1 Samuel 15

Obstinance and obedience. Two different paths…two different results. The obstinance of King Saul led Israel on a downward path. Will his sins be reconciled? Will Israel find itself back on a path towards repentance? Join us in chapter 15 as we continue our journey through the book of First Samuel and the continued story of Israel’s request for a king.

When we sin, as saints, the Lord, who is rich and mercy and grace, will confront us through His Word, the internal conviction of the Holy Spirit, preaching and teaching, a godly friend or two all in a quest to call us to repentance and obedience. Peter, who denied Christ three times on the night of the Lord’s betrayal, certainly went off the spiritual rails, choosing to quickly desert the Lord during His hour of need.

After Christ’s glorious and miraculous resurrection, He confronted Peter after preparing breakfast for the disciples on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, challenging him to love and serve Him like he used to (John 21).  History demonstrates how this one breakfast reclaimed and inspired a formerly broken, emotionally drained disciple, resulting in him courageously taking the gospel to his Jewish brethren, who were usually far from hospitable and typically hostile.

If you have left the spiritual reservation for the love of a particular sin, if guilt is eating away at you, and if you don’t know if the Lord will take you back should you repent and return, you need to rethink that. God’s arms are always open for confessional Christians who desire to walk intimately with Him again. God’s hands also constantly work to set up situations to test you when you disobey Him. What is the purpose of the test? Answer: to wake you up to your sad spiritual state so you will return to Him . . . as Peter did.

King Saul had his share of character flaws. He could be rash, impulsive, fearful, thoughtless, and prideful. Flaws like these motivated him to disobey God and, therefore, be guilty of high-handed sin. Failing to attack the Philistine garrison in his hometown of Gibeah after the Lord filled him with the power of the Spirit as He had years earlier with Samson (1 Sam. 10:5, 7) evidenced a lack of trust in God’s promise. It’s not a good way to begin your new regal rule. Failing to wait for the prophet Samuel by losing patience and offering sacrifice in the place of the prophet at Gilgal was not one of his finer moments (1 Sam. 13:9).    Commanding his soldiers not to eat anything during the day as they pursued the fleeing Philistines was a strategic blunder that led him to attempt to execute his courageous son, Jonathan, who had innocently eaten some honey he found as he fought Israel’s foes. We all know how that debacle ended. It divided the people as they rushed to Jonathan’s defense (1 Sam. 14:45).

As we learn from a quick reading of 1 Samuel 14:46-52, King Saul did have many victories over Israel’s perpetual enemies; however, the Philistines plagued him no matter what he did. Amidst all these military ups and downs, God eventually set up another scenario to test the King’s mettle and determine if he would finally embrace God’s leadership or efface it. The King’s model might be your model, too. You haven’t been the most consistent saint, so the Lord puts one big test before you that stands as a spiritual turning point. In this test, the Lord will look for the same answer he sought in the life of Saul:

Will You Be Obedient Or Obstinate To God? (1 Sam. 15:1-35)

God’s test with Saul started with . . .

The Command (1 Samuel 15:1)

This was a tough command:

Then Samuel said to Saul, “The LORD sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the LORD. ² “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. ³ ‘Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'” (1 Sam. 15)

See what I mean?

Who were the Amalekites? They were descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob, the founder of the ten tribes of Israel. So, they were kin, but they didn’t act like it. No sooner did Israel start plodding through the trackless desert toward Mount Horeb in the Sinai after the Exodus than these guerrilla terrorists (probably) raped, murdered, and plundered the unarmed Israelites. They keyed on defenseless old men and women, the frail, the sick and diseased, the pregnant, the little children who couldn’t keep up with the daily march (Deut. 25:18).

For this violence and brutality, God called for their eventual eradication as a people. Even though it was now some 390 years later, God had not forgotten His ruling from His bar of justice. God had graciously given the Amalekites ample time to repent during this time. However, they had, obviously, not morally and spiritually matured as a people but were still engaged in vicious attacks against God’s chosen people, Israel. According to God, therefore, their vault of wrath was full (Rom. 2:1-5), and now it was time for justice to prevail. God called King Saul to be an instrument of His judgment based on the Old Testament premise of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Ex. 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21).

Before we dig into the passage and what King Saul did or didn’t do about this unsettling divine command, we must stop and answer some questions this command raises, especially in the lives of the lost, questions like, “How could a loving, good God call for this?” “Does God support genocide?” “Who would want to follow a vicious, capricious God like this?” Without getting too sidetracked with this command and the natural moral and spiritual questions it raises, please permit me to give a few salient observations.

• God is holy and just as well as merciful and good. There is a perfect balance between all of his communicable and non-communicable attributes. Because He is merciful and good, it doesn’t mean He will, ipso facto, overlook evil. On the contrary, He will judge evil in the here and now or in the hereafter and will do it definitively.
• God always keeps His Word. He promised Moses that one day the wicked, ruthless Amalekites would meet their just end, and for almost 400 years, He showed mercy and goodness to them by allowing them to live . . . when He could have personally removed them. Time had now run out, as it always does with sin (Hos. 7:2).
• God knows better than we do when an entire culture is built on savage brutality toward His chosen people, Israel. His omniscience also informs Him when that culture reaches a point of no return. The eradication of certain people groups in the Old Testament focused explicitly on those within the land of promise (Deut. 7). According to passages like Leviticus 18, those people groups (Canaanites, Hittites, etc.) had enjoyed hundreds of years of mercy and grace from God. Yet, they chose to descend into spiritual darkness, sexual perversion, idolatry, and perpetual savagery toward Israel, the apple of God’s eye (“⁸ For thus says the LORD of hosts, “After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye,” 2). For an excellent book on the lifestyles of these people groups, read Merrill Unger’s Archaeology and the Old Testament.
• The eradication of these people groups does not appear ever to be total. After the command in Deuteronomy 7, verse 2, to utterly destroy the people groups mentioned, the Lord turns in verses 3 through 5 and warns His people of inter-marrying these people. How could you inter-marry if they were not alive? Further, the destruction of Jericho’s fortress was total, but not everyone died. Rahab and her family line were spared because of her courage to assist Israel in overthrowing the fortress (Jud. 6:23). The divine ban was, therefore, not absolute and irreversible. Grace and mercy were still present. Additionally, Saul’s triumphant victory over the Amalekites in this chapter was not total because we encounter them later in the book (1 Sam. 27:8; 30:1; 2 Sam. 1:1), and some 500 years later we learn that Haman, another vile and violent anti-Semite, was an Amalekite insofar as he was a direct descendant of King Agag (Esther 3:1, 10) Obviously, the eradication was never total.
• Texts that talk about a ban or eradication of certain people groups key not upon their ethnicity but upon their perpetual love of sin and wickedness. God even warned His people, Israel, that He would destroy them for their wickedness, and He did many times; however, this did not mean He eradicated them as a people (Deut. 13:12-18; 28:63; Josh. 7:10-15). There was always a remnant leftover from the act of divine justice.
• Finally, I would say to those who use a text like 1 Samuel 15 to retreat within the intellectual citadel of atheism, agnosticism, or skepticism, I have a question: Since you do not believe in an absolute God, where does your sense of right and wrong, or justice and injustice originate? If there is no absolute moral Lawgiver, then your feeling of offense at this chapter is just your feeling. Logically, you do not possess the grounds for being morally offended because moral value cannot logically arise from a valueless, nameless, faceless creative process. As Paul Copan argues, “How do we move from a universe of valueless matter and energy, eventually arriving at moral values, including human rights, human dignity, and moral obligation?”[1] The answer is, “We can’t.” The only way to do it is to believe in God, who, by definition, possesses value, morals, and justice.

God’s command to Saul was complex but necessary and just in light of the Amalekites’ historical actions. The passage’s question can’t be missed: Would the King obey or disobey God’s directive?

Turning from the divine word, we see that King Saul appeared to be obedient because he wasted no time instigating . . .

The Conflict (1 Sam. 15:4-7)

Here, we see mercy and justice in perfect balance.

⁴ Then Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. ⁵ And Saul came to the city of Amalek, and set an ambush in the valley. ⁶ And Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. ⁷ So Saul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt. (1 Sam. 15)

King Saul defeated the Amalekites on the battlefield and showed mercy to the Kenites, the pro-Israelite descendants of Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro (Ex. 18-1-12). Not desiring for any of them to be the object of friendly fire, he gave the ability to slip out from among the Amalekites before the attack commenced. So, it appeared at this juncture that King Saul showed total obedience to God’s command and word. This appraisal, however, did not last long.

The Compromise (1 Sam. 15:8-9)

Drunk with victory and the lust for war booty, King Saul wasted no time selectively disobeying God’s clear, concise word:

⁸ And he captured Agag the 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 not willing to destroy them utterly; but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. (1 Sam. 15)

King Saul wiped out the Amalekite troops and some of the less-than-optimal animals, yet he shockingly took their king Agag alive, coupled with choice animals. This is how an insubordinate person operates. They know their superior’s directive; however, in a weak moment, they cave to temptation and chart their carnal course. Frank Sinatra’s song, “I Did It My Way,” could be their theme song. In Saul’s day, foreign kings kept defeated kings as living war trophies of their military prowess. Saul merely mimicked what the nations around him did after victories on the battlefield. Taking the spoils of war was something foreign nations did after hard-fought battles, so Saul must have rationalized his greed and his unchecked pride for self-elevation.

On the contrary, partial obedience is far from total obedience, no matter what mental gymnastics you go through to rationalize it. Are you currently guilty of half-hearted obedience? Are you willfully turning from a known biblical command because it will cramp your lifestyle? Such is the dangerous activity of a person who walks in the crooked footsteps of King Saul.

God is not fooled or deceived by our compromise masquerading as obedience. He who knows all and is holy will be forced to act upon what He knows to judge sin. Several texts are worth recalling:

³ The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; ¹⁴ From His dwelling place He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, ¹⁵ He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works. (Ps. 33)

²¹ For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the LORD, And He watches all his paths. ²² His own iniquities will capture the wicked, and he will be held with the cords of his sin. (Prov. 5)

¹⁰ I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds. (Jer. 17)

Read, learn, and apply. That is what wise, growing saints do. Unwise saints, like King Saul, spiral downward into further acts of insubordination. As they descend, God quickly brings their sin to light so it can be confronted, addressed, and hopefully repented. We see this truth displayed in what I call . . .

The Communication (1 Sam. 15:10-11)

God, who knows all things, wasted no time revealing to His chosen prophet what King Saul was up to:

¹⁰ Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, ¹¹ “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not carried out My commands.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the LORD all night. (1 Sam. 15)

From these texts, it appears God audibly spoke to Samuel in the middle of a dark, quiet night. Imagine what that must have been like. You are lying on your bed stone asleep, and then suddenly, a deep, booming voice sorrowfully states, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not carried out My commands.” I wonder if the Lord is saying that about you right now.

Saul’s flagrant, calculated insubordination deeply troubled Samuel. The prophet knew God gave Saul another chance to prove himself, and now he learned how his regal mentor chose to walk off the spiritual reservation again with an insubordinate act of pride and greed. How could Samuel not have been troubled? Any godly leader who seeks to mentor another leader, only to encounter repeated acts of insubordination, is always emotionally moved by the sinful, yes, immoral activity. Why? Because they know it is an absolute affront to the living God and is uncalled for.

This reality is what Samuel knew: he had to confront Saul again. And such is how it goes in dealing with a saint struggling with a penchant for insubordination and disobedience to God’s Word and authority. Confrontation is warranted to hopefully wake up the sinner from their self-caused sinful stupor. This is the biblical model, as Paul reminds us:

¹⁴ And we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men. (1 Thess. 5)

¹⁴ And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able also to admonish one another. (Rom. 15)

Acting like an ancient version of the Apostle Paul, Samuel wasted no time in establishing . . .

The Confrontation (1 Sam. 15:12-21)

Watch and learn from how a godly saint dealt with a godless saint. Learn also how the godless saint attempted to hide from his sin as Adam did in the Garden of Eden. Nothing has changed in the last three thousand years:

¹² And Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul; and it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, then turned and proceeded on down to Gilgal.”

Anyone who says they live for confrontation has a personality problem. Confrontation is never easy, but it is essential to keep sin in check. Samuel shows us how to approach confrontation. He “rose early in the morning” to confront Saul, meaning he did not prolong what he knew needed to be done. The king’s insubordination, his half-hearted obedience to God, ran counter to everything Israel needed in their leader and what God desired from Israel’s first king who reported to Him.

Someone, however, gave the prophet some interesting intel. Saul had traveled some 70 miles north of the battlefield in the Negev region of southern Israel to erect a memorial monument to . . . himself! Are you kidding me? No. I am not. What a self-righteous Rambo. The battle belonged to the Lord, but Saul wanted all the praise for his so-called prowess. Once more, we must note how insubordination blinds you to yourself while unleashing some ugly things buried in your personality.

Are you currently being blinded by your rejection of God’s Word? This is the question of the day. If you are, and another saint who knows what you’re up to confronts you, how will you respond? Saul didn’t fare too well.

¹³ And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the LORD! I have carried out the command of the LORD.”

Saul’s words rang hollow to the man who knew the facts about his insubordination to God’s Word and authority:

‎בָּר֤וּךְ אַתָּה֙ לַֽיהוָ֔ה

Samuel must have flinched and grimaced when he heard this phrase. Blessing? Are you joking? And you fully obeyed God’s precise command? Are you serious? Another danger about the sin of insubordination is that it tends to make you blind to your actions, causing you to think you are doing great when you are not. Are you blind? You can test your blind factor by how you respond to those wise, godly saints who confront you with the facts of your rebellion.

Realizing he was dealing with a man blind to his sin, Samuel did what he was supposed to. He presented the facts of the insubordination:

¹⁴ But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?”

Translated: if you were so obedient to God, why do I hear all these Amalekite sheep and oxen making so much noise? They should be dead, right? Right. But they were quite alive because Saul wanted them for monetary purposes.

Did Saul repent right then and there? No. He did what insubordinate people do. Instead of accepting responsibility for his willful sin, he doubled down and blamed the people for setting up this sad, sinful situation. Are you guilty of shifting blame on others for things you should not have done or said? Have you mastered the sinful skill of deflection? Saul had.

¹⁵ And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed.”

Place heavy emphasis on the words “they” and “the people.” They did this, but they did it for a righteous cause: worship. Right. This was an outright lie. The people never said they wanted to keep all this loot so they could worship God, and even if they did, this worship would not be acceptable because it was founded on outright rebellion against God. What a weak rationalization. Most attempts to cover sin are. This is like arguing, “Our church people robbed non-Christian banks this week so that they could give more to the building program.” If this did occur, I highly doubt these saints did it for benevolent reasons. Greed was probably the motivation. In any event, Saul’s argument (or excuse) here is vacuous because the end did not justify the means.

Recrimination like this is as ancient as the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:12-13), and Saul was no more effective at diverting guilt to others than Adam and Eve. If you struggle with insubordination, you can readily identify it by noting how you tend to blame others for sin or sins you have committed. Are you guilty of passing blame right now for something you have done? If so, stop doing that, confess it, and seek the Spirit’s enablement to live differently (Eph. 5:18). Stop passing blame and start accepting blame.

Unfortunately, King Saul did not get the proverbial memo:

¹⁶ Then Samuel said to Saul, “Wait, and let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.” And he said to him, “Speak!” ¹⁷ And Samuel said, “Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the LORD anointed you king over Israel, ¹⁸ and the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’ ¹⁹ “Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the LORD?”

In other words, the Lord told you explicitly what to do, and you purposefully didn’t do it because of your greed for personal monetary gain (James 1:14, unchecked lust leads to sin every time). Why, then, did you not obey God? Why, indeed.

When blaming others didn’t work, King Saul sought to deflect the prophet’s penetrating analysis through argumentation.

²⁰ Then Saul said to Samuel, “I did obey the voice of the LORD, and went on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. ²¹ “But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God at Gilgal.” (1 Sam. 15)

This is a partial truth caught in a web of outright lies. Israel’s forces under Saul’s leadership defeated the Amalekites; however, this small problem: King Saul left King Agag alive. There was another problem, too. King Saul, once more, did what people who struggle with insubordination do so well: He blamed others for the sin instead of owning it himself. Again, I must pause and ask you a personal question: Are you failing to follow a known divine directive, and when confronted, are you lying about your actions while throwing others under the proverbial bus? Note well that concealment of sin will never lead to a prosperous life. It will lead in the opposite direction, as the writer of Proverbs reminds us:

¹³ He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. (Prov. 28)

What will it be in your life? Will you conceal or reveal sin?

Realizing what was going on moved Samuel to show King Saul how his track record of disobeying God and seeking to rationalize it would now lead to . . .

The Cost (1 Sam. 15:22-23)

These verses form the heart or hinge of the passage. Everything said to this point, and everything that follows finds its meaning in what Samuel states here to the wayward, wicked king:

²² And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as much 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. (1 Sam. 15)

The reality of what the Lord seeks from His people is easy to see. He wants obedience to His Word and not obstinance. The Spirit of God carefully weaves this motif throughout the Word (Psalm 40:6-8; 51:16-17; Prov. 21:3; Isa. 1:11-17; Jer. 7:21-23; Hos. 6:6; Mic. 6:6-8; Heb. 10:8-9). Pharisees in Christ’s day were skilled at doing all the right outer religious things; however, their inner hearts were far from Him, so He took them to task in Matthew 23, pronouncing “Woes” over them. God doesn’t want religious form; He desires to see religious function or obedience to what He has said in His Word.

And what has He said? What has He commanded? Here are just a few commands of over 1,000 in the New Testament alone:

1. Be exceeding glad (Matt. 5:12)
2. Be reconciled to a brother ( (Matt. 5:24)
3. Be perfect (Matt. 5:48; 2 Cor 13:11)
4. Be wise as serpents (Matt. 10:16)
5. Be harmless as doves (Matt. 10:16)
6. Be content with your wages (Luke 3:14)
7. Be merciful as God (Luke 6:36)
8. Be like faithful servants (Luke 12:36)
9. Be thankful (Col. 3:15)
10. Be at peace among selves (1 Thess. 5:13)
11. Be patient toward all people (1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Tim. 2:24)
12. Be no partaker of sin (1 Tim. 5:22)
13. Be sober and hope (1 Pet. 1:13)
14. Be sober and pray (1 Pet. 4:7)
15. Be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, charity, and patience (aged men, Titus 2:2)
16. Be sober-minded (young men, Titus 2:6)
17. Be of good cheer (John 16:33)
18. Be transformed (Rom. 12:2)
19. Be kind of brotherly love one to another (Rom. 12:10; Eph. 4:32)
20. Be patient in tribulation (Rom. 12:12)
21. Be given to hospitality (Rom. 12:13)

God is seeking obedience toward His commands, not obstinance, followed by lies, diversion, blame, and flimsy rationalizations. Will you give it to Him?

Samuel states the reason we need to think long and hard about obedience in the following powerful verse:

²³ “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.” (1 Sam. 15)

When God speaks and gives you His command, and you willfully reject it while opting to live for sin, then you might as well get involved in sorcery or idolatry because that is how dangerous your sin is to God. Witchcraft and idolatry are nothing more than man worshipping man, and that is precisely what disobedience is in its purest form. It is you attempting to become your God while rejecting the true God. Believe me, God will have no part in this and will respond by disciplining you. That is what happened to King Saul. Earlier, his sin cost him a perpetual dynasty, and now, his insubordination will cost him his rule over God’s people. Sin always has a price before a holy God (Heb. 12:1ff).

Hearing words of judgment finally grabbed Saul’s self-absorbed attention, moving him to the point of confession.

The ‘Confession’ (1 Sam. 15:24-25)

I place the word ‘confession’ in scare quotes because this is not an honest, heart-felt confession but a fake, shallow, and evasive one:

²⁴ Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice. ²⁵ Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the LORD.” (1 Sam. 15)

What tells us that Saul’s confession wasn’t a confession? Granted, he states that he sinned, but his motivation for the sin is a lie. It had nothing to do with his fear of the people but his desire to grab money, fame, and power. Again, Saul evidences clever avoidance tactics and an utter failure to take personal responsibility for what happened after the battle. This is why I conclude his confession was just all smoke and mirrors.

Understanding who he was dealing with moved Samuel to offer . . .

The Counter (1 Sam. 15:26-29)

Samuel’s words were pointed and tough:

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.”

Saul’s repeated acts of insubordination revealed he had personally rejected God’s lordship over his life. Therefore, the Lord had now rejected him as the king.

Hearing those words caused Saul to lash out in desperation:

²⁷ And as Samuel turned to go, 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 your neighbor who is better than you. ²⁹ And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” (1 Sam. 15)

Israel lost their king because of insubordination, but a new king who would be the epitome of subordination was coming. His name? David. We will meet him in two chapters. Where one disobedient leader will not do, God will bring one who will do His bidding so His people are cared for. That will be a role David will more than fill.

What transpired next is hard to understand. I label it . . .

The Concession (1 Sam. 15:30-31)

For reasons unknown to us, Samuel agreed to go and stand near Saul as he worshipped the Lord he had spurned:

³⁰ Then he said, “I have sinned; but please honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the LORD your God.” ³¹ So Samuel went back following Saul, and Saul worshiped the LORD. (1 Sam. 15)

Pay attention to the pronouns used here by Saul: “I,” “me,” “my.” It sounds as if Saul merely wanted Samuel to stand with him publicly to make it look like everything was going great between him and God when it wasn’t. Once more, Saul moves to cover his tracks instead of uncovering his heart. It is hard at times for us to come clean from sin. May God free you from the bondage (Rom. 6:19ff).

The story concludes with Samuel’s act of obedience, not Saul’s. Translated, Samuel did what Saul would not do.

The Completion (1 Sam. 15:32-35)

³² Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag, the king of the Amalekites.” And Agag came to him cheerfully. 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 hewed Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal. ³⁴ Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. ³⁵ And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death; for Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel. (1 Sam. 15)

Samuel did the hard thing by taking out Agag. He was subordinate to a command that was not easy to carry out but necessary in the scope of God’s holy will. Saul’s insubordination, on the other hand, destroyed the relationship he had with Samuel. And Samuel never stopped grieving over a man with so much promise who threw it all away because he was a rebel. Sadly, none of this had to happen. Things could have been so much different. How? Saul should have moved from insubordination to subordination. Had he done this, God would have blessed him incredibly.

Saul had his chance to do more incredible things for God, but he failed. He failed because he chose obstinacy over obedience. What will you do? Make this day the day you turn these words around in your life. Make this day the day you move from religious form to religious function. Make this day the day you can sing with Keith Green, the former Chris Tomlin of his day:

To obey is better than sacrifice
I don’t need your money
I want your life

To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

Keith Green

1978

 

[1] Khaldoun A. Swes and Chad V. Meister, Editors, Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 185.