Now 1 Samuel 15 begins, Samuel
also said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee to be
king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore, hearken thou unto
the voice of the words of the Lord. That's very good advice
for us here this morning. Hearken thou unto the voice of
the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
I remember that which Amalek did to Israel. how he laid wait
for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite
Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them
not. But slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Now does that
sound hard to us? To go kill every man, woman,
and child, infant, the suckling infant? Sounds pretty hard to
us, doesn't it? But you know, that's what each
and every one of us deserve in this flesh. Doesn't scripture
say the wages of sin is death? This is what we all deserve.
But to understand this fully, we have to understand this, that
Amalek is a picture of the flesh. The Amalekites descended from
Esau. He was the first one. And you
know Esau is given to us as a picture of the flesh. While his brother
Isaac is given to us as a picture of the spiritual man, the believer
in Christ. And I'll show you what the flesh
does. When the children of Israel first
came out of Egypt, and that's a picture of salvation, right?
When God delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt, that's a picture
of salvation. Well, as soon as they came out
of Egypt, the first nation to interact with them was the Amalekites. And they attacked them. And that's
a picture of the warfare between the flesh and the spirit. And
as soon as God saves a person, That warfare between the flesh
and the spirit begins as soon as God saves them. And turn over
to Exodus 17, here's where this happened. In Exodus 17, the Amalekites
and Israel fought a battle. And you know the story that as
long as Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed. But when his
hands got tired, he let his hands down, the Amalekites prevailed.
So Aaron and Hur held up Moses' hands and they won the victory.
In Exodus 17 verse 15, and Moses built an altar and called the
name of it Jehovah-Nissi. For he said, because the Lord
has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation
to generation. The Lord's going to fight with
Amalek from generation to generation. That's never going to quit. And
if you look at the center reference, if your Bible's like mine, the
word because has a little two in front of it. And here's the
translation of that. The hand of Amalek is against
the throne of the Lord. Therefore, the Lord has sworn
that he will have war with them. And that's exactly what the flesh
is in it. The flesh has his hand raised
against the throne of God, and God's going to wipe it out. They
should be killed if your hand's raised against the throne of
God, shouldn't you? That's what the flesh is. And look over at
Deuteronomy 25. Here's some more instruction
about these Amalekites in Deuteronomy 25. The warfare between the flesh
and the spirit is going to continue until God kills the flesh. In
Deuteronomy 25, verse 17, remember what Amalek did unto thee by
the way when we were come forth out of Egypt. How he met thee
by the way and smote the highmost part of thee, even all they that
were feeble. You know, those that were feeble
and couldn't keep up with the main group. That's Amalekites
attack, the weak and the feeble. And when thou wast faint and
weary, and he feared not God, therefore it shall be, when the
Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round
about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for
an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the
remembrance of Amalek from under heaven, and thou shalt not forget
it." Now that warfare between the flesh and the spirit is going
to continue until God kills the flesh, the Amalekites. Well,
now killing all the Amalekites doesn't sound quite so hard,
does it? And you know, I thought first, this is what I want for
my flesh. I want the Lord to destroy my
flesh and set that new man free to go be with the Lord. That's
my heart's desire. And secondly, it's only right
that God kill and destroy sinful, rebellious flesh. Now it may
take a while in his providence. It may take some time for him
to do it, but you can rest assured he will. 400 years has passed
until Saul has become king. And 400 years later, God gives
Saul the command to go wipe out the flesh, to wipe out the Amalekites. And that 400 years stands to
us as an example of the long suffering of the Lord. He was
long suffering with those people. Matthew Henry said, though divine
justice strikes slowly, it strikes surely. God's word, his judgment
will surely come to pass. And it finally happened 400 years
later. So verse 4, back in our text,
Saul gathered the people together and numbered them to land. 200,000 footmen and 10,000 men
of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek and laid wait in the
valley. And Saul said unto the Kenites,
Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I
destroy you with them. For ye showed kindness to all
the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the
Canaanites departed from among the Amalekites." Now, the Amalekites,
they're descendants of Esau. The Canaanites are descendants
of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. And the Canaanites
were spared because 400 years ago, at the same time the Amalekites
were showing evil to Israel, Jethro showed kindness to Israel
and helped them as they began their journey through the wilderness.
And we know that the Lord is faithful to remember kindness
shown to his people. In Matthew 25, our Lord told
about that day of judgment. He told those on his right hand,
I was hungry and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave
me drink. I was a stranger and you took
me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited
me. I was in prison and you came to me. I don't remember that. I don't remember doing that.
They didn't remember what the Lord did, did they? He remembered. And he said, inasmuch as you've
done it to the least of these my brethren, you've done it unto
me. Jethro showed kindness to Israel. And God said, inasmuch as you
did it to my people, you've done it unto me. And 400 years later,
his descendants were spared because of his kindness. But not the
Amalekites. Look at verse 7. And Saul smote
the Amalekites. from Havla until thou comest
to Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag, the
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, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings,
and of the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly
destroy them, but everything that was vile and refuse, that
they destroyed utterly." Most all of his reign that we
see him, he is a picture of false religion, of man's religion.
He does not have the love of God or the fear of God in his
heart. And after God gave him commandment, Saul left King Agag
alive. Maybe he did it for personal
glory, you know, the habit that they had to parade the captured
king through the streets in chains. Maybe Saul did it so he could
have that glory. Josephus says that Agag was a
Very physically impressive man. And the people thought it would
be a shame to kill such an impressive looking man. And they wanted
to keep him alive just so they could look at him. You know,
like a lion in a zoo or something. You know, they wanted to keep
him alive just to look at him. Because he was apparently something
else. Well, isn't that exactly what
man's religion wants to do with the flesh? That's exactly what
it does. It wants to keep the best of
the flesh So you can look at it and glory in it. But God says,
destroy all flesh. And you look to the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what God says. And he says that because the
flesh cannot contribute anything to salvation, can it? Not one
thing. Even the best of flesh, all it
can contribute is sin and the need of a Savior. That's all
the best of the flesh can contribute. kept the best of the flesh alive. And he went farther than that.
He kept the best of the livestock. He kept the best of the stuff,
you know, that they found. And I'm sure he wanted to use
it for his glory, you know, add to his flocks and add to his
table and so forth. And like every false prophet,
I mean, he's already greedy enough, I suppose, but Saul got real
greedy. He didn't even just keep the best of the stuff. You see
the word fatlings there? That is the second sort. Not
only did he keep the best of the stuff, the first-rate stuff,
he kept the second-rate stuff. And I bet he kept the second-rate
stuff because that's what he's going to offer to God. That's
what he's going to bring back and sacrifice, the second-rate
stuff, you know, the stuff that you can't use. And the rest of
it, the stuff that was trash and garbage and really should
have just been taken to the landfill, they didn't want that, you know,
because they can't use any of that, but they kept the rest
of it. And you know, every false prophet, is in the ministry for
personal gain. And that's what Saul is in this
business for. It's become to him for personal
gain. And he will never kill the flesh
because the only way he can see the pulpit is through the power
of the flesh. He wants to prop the flesh up and puff it up so
he can gain from the power of the flesh. He might stand in
the pulpit and denounce the flesh, but out of the pulpit what he's
doing is puffing up the flesh. so he can profit by it and benefit
by it. That's the only way he can see
to profit, and that's the very reason Saul kept the spoil. Well,
verse 10, then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying,
It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has
turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments.
And it grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all the night.
Now, when God says he repents of something, he says, It repenteth
me that I have set up Saul to be king. God doesn't mean he
changed his mind. You know, when I repent of something,
it means, well, I changed my mind, or I'm sorry I did that
or something. But not God. God's immutable. He's unchangeable,
so he can't change his mind. Isn't that right? So what this
means is, when God says he repents, what it means is he's changing
dispensations. He's changing the way outwardly
he deals with men. God's not changing here. Saul's
changing. That's who's changing. Now the
Lord does, from time to time, he changes his outward dealings
with men, doesn't he? But God never changes his spiritual
dealings with men. Never. God made Saul a king on
earth, didn't he? What has he made you, his people?
Kings and priests, unto God's will. Scripture says, well, God's
never going to repent of that. Because what did Paul say in
Romans 9? The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
God's never going to change the way he deals with his people
spiritually. But he did with Saul in an earthly
realm. And Samuel cried unto the Lord.
He begged God for mercy. All this grieved him to see this
happen to Saul. And you know, there is a day
of mercy. Today's the day of mercy. This
very moment is the moment of mercy. But there is a day coming
that the day of mercy is over. And that day's arrived for King
Saul. and the day is rapidly approaching that God is going
to execute his judgment on Saul. Well, verse 12, when Samuel rose
early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul
came to Carmel, and behold, he set him up a place, and is gone
about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. And Samuel came
to Saul, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord,
I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Now, that's just
a bold-faced lie. I mean, his conscience is so
seared, he just comes right up to the prophet of God and says,
oh, bless you, I performed the commandment of God. Are you kidding
me? I mean, just unbelievable. But you know, this is the exact
same lie that false religion tells. They tell people you kept
the commandment of God. That's what they tell them. That's
the same lie that Saul's telling. And we haven't kept the first
commandment of God, not even one. Just pick any of them. We
haven't kept any of the commandments of God. But this is what false
religion tells men. They tell them this lie. They
feed it to them over and over again. You've kept the commandment
of God. And what it does is encourages
men to boast in their own obedience. Really what they're doing is
they're boasting in their own disobedience, just like Saul's
standing there. How foolish is it to be standing
there boasting in your filthy rags? He didn't obey God. Well, look at verse 14. And Samuel
said, What cometh in this bleeding of the sheep in mine ears, and
the lowing of the oxen which I hear? You know, when you tell
a lie, there's always evidence. Somebody always knows. And especially when you tell
a whopper like Saul's telling, it's hard to cover it, isn't
it? And what have we seen just over the course of my lifetime,
just, you know, back just such a short time back to Watergate
until today? What's always worse? The cover
up. The cover up is always worse
than the initial crime. And I'll tell you why that is.
Saul's sin has been presented to him. Now would be an awful
good time to beg for mercy. Wouldn't that be awfully wise
for us this morning? It'd be awfully wise for us this
morning to beg for mercy instead of trying to cover up our sin
with a lie. It's just keeping sin upon sin
when you do that. That's why the cover-up is always
worse than the initial crime. Well, verse 15, Saul said, they
have brought them from the Amalekites. For the people spared the best
of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy
God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. See, he said the people
did everything that was wrong. You know, I was part of the ones
that were destroying everything else. This is what false prophets
do. They blame everybody else. Well, you know, I can't control
them. I mean, you know, they're the people of Israel. I'm the
king, but I can't control everything they do. Think back to the chapter
last week. Remember when Saul gave the order?
No one's to eat until the end of the day, because he didn't
want to waste a moment chasing after the enemy and destroy them.
Nobody's to eat. And the people were famished.
And they're passing through the woods and the beehives are just
overflowing with honey, dripping down to the ground. The people
are starving. But they wanted to obey Saul
so much. Not only would they not eat,
they wouldn't even put their hand to their mouth to give the
appearance of eating. Saul's the king. He can control
what the people do if he wants to. But Saul says, now, aren't
they good? They didn't obey everything God
said to do, but they didn't do it because they wanted to sacrifice
the spoil to God. Isn't that the way men look at
salvation? Men will tell you, well, no,
I'm not perfect. I didn't do everything just exactly like
God said to do it, but now I'm making it up by making all these
sacrifices. You know, at work we've got bunch
of people are Catholic, and on Ash Wednesday, they go around
with this ash thing on their forehead, you know, they kind
of try to cover it up with their hair down in front of it, but they
go around with this ash thing on their head, and supposedly,
you know, that's humiliating for your sins, and it's making
up for some of them. That's just utter foolishness.
We haven't done anything like God said to do it, and We will
never be able to sacrifice something of ours to please God because
everything we touch is sinful. Isn't that right? Everything.
My goodness. You know, we think, well, you
know, I'll go around with this ash thing on my head, you know, to
make up for it. Well, I'll just make other sacrifices
of the flesh. You know, I'll sacrifice sleeping
in on Sunday. I'll go to church every Sunday.
Well, there's a sacrifice, isn't it? I mean, what a sacrifice.
What something you're given up to go to the house of the Lord
and worship Him. What a sacrifice. It's a blessing, not a sacrifice.
Well, I'll sacrifice some of my time and even I won't watch
the TV, I'll read my Bible. What a sacrifice. It's not a
sacrifice, it's a blessing to have God's to hold in your hand
and read. That's a blessing. That's not
a sacrifice. Yeah, well, I'll give up other
pleasures, you know, of the flesh. Is God going to be impressed
by that? None of that is holiness. These
live animals that Saul says we're going to take and sacrifice to
God, all those live animals are is disobedience. That's exactly
what they are. That's all they are. They're
disobedience. Are we so foolish to think that
God will accept our disobedience offered to him as a sacrifice
for our sins. That's the deadness of human
flesh. That's all that is. And Samuel,
he can't take it. He said, just stop. Just stop
right there and let me tell you what the Lord says. In verse
16, Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, just be quiet, and I will tell
thee what the Lord hath said unto me this night. And he said
unto him, And Samuel said, when thou was little in thine own
sight, was thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel,
and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel? God took you from
nothing and made you a king. Ought that not make you so thankful
that you'll be obedient just out of thankfulness? But instead
of that, you're proud. You become proud of grace. And
Saul had nothing to be proud of, even in this victory that
he won. Look at verse 18. The Lord sent thee on a journey.
He didn't call it, he sent thee to war, he sent thee on a journey. That's how sure the victory was,
it's just a journey. And he said, go and utterly destroy
the sinners of the Amalekites, and fight against them till they
be consumed. Wherefore then, didst thou not
obey the voice of the Lord, but didst lie upon the spoil, and
didst evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said unto Samuel,
Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and I have gone
the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag, the king
of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people
took of the spoils, sheep and oxen, and the chief of the things,
which should have been utterly destroyed, but they did it so
they could sacrifice it unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal."
My goodness, if you were here Wednesday night, you heard John
talk about that stubborn ass. There it is. Utterly stubborn. I mean, you've got to be kidding
me that at this point, Saul is still trying to convince Samuel
that he was obedient. You know, if you tell a lie often
enough, you'll believe it. If you tell a lie often enough,
you might get somebody else to believe it. But not God. And just in case that doesn't
work, and just in case Saul can't, you know, kind of trick Samuel
and trick God, he keeps blaming the people. Well, it's the people's
fault. It's the people's fault. Well, here's the heart of the
matter, verse 22. And Samuel said, Hath 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 hearken than the fat of rams, To obey is better
than sacrifice. To listen to what God says in
His word is better than the fat of rams. Now, first of all, if
everyone did obey, there wouldn't be a need for the sacrifice of
Christ, would they? If everybody did obey, but the
problem is, is we don't. But Samuel's not talking about
obeying the law as a way to earn righteousness. And he's not talking
about the sacrifice of Christ when he talks about the sacrifice.
To obey is better than sacrifice. Nothing is better than the sacrifice
of Christ. Nothing pleases God as much as
the sacrifice of Christ. But what he is talking about
here is obeying the gospel. Obeying the word of God. The
word of God to Saul was to go kill the Amalekites. This is
the word of God to us. The gospel. That's the word of
God to us. Obeying the gospel. It's what
God has told us in his word. And what does God tell us in
his word? The command of the whole book is look to the Son. Look to my Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the command of the whole
book. That's obeying the gospel. By looking to Christ is better
than any sacrifice that you can make. Obey the gospel. Never try to please God by something
that you can give or something that you can give up and quit
doing. Because any sacrifice other than the sacrifice of Christ
is an abomination to God. And if you think about it, what
are you going to sacrifice anyway? You're going to quit sinning?
Well, first of all, you can't. And second of all, even if you
could, it's too late. We've already committed enough
sin to send us to hell for an eternity of eternities. Can't
quit sinning. You're going to deprive yourself
of some sinful pleasure. You know, is God really going
to be impressed by that? The command of God. Look over
in Micah, chapter six. You have the authorized version,
that's page 1156, right after the book of Jonah. The command
of God is to obey the gospel. That's the command of God. In
Micah 6, verse 6. Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before
him with burnt offerings? with calves of a year old? Will
the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands
of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly
with thy God." It's to obey the gospel. Now look over at Romans
16. Here is what God requires is
to obey the gospel. In Romans 16 verse 25, the command is to obey the gospel
and here is how you obey it. Now to him that is of power to
establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus
Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept
secret since the world began. But now is made manifest, and
by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment
of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the
obedience of faith." That's the commandment of the gospel. Believe. Just believe what God says. Believe
and trust his son. That's what it is to obey the
gospel. And the question to me is, have I obeyed the gospel? Look over in John chapter 12.
Now this is important, an important question. You ask yourself this
question. Have I believed the gospel? The answer is critical. In John
12 verse 49. For I have not spoken of myself,
but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what
I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment
is life everlasting. My life depends on the fact whether
or not I believe Christ or not. Whether or not I believe the
commandment to look to Christ. If I truly believe that Christ
and Christ alone is sufficient to save my soul, I'll look to
Him and Him alone. If I truly believe that Christ
is all my salvation, I don't have a need to look anywhere
else, do I? Not if I believe Christ is all my salvation. The
command of the gospel is to repent and turn to Christ. It's to change
our mind about ourselves, about how sinful we are, and turn to
Christ in faith. Believe in Him. Look over in
Acts chapter 17. This is the command of the gospel.
Repent and believe. In verse 30, in the times of
this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent. This is not an issue of choice
where you can decide whether to do it or not. This is the
command of God to repent. And look back at page, Acts 16,
verse 30. You can only obey this command
through faith by believing Christ. In Acts 16, verse 30. This is a Philippian jailer.
He brought them out, Paul and Silas. He brought them out and
said unto them, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Thy and thy house. Anyone who
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. That's the command.
And we obey that command by believing God. The believer is commanded
to confess Christ in Believer's Baptism. That's the command.
If you believe Him, if you love Him, you'll confess Him. You
will. And Christ's command everywhere
to His people is to love one another. A new commandment I
give you, that you love one another as I have loved you. That's the
command of the Gospel. And look over at 2 Kings chapter
5. I'll tell you a great example of this simply believing God
is Naaman. Naaman was a great general, military
leader, but you know the story. He was a leper. So he hears about
the prophet down in Israel. He's going to go to this prophet
and be healed. But look at his plan in verse
5 of 2 Kings 5. And the king of Syria said, Go
to. Go and I will send a letter unto
the king of Israel. And he departed and took with
him ten talents of silver. 6,000 pieces of gold and 10 changes
of raiment. He's going with the sacrifice,
Sidney. He's intent on buying his health. He's buying his healing
and he's got, I'm sure this is a big offering, it's a big sacrifice,
but is that going to do it? Well, look at verse 9. So Naaman
came with his horses and his chariots and he has all this
bounty with him. And he stood at the door of the
house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto
him saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall
come again unto thee, and thou shalt be clean." That's awful
simple, isn't it? He didn't tell him, give me your
money. He said, just go wash seven times. That's awful simple,
just like the gospel. It's the simple command, believe.
Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is the
flesh, tell the flesh something so simple. Look to Christ, name
him with wrath. And he went away and said, behold,
I thought, and there's his problem, that's our problem, I thought,
he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name
of the Lord his God and strike his hand over the place, he'll
do some fancy motions and things, and I'll recover the leper. Are not Havana and far, far rivers
in Damascus better than all the rivers of Israel? May I not wash
in them and be clean?" So he turned and he went away in a
rage. Just, I will not bow to this
simple command. And his servants came to him
and spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had
did thee do some great thing, would you not have done it? Well,
sure he would. He brought all this gold and silver and clothes.
Yeah, he had done a great thing. How much rather, then, when he
saith unto thee, Wash and be clean. So simple. The gospel
is so simple. Just look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then went he down and gifted
himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the
man of God. And here's a surprise. His flesh came again, like unto
the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Naaman was
cleansed the moment he obeyed one simple commandment. A sinner,
I don't care who he is, who she is, a sinner will be cleansed
from all his sin and have eternal life the very moment he looks
to Christ. The very moment. You know, a
believer is a child of God. Well, don't we want our children
to be obedient? Shouldn't a child be obedient?
That's what we want from our children, to be obedient. We
know the general tenor of a believer's life is obedience. Now, I can
tell you this morning, I believe God. Completely, I believe him. But if you're like me, that faith
kind of wavers sometimes, doesn't it? You know, the waves start
rocking the boat. Lord, don't you care we perish?
Well, you know, when that faith dips low and it wavers, and it
does, don't make this mistake. Well, I'm going to make up for
it by offering some sacrifice and making it better. Then I'll
come back to God. No. Look to Christ. Look to Him and keep looking
to Him and never take your eyes off of Him because faith is better
than all the motions of religion. One look to Christ is better
than all the motions of religion that you can do in a lifetime.
Now quickly look back in our text. I want to show you this.
the importance of obedience and the seriousness of disobedience.
Look at verse 23. For rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. Rebellion against God is as evil
as witchcraft. Dealing in a satanic realm is
as evil as rebellion against God. Stubbornness, refusing to
bow to Christ, refusing to believe the gospel, insisting on justifying
yourself instead of bowing to Christ is just as wicked as bowing
down to graven images. It's idolatry. In the rest of
the chapter, Saul, now he's sorry. Now he's sorry, but not because
he sinned, because he can't be king anymore. He's learned to
like this business of being king. Life's easy and good when you're
king. And he begs Samuel, come sacrifice
with me. Come sacrifice with me. Come
worship me. Samuel won't go. Finally, Samuel says, okay, I'll
go. And he shows Saul to obey is
better than sacrifice. Look at verse 32. Then said Samuel,
bring ye hither to me Agag, the king of the Amalekites. And Agag
came unto him delicately. And Agag says, surely the bitterness
of death is past. Agag's not worried anymore. He
sees this old bent over man. He's not worried about being
killed. He comes to him like a king, expecting to be treated
with the dignity and respect that a king deserves. The exact
same way the flesh comes before God. And we come before God that
way, look what happens. And Samuel said, as thy sword
hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless
among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces. He quartered
him before the Lord in Gilgal. He showed Saul to obey is better
than sacrifice. And this is the end of sinners
who refuse to obey the gospel. They're going to be damned. They're
going to be sent to hell for eternity and nobody can argue
against it. It's only right they refuse to
bow. to God's Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's sad, isn't it? It's
heartbreaking. Look at verse 35. Samuel came
no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless,
Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord repented that he had
made Saul king over Israel. God help us. God help us. Oh, you don't know how I pray
that God would cause us to bow. obey and bow to the Lord Jesus
Christ, he's worthy of our worship and our belief in him. God help
you. God bless you.