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. Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid in
wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and
utterly destroy all they have, and spare them not. But slay
both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, cattle
and ass. And Saul gathered the people
together and numbered them and tell him, 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
Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul smote the
Amalekites from Havilah 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 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. 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 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 is gone about, and is 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.
And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep
in mine ears? and the lowing of the oxen, which
I hear. And Saul said, They have brought
them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of
the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God,
and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said,
Saul, stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord has said unto me
this night. And he said unto him, 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 to Samuel,
Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and 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 up the spoil, the sheep and oxen and the chief of things,
which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto
the Lord thy God, and yield God. And Samuel said, Hath the Lord
as great delights in burnt offerings and sacrifice as in obeying the
voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken 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 hath also rejected thee from being king. And Saul said unto Samuel, I
have sinned, For I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in
thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore I pray thee, pardon
my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord.
And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee, for thou
hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected
thee from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned about to
go the way, Saul, he laid his hand upon the skirt of his mantle,
and it rent. And Samuel said, The Lord hath
rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given
it to a neighbor of thine that is better than thou. And also
the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he hath not
a man that he should repent. Then he said, I have sinned,
yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people
and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the
Lord thy God. So Samuel turned again after
Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord. Then said Samuel, Bring
ye hither me Agag, the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came
to him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness
of death is past, Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women
childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And
Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. Then Samuel
went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of
Saul. And 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. Let us pray. Our Father, we look at this passage
of Scripture. We are in awe of Your greatness
and Your might. We are in awe of the fact that
when You give a command, it is to be obeyed without question. We know, Father, that Thou art
God, and there is none beside Thee, and there is none like
unto Thee. You purpose it, and it stands. You speak, and it
shall come to pass. Father, we ask tonight, as we
look at this portion of Your Scripture, that You might teach
us Your way, and grant us an understanding of those things
that are before us. We pray for those who are sick,
those who are going through trials, those who have lost loved ones,
those who are recovering from various illnesses. We ask, Lord,
that you might be with them and watch over them and help them.
Father, we ask tonight as we look at this passage of Scripture,
as this story unfolds before us, that you might be pleased
to cause us to worship you and see who you are and adore you and praise you
for who you are. Help us, Lord, to bow in obedience
to you and believe your gospel. We pray in Christ's name, Amen. Now before we look at this, I
want us to look at a few verses of Scripture as kind of a way of putting something
in the back of your head as we look at these Scriptures because this
passage of Scripture deals with actually a very specific subject,
a very specific subject. If you look over Daniel chapter
9, it speaks of our Lord coming into this world for a reason. It says in Daniel chapter 9 in
verse 24, 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy
holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make
reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness
and to seal up the vision and the prophecy and to anoint the
most holy. Said Christ came into this world
to finish something, to make an end of something. Our Lord
finished the work of Calvary. It's important to remember. over
in Psalm 110 when it promised the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, when David was privy to going to the councils as God
spoke to his son in Psalm 110. It says, ìThe Lord said unto
my Lord, ìSit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies
thy footstool. Then over in 1 Corinthians chapter
15, you don't have to turn there unless you just want to. I'll
read it to you. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and
verse 25 and 26 says this, For he that is Jesus Christ must
reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy
that is to be destroyed is death. That's the last enemy to be destroyed. And if that's the last one, then
every other enemy prior to that, or other than that, or before
death is destroyed, is also destroyed because death is the last. In
these verses, what we've seen is that there is an enemy, that
God has ordained and God has commanded to be destroyed and
that enemy must be destroyed. And Jesus Christ came into this
world to destroy that enemy and all the enemies of His people.
And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Now, basically what
you have here in our story tonight is God Almighty commanding His
King, or the King of the people He had chosen, to go out and
destroy every enemy. to destroy all of the enemies,
and he didn't do it. What does that mean? What would
that mean in light of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? It's
the message of false religion actually, that all the enemies
haven't really been destroyed, though they like to talk about
them being destroyed. This chapter in 1 Samuel is the
death nail to the reign of Saul. This is it. Now he will reign
for some time. For a little while he will continue
to be king, but pretty soon another king is going to be chosen. In
the next couple of chapters another king is going to be chosen, a
young shepherd boy named David. And he will have to fight against
Saul. He'll have to fight against Saul. But he will be made king.
Saul is rejected by God. He's already been rejected by
God. He's been rejected by the people now. He's rejected again.
Samuel's rejected. Now the Lord says, I remove the
kingdom from you. And we know his reign is not
physically ended yet, but is sentenced to death and will not
wait but a while until the sentence is carried out. And Samuel will
return to see Saul on his deathbed and not before. The true character
of this man, this man Saul, is brought to a clear and open display. And his actions in the face of
adversity reveal that he has no character at all. The title of my message tonight
is The Real Saul. The Real Saul. It has been said
that struggle and suffering reveal character. And this is a sure
example of it. The gist of this story is that
it was a lack of character that brought about Saul's own troubles
and dilemma. And his dilemma revealed that
he indeed did lack character altogether. Now the Word of the
Lord, it says, came to Saul through Samuel. the prophet, and the
word was very clear. There's no question as to what
the Lord told Saul to do. There can be no question. Saul
was to avenge Israel against the Amalekites who had laid in
wait at the bottom of Sinai and had destroyed the weak and the
frail of Israel from a backward attack. And they were hated and
God had promised that they would be destroyed. And the words of
1 Samuel here, and the words 2 Samuel and verses 1 through
3 are meant to carry the greatest gravity to Saul because he not
only says to Saul, go out and destroy the enemy. He says, the
God who made you king. The God who anointed you king. You remember this. God made you
king. God anointed you king. Now God
tells you to go out and destroy this enemy. He is assured that
this is God's Word. The very God who had anointed
him is king. Why is that important? The employment of these words
in this manner will determine that Saul did not honor the God
who commanded him and therefore did not hold the God who anointed
him in very high esteem. Saul was so pleased with himself
that he didn't really care whether God Almighty had anointed him,
and that's why Samuel said it this way. The God who anointed
you has commanded you, and if you disobey the command, you
dishonor the God. who anointed you. That�s very
important. You see, Saul�s disobedience
was not only to the command of God but it was also a barometer
of what he really thought about God, the God who had anointed
him and made him king. And his actions proved that he
felt that he was king and that he was sovereign and that God
was only at best a secondary player in this entire episode
or he would not have done what he did. He would not have acted
in the manner that He did. The command was simple, search
and destroy. Search and destroy. Take no prisoners
was the command. Kill everything and everybody
in that outfit. Bring everyone who is an Amalekite
or everything that is owned by Amalekites to be nothing. There
were to be no surgical attacks, no concern for collateral damage. All the enemies, man, woman,
child, infant, suckling, and everything they owned were
to be utterly and completely destroyed. In this battle, in
this war, no spoils were to be taken. Everything was to be destroyed. This was a slash and burn policy. And this command from God was
to eventuate in the removal of any evidence that the Amalekites
had ever even existed upon the face of the earth. A total destruction
of the enemy was what was required. And this command could not be
misunderstood. It was very plain. Kill everybody. That's what Samuel told him.
Kill every person, man, woman, child, infant, suckling. Everybody. Kill all the beasts. Don't leave
anything that has breath among the Amalekites to live. And the
reason was simple. Wipe out the Amalekites. Like
they never existed upon the face of the earth. You say, well,
that's tough. Well, yeah. But that's God. So
I don't like it. Don't matter whether you like
it or not. He's still God. And you're still you. Wipe them
all out. What about innocent babies? There
ain't no innocent babies. Ain't no innocent babies. The
Amalekites would grow up to hate God's people just like they did
now. God's going to avenge His elect. The facts are clear. Saul blatantly disobeyed the
Lord's command, didn't he? He just disobeyed it. The Lord
said, kill them all. And this is what happened. Look
at verse 7. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until
thou camest ashore, and that is over against Egypt. And he
took Agag the king. He took a king. He took the king. Preserved the king. but the Amalekites
alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with edge and
sword, kept the king, killed all the people. But Saul and
the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep. and the best of the oxen, and
the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would
not utterly destroy them. But everything that was vile
and refused, they destroyed utterly." So what they didn't want, they
threw away and destroyed. And what they did want, they
kept. Hey Kip, that's what he did. Now these words of verse
9 are very interesting when it says, But Saul and the people
spared Agag. The Holy Spirit records that.
Saul and the people spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites along
with the best of the flocks and the herds while destroying everything
else and everyone else. It may be that the Holy Spirit
is merely recording an agreement between the king and the people
as if a vote perhaps was cast and a conclusion was reached.
Perhaps the words indicate a more sinister agreement along the
lines of mutual collusion to disobey God as if the sheer number
might somehow disallow the command. There are people who feel that
way and it seems to me by what later takes place, that this
was probably a ploy of Saul. And the Holy Spirit recorded
it for us, Saul and the people, to reduce or remove in his own
mind his obvious guilt for not obeying God. Or by involving
the people to spread the guilt around, because that's certainly
what he did when he was finally accused, wasn't it? When confronted
with his guilt, He immediately blamed other people. Did you
notice that as he was reading it? Look at verse 15, and Saul
said, They brought them from the Amalekites. They! I remember
seeing a story one time where there was a bunch of these parents
and their children were being very ugly in a room, and they
were treating each other very badly. And the parents were standing
around like in awe, and this other parent walked in and says,
Aren't there any grown-ups in this place? Isn't there a grown-up
here that can tell these kids what to do? Isn't there a king
in this outfit? Isn't he an absolute sovereign
of his people and only the one who is sovereign over here is
God Himself? Isn't the king in place? And the king says, they
did it. They did it. They brought them
from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the
sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the
rest we have utterly destroyed. They did it, and they did it
for a good reason. They disobeyed God for a good reason. They did. So they would have sheep to sacrifice
unto God. That is what they said. In verses
11 and 35, an interesting phrase is recorded. It is spoken several
times in Scripture. In verse 11, it said, God said,
It repented me that I have set up Saul to be a king. Then in
verse Verse 35 it says this, ìAnd the Lord repented that He
had made Saul king over Israel.î Itís recorded here that the Lord
repented, but we know Scripture says, ìI am the Lord, I change
not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.î Even in this
passage it says, ìThe strength of Israel shall not repent, because
he is not a man.î But what does this mean? It does not mean the
same as when repentance is attributed to man. The context declares
that fact. It says in verse 29, And also
the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent. The strength
of Israel is God Almighty. For He is not a man that He should
repent. So it's not talking about the
same repentance as what men are required to do and whom God grants
for some people to do. When it speaks of God repenting,
it simply means that He will deal with Saul in a manner that
He has not dealt with him up to this point. It doesn't mean a change of mind,
it means a change of dispensation or a change of action. You see, God's gifts and callings
are without repentance, Scripture says. And here it says God does
not repent, He's not a man that He should repent. God's words
to Samuel meant that God was putting Saul out of business.
That's what it meant. And the end was not far away. It was not far away. The news
devastated Samuel, and in no small part, because it would
be Samuel who would have to deliver the bad news to Saul. The Lord
said, It repented Me that I had set up Saul to be king. For he
has turned back from following Me, and hath not performed My
commandments. And he grieved Samuel, and he cried to the Lord
all night long. The Lord begged him not to do
it. Or Samuel begged the Lord not to do it, because Samuel,
he's the one that's going to have to tell the story. He's
the one that's going to have to tell Saul. And when Samuel
went out to meet Saul, verse 12 reveals that Saul had already
set up a place. Samuel was going out toward him
and the word got back, Saul has already set up a place. That's
an interesting phraseology there. What that means is, he had probably
set up a monument to his victory over the Amalekites. And that
was where he was going to take all these animals and disperse
them to the people and so forth. He had set up a home base of
his victory. And in verse 13 begins this revelation
of the character of Saul. Verse 13 says, Samuel came to
Saul, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord,
I have performed the commandment of the Lord." What a liar! What a false man! Man has no
character whatsoever. Oh, but he knows how to work
religion. He knows how to work religion.
I've seen this many times. I've run into men who have personally
called me a false prophet. I mean, seriously. In letters,
in emails, telling other people, putting the word out that I was
a false prophet and what I teach. And meet them on the street and
they say, hello, my brother. How are you? That's religious
hyperbole. And it's garbage. But it's religious. And it works so well. Works so
well. There can be hate, hatred, and
Calumny and collusion among religious men, but when they're out in
public, praise the Lord, it's good to see you, brother. And
that's what he's saying. He knows he's guilty. He's got
Agag stuck back here. There's a whole bunch of sheep
and cattle and oxen following along behind. He says, Bless
you, brother! I've done what the Lord told me to do. This
day have I followed the Lord's commandment. So likewise, the
revelation of false religion in an attempt to circumvent the
command of God in relation to the destruction of the enemy.
Remember, this is really the key. Kill everybody. Every enemy
must die. Every enemy must be put out of
business. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, according
to what Christ said. The first thing revealed is that Saul uses
religion to cover his lie. You wouldn't do that, would you?
He uses religion to cover his lie. The employment of hyperbolic
rhetoric often accompanies the denial of guilt. Those who use
the phrase, praise the Lord, as a punctuation mark to end
their sentences, they're all suspect as far as I'm concerned.
Saul's religious words did not cover the fact that he was obviously
lying. He was obviously lying for a
while. He said, Praise the Lord, brother. It's good to see you.
I've been out doing the Lord's work. That's what I'm doing.
I remember calling a preacher one time. He used to pastor this
church before I got here. And I called him because I'd
heard he was feeling bad. And I called him one morning
to ask how he was doing about 8 o'clock in the morning. And
he answered the phone. I said, How are you doing there, pastor?
He said, I've been talking to Jesus for two hours. And I said, well, how's he doing?
I didn't know what else to say. What did he have to say to that? He wasn't trying to impress me,
you know. Yeah, I've been talking to Jesus for two hours. I was
thoroughly impressed, but I didn't know what else to say but to
ask how Jesus was doing. Because I figured probably Jesus
talked back to him if he'd been talking to him for two hours. Verse 14, Samuel says, Is that a fact?
Is that a fact? You've obeyed the Lord. You've
obeyed the Lord. You've done what the Lord commanded
you to do. Is that a fact? What means this
bleating of the sheep in mine ears and this lowing of the oxen
that I hear? If that's the truth, how come
I keep, you know, I hear these sheep bleating. I hear this baa
everywhere around, this lowing, this mooing of the oxen as they're
getting ready for the end of the day. What seems to be the
problem here? It's an obvious lie, and yet
he comes forth as if everything is hunky-dory. And this is analogous
with the claim of religion that Christ paid the sin debt of all
men, completely destroyed the enemy, but at the judgment, the
sheep of sin begin to bleat, and the one for whom Christ died
is cast into hell. There's no difference than what
they say and what He said right there. Every enemy is destroyed. That's what they say. Christ
paid everybody's sin debt. And then somebody goes to hell.
What happened? Somebody's lying. Somebody is telling a religious
lie because if a dead is paid, a dead is paid. If an enemy is
destroyed, an enemy is destroyed. I have obeyed the Lord. I have destroyed all enemies.
That is what they say Christ did. Religion said He did that.
And then they get people at the judgment winding up perishing
anyway. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. If every
one of the enemies of the elect were not fully destroyed by Christ,
then His claim to have saved His people is a lie? He said,
God said, you wait, I'm going to make every one of your enemies
your footstool. The last enemy to be destroyed
is death. And according to Scripture in
Hebrews chapter 2, by His death, He destroyed death. He took the
power of death away, and those who are born of Him will never
have to face the second death. And if somebody says, somebody
for whom Christ died has to face that second death, they're doing
what Saul did. They're lying. They're lying. It's simply not the truth. Jeremiah
50 says, the Lord looks for sin in Judah and looks for iniquity
in Israel and there is none. Why? because I will pardon whom
I have reserved." I have reserved. Listen to me, if Christ died
in your room instead, all your enemies are dead. They're dead. Saul is a false king and a false
savior because the enemy is not destroyed at all. Religion is
glad to destroy the vile and the refuse. That's what they
did. They kept the best of it. They destroyed the vile and the
refuse. That's what religion does. Religion loves to cast
out the demons of drunkenness and adultery and all kinds of
vile behavior. But they hold on to what they
think they can offer God for a sacrifice, don't they? They
hold on to their own merit. their own righteousness, their
own self-denial, all those things they think they sacrificed to
God, and God said they're nothing but filthy rags and of no value
whatsoever. The religion holds on to them.
I preach it with you. We don't mess around. Nobody
drinks. You believe you have a righteousness before God that
you manufactured? You believe you're saved because
you walked down an aisle? You believe you're saved because of your
own free will? You're holding on to the choice sheep and killing
all the refuge is what you're doing, but you're still a liar. Verse 15, the blame game. What do you do when you're backed
into a corner and you're caught with bleating sheep and lowing
oxen and all of a sudden you're discovered to be a liar? What
do you do? You blame somebody else. That's
what religion always does. And Saul said, They brought them.
They brought them from the Amalekites. For the people spared the best
of the sheep of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord, and the rest they
have utterly destroyed. Blame game. Adam did it in the
garden. That woman you gave me, he did it. That snake you made.
They, the people, saved the good stuff. They saved the good stuff
for Jesus. They destroyed everything else,
they said. Our Lord said the good stuff
they saved was condemned, didn't He? He said everything is condemned
in Melchizedek. There's condemned, kill it, put
it out of business. We saved the best of the condemned stuff. Well, we want to give the Lord
the best of the condemned stuff. This is disobedience at its heart,
and the heart of it is in gratitude. It really is. Verse 16 through
19, Samuel said unto Saul, wait a minute, stay right here, stop,
stop, stop what you're saying, stop what you're doing, listen,
listen. He said unto him, when thou wast
little in thine own sight, you remember when Saul was pointed
out to be the king, Saul said, I'm nobody, my people are nobody,
I'm just, you know, Benjamite, you know, we're a small group,
small group. When thou wast little in thine
own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel?
Didn't God do that for you? And didn't the Lord anoint thee
king over Israel? And the Lord sent thee on a journey,
and said, Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites,
and fight against them until they are utterly consumed. Wherefore
then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord? But didst
fly upon the spoil, and jump on those things that you wanted.
Keep that king Agag, and keep those best sheep and bulls. You
flew on them. You jumped on them. and this
evil in the sight of the Lord. He said, after all the Lord has
done for you, you do this. This is how you respond to the
Lord who has done all this for you. And that's the heart of
all disobedience is a base in gratitude to God for what He's
done for you. What kind of God will accept
what He has condemned? Have you ever thought about that?
You won't accept what you've condemned. What you've thrown
away, you don't want somebody to come back to you and say,
here's your gift. Do you? Do you? You throw it out in the
garbage can and it gets smelly in with all the rest of the garbage.
Somebody goes to the garbage can and gets it out and says,
I've got something for you. I've thrown that away. That's nothing
to me. That's garbage to me. That's
a condemned thing to me. Well, I want you to have it and
I want you to accept me because I'm giving it to you. How stupid
is that? What kind of God would react
that way? The kind of God that will accept disobedience as if
it were obedience. The kind of God that says, don't
you offer anything and then accepts you if you offer something. That
doesn't work. There is nothing in or about
man as he is born in this world that is acceptable to God. Do
you understand that? As you are born in this world,
there's not one thing about you, not one thing, not one nucleus
in one cell of your humanity that is acceptable to God. You're
born in sin and conceived in iniquity and guilty and condemned
already in Adam. You come forth from the womb
telling lies. There's nothing you can do. You can't do anything
but sin. You drink iniquity like water. You hate God and you hate
everybody else. The poison of vile snakes is
under your lips. There's no peace before God.
God is not going to accept what you've got. Nicodemus found that
out. He said, We know that thou art
a man come from God because no man could do these things except
God be with him. The Lord said, You can't understand
that. What do you mean? I've said it.
You don't understand what He said. You've got to be born again. You've got to be born all over.
You've got to be made anew. Nothing about you is acceptable
by God. Nothing whatsoever. You see, the old man must die.
He must die because what He is and what He has done is worthy
of death. Nothing about Him is worthy of anything other than
death. He has nothing to offer God that God will accept. And
to offer His doings when God has condemned it is utter and
complete disobedience and rebellion. That is what it is. Look at verse
22. Samuel said, Have the Lord as
great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, obeying the voice
of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than
sacrifice. And to hearken, listen, pay attention,
is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft or divination. And stubbornness is as iniquity
and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the
Word of God, He has also rejected thee. Then in verses 24 and 25 you
have false repentance. False repentance. And Saul said
unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment
of the Lord in thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed
their voice. You believe that? You believe
a king feared the people and obeyed their voice? That's another
lie. You're still blaming somebody else for his problem. The devil
made me do it. You know. Samuel said, in verse 25, he
says, Now therefore I pray thee, pardon my sin. He said that to
Samuel. And turn again with me that I
may worship the Lord. Oh, I just want to go back and
rededicate my life. That's what I want to do. I want
to rededicate and reconsecrate, you see. I want to go back and
worship the Lord. False repentance seeks absolution
from men. I did it for years. Years in
false religion. I made so many trips down to
the front of the church with tears in my eyes so I could get
the pats on the backs from people who tell me everything is alright.
You get absolution, forgiveness, and pardon from men. Only God can pardon. Only God
can forgive. False repentance is about getting
caught with your hand in the cookie jar. That's what happened
to him. He got caught. Would he have
repented had he not gotten caught? No. Had the Lord not showed up
on the scene and confronted him, there would have been no repentance.
He would have been sacrificing lambs and bullets that were condemned
to this very day. True repentance is granted by
God. Do you understand that? And it's not about fear of wrath.
Do you know that? Not about being afraid. Repentance
is not about being afraid. It's about thanksgiving wrought
in the heart by an understanding of the goodness of God. It is
the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. Repentance
is changing your mind about what you believe recommends you to
God. And what you change your mind about is it ain't your goodness
that recommends you. It's His goodness that recommends
you. His goodness in Jesus Christ. Saul was rejected. He will soon
be removed from office because somebody better is in the way.
That's what the whole book of Hebrews is about. Jesus Christ
is better. Better than the angels. Mediator
of a better covenant, better than the priesthood of old, better
than the sacrifices, better than the words spoken to the fathers
by the prophets. Better. Verse 26-28 it says,
And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return to thee. For thou
hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected
thee from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned about to
go away, Saul grabbed ahold of Samuel's mantle, or the skirt
of his mantle, and he tore it. And this is what you call, what
the teachers here would call a teaching moment. You know,
one of those teaching moments when a bluebird lands on a windowsill
or snowflakes fall, and you can take the children and say, ah,
this is what we're doing. We're studying weather this weekend.
This is a teaching moment. He ripped that mantle, ripped
that skirt of the mantle of Samuel. And Samuel says, See that? God
has ripped the kingdom right out of your hands. This is a
teaching moment. That's what he gave him. Samuel
said, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this
day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine that is better. That
neighbor is out in the field right now taking care of the
sheep. killing bears and lions with the weapons of His hands,
making up poems and singing songs. He does not have any idea that
pretty soon His angels are going to come to Him and anoint Him
as King over Israel. God will not repent of this requirement
that He has made that every enemy must be killed. The enemies of
the elect must be destroyed, every one of them without exception,
or the elect will not be saved. If one enemy or one sin remains,
salvation does not exist. In all religious excuses, hyperbole
and promise and repentance is just manifold expressions of
disobedience. A servant of God takes no prisoners.
Takes no prisoners. The minister of the gospel, the
believer of the gospel, those who tell others about Jesus Christ
are going to be accused of being hard and cold and narrow. and
difficult. And you are. You know why? Because you have a command from
God, take no prisoners. Every enemy of God, every enemy
of the elect has to be called out for what they are and they
have to be destroyed. They have to be confronted. But you know,
I've got some friends. I'm sorry. I know you love your
friends. I don't mean stop loving them,
stop being their friend, but I'm telling you, if you tell
them the truth, you're killing them, and they need to be killed. Because unless you die, unless
they die, they'll never live. They'll never live. And you do
them no favors by letting them off. and bringing them home to
sacrifice to God, if God has already condemned them. The servant of God takes no prisoners.
In verse 32, then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag, the
king of the Amalekites. And Agag said unto him delicately,
Oh, Agag, he ain't got no fix. Poor old Agag. It's kind of a
precarious situation to tie a rope. He's walking right now, of course,
being a king. Him being a little religious,
too, he says, surely now all the bitterness of this war and
death is past. We don't have to continue this
battle that we can let up now. Surely, Samuel said, as thy sword
hath made women childless, So shall thy mother be childless
among women." And Samuel hewed Agag into pieces. Cut him up like wood. Cut him into pieces before the
Lord in Gilgal. That day forward Samuel and Saul
parted company until the day that Saul died. and the Kingdom
was finally taken from them. And the message is plain and
simple. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Father bless us to
understand and pray in Christ's name. Amen.