Good morning. I feel like I haven't
been here in a month. Would you turn with me to 1 Samuel
chapter 15? Now, the last time we looked
at this, we looked at the sparing of the Amalekites. And this time
I want us to consider the sparing of Agag. the king of the Amalekites. Now, you'll remember the Lord
said, destroy all the Amalekites, and they didn't do what he said.
Now, look in verse 1. Samuel 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. Thus saith the Lord
of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel. And he's
talking about what took place in Exodus chapter 17, how he
laid weight 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. And Saul gathered the people
together and numbered them in Telium, 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 to the Kenites,
Go depart, get you 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 smote the
Amalekites from Havilah, until he came to Shur, that is against
Egypt, and he took Agag, the king of the Malachites, alive. Now, if there's one that you'd
think he would have killed first, it would have been the king,
wouldn't you? But he spared the king and utterly destroyed all
the people with the edge of the sword. He killed everybody else,
but he spared the king. But Saul and the people spared
Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings
and the lambs and all that was good. and would not utterly destroy
them, but everything that was vile and refuse that they destroyed
utterly. Let's pray together. Lord, we come into your presence
in Christ's blessed name and Lord, we ask in his name that
you would be pleased to meet with us and to speak in power
to our hearts. Lord, may your gospel be preached.
May your son be exalted. May we be enabled to worship
him and to trust him completely. And rest in him completely. Lord,
do that for us, which we cannot do for ourselves. Lord, accept
our thanksgiving. We're so thankful for the salvation
that's in your son. Lord, give us the grace to Love
you more to love one another more. And Lord, truly give us
the grace to be servants one to another. Bless us for the
Lord's sake and be with all your people wherever they meet together.
And Lord, forgive us of our sins for the Lord's sake. In his name
we pray, amen. Now you will remember from last
week the typical significance of the Amalekites. They represent
the flesh, human nature. They were the first people to
attack Israel after they left Egypt. And God said to Saul,
kill every one of them. Don't spare one. Don't let any
of them live. Even the children and the cattle. Kill everybody. Now, most people,
when they deal with that, they said, well, what that means is
you ought not spare any sin. You ought to kill all sin. Well,
I agree. You ought not spare any sin,
nor should I. But if that is what it means,
how have you fared? How have you fared? Bless God, that is not what it
means. Now, we ought not spare any sin. These things have I written unto
you that you sin not, is the words of John. But what this
is a reference to is not sparing any aspect of your flesh is taking
any of the credit in salvation because that's what Amalek represents.
He represents the flesh. Listen to these scriptures. If
any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things have become new, and all things are of God." All things
in this new creation are of God. We are the circumcision. Paul
said, which worship God in the spirit. Now what that means is
when we worship God, we worship God with this spiritual nature
that he's given us. Inspired, caused by the Holy
Spirit, and birthed by the Holy Spirit. And we rejoice in Christ
Jesus. We don't rejoice anywhere but
in Christ. And we have no confidence in
the flesh. Absolutely none. The Lord said in John 6, verse
63, it's the spirit that quickens or gives life. The flesh profits
nothing. Now, that gives us some idea
of what is meant by killing the Amalekites. The flesh has absolutely
nothing to do with my salvation. God does it all. You believe
that? Well, if you're a believer, you do. Now, there was one Amalekite
They failed to destroy, or Saul failed to destroy. Who? The king. The main Amalekite. The one who
made the decisions. The one whose will was done. They spared the Amalekite whose
will was done. And that's what a king was. And
that's what a king is. He's somebody, his will's done.
He's a dictator. If he wants something, that's
the way it's going to be. So, Agag represents the one whose
will is done. And in preserving him, they also
preserved what was personally beneficial to them, the best
of the sheep and the best of the oxen, and they utterly destroyed
all that was worthless. Now, Saul called this act of
sparing Agag, and think about it. What is it that religion
spares? The will. The will. Agag was the one whose
will was done. And in religion, what is always
spared? Free will. True man's sinful. True man's bad. He does some very bad things.
But the one thing everybody leaves in religion is man's will. He's the one that is what is
spared. Now, let's look at how Saul called
this act of disobedience, obedience. Look in verse 10. Then came the
word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that
I set up Saul to be a king, for he has turned back from following
me, and hath not performed my commandments. And he grieved
Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night. And 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 has gone about, and has 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.
He calls this act of disobedience, obedience. I have performed the
commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, what meaneth
then this bleeding of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing
of the oxen which I hear? Now, he heard all these animals
that God told him to destroy, and he spared them. He spared
the best of them, he says. And Saul said, verse 15, And
Saul said, They have brought them up 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've utterly
destroyed. You see, he puts a positive spin
on his disobedience. We've made this and done this
in order that we can sacrifice these really good animals to
you. Now, everybody knows that was a lie. It didn't have anything
to do with it. But that's what he said anyway. Verse 16, Then
Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I'll tell thee what the LORD
hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.
And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast
thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the LORD
anointed thee king over Israel. And the Lord sent thee on a journey,
and said, Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites,
and fight against them, until they be consumed. Wherefore then
didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon
the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul
said unto Samuel, Look at his reply to all this. Yea, I have
obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the
Lord sent me. That's such a lie, but yet he calls it obedience.
And have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed
the Amalekites, but the people. Now look how he blames the people.
But the people took of the spoils, sheep, and oxen, the chief of
the things, which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice
unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, hath the Lord
as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying
the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken to listen to what I say than the
fat of rams. 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 also has
rejected thee from being king." Now, there is typical significance
to every story in the Old Testament. Every one of these stories are
given to illustrate some aspect of divine truth. And I think
Galatians 4 is what tells us that. I've said this several
times. I would have never dreamed that the story of Abraham and
Isaac and Sarah and Hagar and Ishmael was given to illustrate
the two covenants of works and grace, law and gospel. I wouldn't
have known that. God the Holy Spirit through Paul
tells us that is what it was doing. So this story before us
has typical significance. It teaches us something about
the gospel. Now, what aspect, I've already
mentioned this, but what aspect of man is spared by all religion? The will of man. That's always
spared. the will of men. I don't care
if it's Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals,
everybody believes in free will. And that's what Agag is, the
one whose will was done. He's the one they spared. Now,
you'd think that's the one they should have killed first, the
king of the Amalekites. Yet, he is the one who's spared,
the one whose will is done. Now, most people will admit that
men are sinful, sometimes real bad. Hitler, Osama Bin Laden. Men can be really bad and very
sinful. And he needs grace, but the one
thing he can use to help out in his salvation is his will. His will is still free. He has the power to choose to
be saved. He has the power to accept Jesus
Christ as his personal Savior. Salvation is ultimately left
up to his will, whether or not he'll accept Christ or not. Salvation is ultimately dependent
upon man's free will. And that's a given. That's a
given with most people. Most people would never think
of anything differently. That's just natural to think that way.
You know, I was thinking about myself. I grew up under the sound
of the gospel. I grew up in a church where free
will was denied and God's will was asserted. I grew up that
way. That's what I heard, but I didn't
hear. I still believed in free will.
I didn't even understand what the issue was until God saved
me. And then all of a sudden I understood
what the issue was. The one Amalekite that religion
spares is the free will of man, and when that is spared, you're
left with a religion that's about personal gain, superficial sacrifice,
disobedience, and self-indication. That's what is made up by that
kind of thinking. Look in verse 13. And Samuel came to Saul, and
Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord. I perform the
commandment of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth
this bleeding of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of
the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They've brought
them for the Amalekites, for the people, spared the best of
the sheep, of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the
rest they've utterly destroyed." Now, here's our obedience, but
what it was, was disobedience. And he actually uses a religious
excuse. We were going to use these good
things for sacrifice. That's what we intended on doing.
Now you see the utter lying of the man. Look in verse 20. Look at the failure to take personal
responsibility for sin. 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 spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things, which
should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy
God in Galgal. The people did it. Now he was
in control of the people. His will was that he could have
told the people, don't let this happen. And it wouldn't have
happened, but he spared it. Look in verse 24. And Saul said
unto Samuel, I've sinned for I've transgressed the commandment
of the Lord and thy words. Because he should have stopped
there, shouldn't he? He should have stopped there. I've sinned.
But look, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice,
I just got to overcome. by the people. That's why I've
done this. There's never a real owning of
his own sin before God. He always had an excuse. We were
doing this to sacrifice. We were doing this to, I did
this because of the people. They were the ones that brought
this on me. Now, the sparing of Agag, the sparing
of free will, The Bible completely denies the
free will of man. Now, men do what they want to
do. Understand me. Men do what they want to do.
When I sin, I can't say the devil made me do it. I did what I wanted
to do. We have a will and our will acts. But there is no such thing as
free will. Listen to this scripture, Romans
9, verse 16. It is not of him that willeth. How many different ways are there
to take that? It's not of him that runneth. We're going to
consider that this morning. It's not man's exertion and effort,
but of God that showeth mercy. John 1, 12, and 13, but as many
as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons
of God, even to them which believe on his name, which were born,
not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will
of man, but of God. That is God's testimony concerning
the place of man's will in salvation. Now, in the service outside,
we're going to talk about the place of God's will in salvation,
but here we're looking at the denial of the place of man's
will in salvation. God flatly denies it. Now, the very idea of free will,
I don't know how else to say this, but it's a philosophical
absurdity. It's absurd. There's no such
thing as free will. God, and I want to say this reverently,
but God does not have a free will. He can't will to sin, can
he? Can he up and decide, I'm going
to tell a lie or I'm going to commit a sin? That's impossible
because God's will is controlled by his nature. The will is always
subservient to the nature. God can't will to be evil because
it's against his nature. God's holy. God's will is a holy
will. It's a righteous will. His will
is controlled by his nature. And the very idea of free will
is a philosophical absurdity. It doesn't even make sense. You take a lion. A lion. He eats meat. How come? It's his nature. That's what
he likes. That's what he wants. He doesn't
want anything else. He eats meat. Give him some grass. It's against his nature to eat
grass. Now, cattle eat grass, won't he? That's what he likes.
That's his nature. The will is controlled by the
nature. But somebody says, couldn't the lion eat grass if he wanted
to? Well, I suppose he could. I wouldn't
tell him he couldn't. But it's against his nature. There's no such thing as free
will. Well, what about the scriptures
where it talks about the free will offerings? Well, that's
what it is, a free will offering. You give something because that's
what you want to do, but that's not talking about the freeness
of the human will. The notion of free will makes
man's will sovereign over God's will, and it makes God's will
subject to man's will. It reduces God to a mere spectator. He's just waiting to see what
you and I will do. Can you see how dishonoring that
is to the Lord? He's God. Free will is a denial
and a rejection of God being God. That's what it is. This
thing of free will, it's evil. It's evil. It's a rejection of
God himself. Free will is a denial of what
the Bible says about man. Can a leopard change your spots?
Can the Ethiopian change your skin? How can you that are accustomed
to doing evil do good? The carnal mind, the fleshly
mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the
flesh, natural. cannot please God. And God saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now can that man up and decide,
I'm going to become good. I'm going to start being good.
I'm going to turn things around. I'm going to straighten up my life. Free will is a denial of what
the Bible says about man's sinfulness and free will makes man's will
the Savior, not Christ. Now you think about this. If
God wills the salvation of Judas and Peter and Judas is lost and
Peter is saved, who saved Peter? It wasn't God's will, was it?
It was Peter's will. It was Peter's will. Can you imagine a prayer like
this? I'm kind of quoting a sermon by Charles Spurgeon, but he was
talking about free will of slave. And he gave this prayer that
you would have to pray if you're consistent with free will. God,
I thank thee for my glorious free will. You gave all men equal
opportunity to be saved, and I turned to you of myself. If everybody had done with their
opportunity what I had done with my opportunity, they would all
be saved. There are many in hell who are
just as blood-bought as I am, but I made use of what you gave
me by accepting you." And Spurgeon said, that's the prayer of a
devil, not a believer. Amen. It really is. Free will has as its source rebellion. We will not have this man to
reign over us. And that's what every declaration
of free will is. We will not have this man reign
over us. Our will is free. He cannot control
us. Free will is implicitly, it's
a denial of God's justice because free will says that there are
many people that Jesus Christ died for that are in hell, that
didn't accept him as their personal savior. And even though their
sins were paid for by the blood of Christ, they're still in hell. And the angels would look over
all the empty seats in heaven, all the empty chairs that are
there, and say, this is such a depressing place because of
all these people who Christ died for, but they're in hell. What
kind of place would that be? In John chapter 5, turn with
me there. John chapter 5. Verse 39, the Lord is speaking
to the Pharisees and he says, you search the scriptures for
in them, in the scriptures, you think that you have eternal life. If I can just figure out what
I need to do and what these commandments are, I will have eternal life. But he says, you've missed the
point. They are they which testify of me. And look at this statement
he makes to them. He says, and you will not come
to me that you might have life. You will not come to me that
you might have life. Now, the first thing that I see
in that verse of scripture is men do not have spiritual life. He said, you will not come to
me that you might have life. Life is in me. And you will not
come to me that you might have life. Men are dead in sins. And what does dead in sins mean?
It means you will not come to me that you might have life. Next thing I would notice in
that verse of scripture is that life is in Christ. You will not
come to me that you might have life. All of God's salvation,
all of eternal life is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me
also say this, there is life for all who come. Anybody who
comes to Christ, God will receive. John 637, the Lord said, all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh
to me I will in no wise for no reason whatsoever cast out. If
you come to Christ, you will be received and you'll have life.
And that's the long and the short of it. Nobody ever came to Christ
that God refused. You come to Christ, you'll have
life. But here is the fact of the matter. You won't come. You will not
come to me that you might have life. Well, what if they came?
They'd have life. But the fact of the matter is, you will not
come to me that you might have life. God has to act on the will. Now, I don't understand this,
but only God can do this. God makes somebody willing. Thy people. Psalm 110.3. Thy
people. shall be willing, volunteers in the day of thy power. Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you, both
to will and to do. of his good pleasure." Now, this
is the glory of the gospel. God makes me willing. Now, only God can do this. I
can't make you willing. I can't make myself willing.
You know, I like what John Chapman once made this statement. He
said, you know, if I had a free will, I'd lose 40 pounds. And
that's true. You could just make your will,
do whatever you wanted it to do. I'd do this. Lord, make me willing. That's how I respond to this.
Lord, make me willing. Cause me to do your will. You know, you read through the
Psalms. That's the way David spoke. Cause me to do thy will,
cause me to come to thee. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causes to approach unto thee." I'm not going to
sit there and argue with the Lord over, well, I believe men
have free will. You know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to say, Lord, make me willing. Cause me to be willing. Make
me willing in the day of thy power. Don't leave me to myself. The worst thing that could ever
happen to me is for me to be left to my own will. No, make
me willing in the day of thy power. Don't spare Agag. You know, somebody who spares
Agag, they've never really heard the gospel. They've never really
seen their own sinfulness. They've never really seen their
need of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, don't spare Agag. And I tell
you what, when somebody spares Agag, they're left with a religion
of personal gain. We'll spare the best sheep. This
is about how things are going to be better for me rather than
the glory of God. And it's going to be a religion
of hypocrisy. We're going to say, well, we
did this for good reasons. And there's never really an ownership
of your own sin. You know, when you really believe
in the depravity of the will and your own sinfulness and your
own inability, that's when you're going to call for mercy. Not
until then. Only then, when everything is
your fault, you're totally depraved and it's all your fault, you
can't even will yourself. That, and not before then, that's
when you're going to cry out, God be merciful to me, the sinner. May the Lord deliver us from
the sparing of Agag.