A Study of the Books of Samuel
Sermon # 9
1 Samuel 15:1-34
The most
difficult task I face as a Pastor is that of confronting church members when they are on a
sinful path of self-destruction. It has at
times led to a break in my relationship with these individuals that has never been
restored. They felt like I was interfering in their lives. I only wish they could know how
much I hate confrontation; if they did it would surely change their viewpoint. I think I know how Samuel felt to be told by God
that he must go and confront Saul with his sin.
First I want to
share with you Two General Principles
for this story in the relationship of Samuel the prophet and Saul the king.
God Often Sends
Warns to Us When We Stray from the path of Right.
In 1
Samuel 15, verse ten it says “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 his back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments. And it grieved
Samuel and he cried out to LORD all night.”
If he was to obey God and do what was best for all of Israel, he had no choice but to confront sin in this man’s life. So it is with the Pastor he gets no joy in confronting another brother or sister, but because it is his God-given responsibility and because it is what is best for the whole body of believers, he has not choice but to go.
This assignment “grieved Samuel,”
because he had the heart of a great pastor, he was heart-broken. For the pastor to see a
member fail morally, any member, it is a heart-break. Samuel believes, as every pastor
does that if Saul fails, he has failed as well. We
don’t know what Samuel prayed that night but I can’t help but believe that he
prayed for Saul, that he pleaded for mercy with God.
Samuel wasted no time. He knew what he had to do, so he rose early the next morning
and went “to meet Saul” (v. 12). Samuel
went with the message that if Saul walked in God’s will, all would go well with him.
But sadly Saul did not respond positively to the preacher’s pleas. He allowed
bitterness to wither his soul and destroy his life.
When Saul became king, he was given God’s instructions by Samuel; he was told
that he was to utterly destroy the Amalekite nation. They had not only attacked the
children of Israel as they came out of the wilderness weak and worn down. They had further
rejected God by failing to turn in repentance even when defeated time after time by
Joshua. God said it was now time for the Amalekites to face judgment (15:1-3). God told
Saul to attack the Amalekites and to totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Saul
makes a choice to do something less.
Understand
with me that partial obedience is really disobedience. Serving God is not like a game of
horseshoes were we get points for coming close to the mark. The Bible says that sin is
missing the mark, no matter how close you came to it. Samuel is given the job of
communicating to Saul that no matter how much he asked for forgiveness or pleaded for
another opportunity, the door was closed. But even in this we must understand that God did
not reject Saul as a person. Had Saul turned to God for personal forgiveness it would have
been granted, but his sin had still cost him his kingdom.
Genuine repentance is always met with forgiveness but this does not mean that there
are no losses, no consequences of sin. Christians often have a cavalier attitude toward
prayer. Some Catholics feel free to sin as long as they go to confession and say “Forgive
me father for I have sinned...” Many
fundamental Baptist also take sin too lightly. We
glibly say, “I know God will forgive, even as select a course of action we know
is wrong.” To know what God commands us to do and to do (or not do) and then
to disobey is willful rebellion against God. To know God’s will and to deliberately
disobey it is to put ourselves above God and this is the vilest kind of idolatry.
While Samuel was agonizing in prayer for Saul, Saul was building a monument to
himself in Gilgal (v. 12). It was the ultimate in arrogance to build a monument to honor
himself. He was saying symbolically, “by my hand were our enemies were defeated.”
Could this be same man who “hid
himself among the baggage” (10:22)
because he was afraid to assume the role as king of Israel? “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."
The words “blessed
are you of the Lord” seem to have an ugly sound when they fall from the
hypocritical lips of Saul, for even as he was saying those words he was formulating a lie.
He claimed to be obedient (v. 13) when he had been disobedient. Three times is 1 John 1
the apostle John referred to saying one thing and doing another. In verse six, “If we say that we have
fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” In verse eight, “If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And finally in verse
ten, “If we say
that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
In verse six we are lying to others, in verse eight we are lying to ourselves and in verse
ten we are attempting to lie to God. When we do this our spiritual life is nothing more
than words.
The response of Samuel in verse
fourteen
bleating of
the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of
said,
"They
sheep and the
destroyed."
Samuel says, “That’s funny then why do I hear sheep and
oxen? Where did they come from?”
Saul seeks to excuse himself by laying the emphasis on the word “they” in that they brought the animals from the Amalekites. Notice he says “they” spared the best but “we” utterly destroyed the rest. With Saul it was always somebody else’s fault.
But Samuel had about all the excuses he could stomach and replies in verse sixteen: "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?”
“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.”
Samuel was ahead
of his times, he said, “I did utterly
destroy the Amalekites, it is all in how you defined “utterly.” Instead of confessing his sins, he tried to
justify himself. Whenever we try to justify what we know is
wrong, we have made a bad decision.
Samuel’s somewhat startling expression, “Why
did you swoop down on the spoil?” in verse nineteen, seems to shed
addition light on Saul’s attitude.
“But
the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen,”
Much like Adam’s blame shifting in the garden of Eden, “The woman
you gave me, she is the one.” Now
Saul is saying, “the people you gave me they are responsible.”
With Saul, like some people today,
it is always someone else’s fault. First, Saul blamed the soldiers (15) and then he
blamed the people (v 21)
“….the best
of the things which should have been destroyed to sacrifice to the Lord your God in
Gilgal.”
Perhaps I am reading between the lines but it concerns me that Saul keeps saying to
Samuel the Lord “your”
God, not “my” God. (vv. 21, 30). Saul is saying but Samuel you don’t
understand as I have already said (v. 15) I fully intended to sacrifice all these animals
to God.
There is a problem with his argument, in Lev. 27 we are told that anything
“devoted to destruction” is already viewed as sacrificed to God. It is not
allowed to be used for sacrifice. So in keeping what is God’s already then attempt to
cheat God not once but twice. They intended to offer these animals as sacrifice in the
place of their own, thus avoiding any real sacrifice on their part.
He justified his behavior by saying that he took what was wholly God’s in
order that he might give back a portion of what was already his.
Does that make sense? No and it should not.
WHAT ABOUT THE TITHE….
Finally Saul responses with “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. (23) For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubborn-ness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king."
Rebellion is equally as sinful as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as bad as idolatry.
Rebellion is equally as sinful as the sin of witch-craft and stubbornness is as bad as idolatry.
“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."
How weak and inadequate do the words, “I have sinned” sound when they come from a man only because he fears the consequences. How different they sound when the Prodigal son says “I have sinned.”
Saul asks Samuel as a sign of solidarity to go with him to
worship, when Samuel refused, Saul grabbed at Samuel and in so doing tore the robe of the
prophet. Samuel said that this was symbolic of the fact that the kingship had that day
been torn from Saul. But the words did not seem to penetrate through to Saul because he
continued to be worried about maintaining his reputation rather than getting right with
God. Verse thirty, “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."
Saul is
obviously more concerned about looking good before the people than he is being good before
God. There is still no sign of true repentance; he continued to blame the people saying, “I was afraid.”
He is guilty of rationalization and he still refused to take responsibility for his sin.
In verses thirty-two through thirty-four we are told
that it was up to Samuel to do what Saul did not have the courage to do, put King Agag to
death. After doing so verse thirty-four tells us the Saul and Samuel came to a
parting of the ways, “Then
Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul.”
We are not told that Saul ever truly grieves over his sin or
over his parting with Samuel. It is however a very sad day for Samuel. He had wept and
interceded for Saul (15:11) and now he grieves after they have parted company. Verse
thirty-five, And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the
day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, ….”
1. You feel
the need to defend your actions as being acceptable to God.
2. You are
unwilling to accept responsibility for your actions.
3. You attempt to make
what you have done sound religious.
4. When you are more
concerned about public appearance than repentance.
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