit. May you fill us with the Spirit of God, and may you cause us to walk in a manner that is worthy of your Holy Gospel. Go with us now, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.