Tonight we are back in 1 Samuel 15. 1 Samuel 15, we're looking tonight at verses 1-9. Hear now the word of God. Then Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over his people, over Israel. Now, therefore, listen to the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him, but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. Then Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Tilaim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. Saul came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley. Saul said to the Kenites, go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you with them, for you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt. So the Canaanites departed from among the Amalekites. So Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He captured 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, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed." Let's pray and ask God's blessing. Lord, thank you for your word, even grim chapters like this one. And Lord, bless this word. May your light shine upon us through your word so that we might live unto you. In Jesus' name, Amen. The story of the fall of leaders are never simple tales of a single, solitary, bad decision. Rarely is a man riding high and then he makes an unprecedented mistake plunging him into instant and utter ruin. Most often there are trends and patterns of behavior that bring a person down lower and lower by degrees until he finally bottoms out. Recently I was reading some behind-the-scenes reporting of the downfall of a popular football coach, and how his life had spiraled out of control for a period of years. When his university finally fired him, many assumed that it was just a bad loss to one of their rivals in a big game, or maybe it was a string of losses. But the truth was that the wheels were coming off the program long before his team ever hit bottom on the field. It's usually not just this one thunderbolt experience. This is true in our passage here tonight as we see yet another instance of Saul's folly. Though we might be tempted to think that this one single event led to Saul's ruin, it is really just one more example of a long-standing problem, another chapter in the same old story. This latest incident is certainly significant, but it is hardly the exception to an overall excellence of life and rule. This is just further proof that Saul had been a failure from the start and he continues to fail. He repeatedly fails. He is a chronic failure. So as we look at this passage this evening, I'm going to first focus on the Lord's instruction, then we're going to look at Saul's obedience, and then finally Saul's fatal mistakes. Although King Saul had not paid careful attention to instructions in the past, the Lord sends his spokesman Samuel to try once more with Saul. Samuel himself had become very disillusioned with the man whom he had anointed, but Samuel was a man under orders. So when the Lord sent Samuel, Samuel obeyed. He went and he did as instructed. Approaching King Saul, he gives a clear and explicit instruction about Saul's new assignment. Samuel begins by reminding Saul that the Lord had sent Samuel in the first place to anoint Saul as king over his people Israel. So Saul's authority as king is derived from the Lord and through the ministry of Samuel. And thus Saul had a solemn duty to listen to Samuel and to obey the Lord's command. Saul was not the leader of the nation because the people had demanded a king. No, Saul was the leader because the Lord had anointed him, had set him apart to be king. On that basis, Samuel charges Saul to listen to the words of the Lord. Saul must pay careful attention to God's instruction so that he might be careful to do all that the Lord required of him. Dale Ralph Davis in his commentary underlines the importance of this when he writes, That is a covenant king's first priority. He must submit to Yahweh's will. That is the matter that matters in this chapter. The real question is, will he listen and then will he submit to God's clearly revealed will? Listening to God's Word so that you know what his will is and then you can submit yourself in obedience. What exactly did the Lord require of Saul? What was his particular assignment here? The Lord tells Saul that he, the Lord, would punish Amalek for what Amalek did to Israel. How he set himself against Israel on the way when Israel was coming up from Egypt. And the way that this would be carried out was through Saul. So the Lord goes on, Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him. Put to death man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. Through the sword of Saul and through the armies of Israel, God was going to punish the Amalekites for their misdeeds. Now, at this point, we have to pause and realize that this is fully within God's right to do. He puts these Amalekites under the ban, the ban of total destruction, not for some capricious reason or arbitrary cause, He has good reason. He is being just. They had done what they had done and they deserved extermination. And as the Lord had authority to do so, He is now commanding Saul to do so. Now this seems very harsh and severe to people of our own age. They look at this and they say, how could a good God command such a thing, an extermination of a whole group of people? Isn't that genocide? And the answer is no. God, the sovereign God, has authority over all of his creatures, over every nation. And when a nation practices horrible evil, he may, and he often does, bring them down to utter ruin. Think of Sodom and Gomorrah. and how those cities were so full of wickedness and what did God do? He sent destruction and completely obliterated their place so that they were no more and that's what he's going to do with the Amalekites punishing them for their misdeeds. Now some historical background helps us to better understand this. Amalek the namesake of this tribe was actually a grandson of Esau, Esau the twin brother of Jacob. So the descendants of Amalek were actually cousins of the Israelites. They dwelt in the land of Eden to the south of Judah. When the Israelites were coming up out of Egypt in the Exodus, the Amalekites attacked them and this fact is recorded in Deuteronomy 25 remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came up from Egypt how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary and he did not fear God so these Amalekites lay in wait for the Israelites who are coming from Egypt, and as they're coming weary from their journeys, they're picking off the stragglers, the weak, the old, the vulnerable. This is some of the most despicable activity that a nation could ever engage in against another nation. Here they are weary, needy, and you're taking advantage of them to kill those who are lagging behind and to do this to your own cousins makes this all the worse if these were complete strangers we would say that's bad behavior but when it's your own family your cousins it's inexplicable that they would do this well for this reason the Amalekites were under God's wrath and curse and they were to be placed under God's ban. And the very next verse in Deuteronomy 25 makes this point. Therefore it shall come about when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven you must not forget so God told them and Moses reminded them that this judgment which was placed on Amalek at the time of the exodus would come to fruition when you're settled in the land, when you're living in security, and then you have to take care of this unfinished business. Then God's wrath will come against these Amalekites. And of course that gives the people of Amalek plenty of time, hundreds of years, to repent of what they've done. to look in the mirror and say, you know, our ancestors behaved very badly when we were attacking our cousins, the Israelites, as they came up from Egypt. We should not have done that. Let us make amends. Let us go to them and plead their forgiveness. And even more, let us cry out to God, lest He destroy us. But the Amalekites had done no repenting. over the centuries that had passed, and the Amalekites were ripe for destruction. And now the time has come for God's judgment to be executed on them. Some 300 years after their original infraction, God is now placing them under the ban, and King Saul is tasked to carry out the execution. It must be thorough, It must be complete, leave no one alive, not even the animals. Period. That is the end of the instruction. Now initially it seemed that Saul was going to do as he was told. He summoned the people and he numbered them in a southern location named Talaim. There in Tilaim were 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. This was a worthy army to carry out the Lord's death sentence upon these rascals from Amalek. Saul then came to the city of Amalek and he set an ambush in the valley. So he is making prudent preparations for war. He is using tactics that had worked very well for Joshua during the campaign for the conquest of the land of Canaan. And at this point, before the trap is actually sprung, Saul does something very commendable, something noteworthy. He approaches the Kenite. a desert tribe that had been helpful during the days of Moses. The Kenites had shown kindness to all of the sons of Israel after the Exodus. In fact, these Kenites were everything the Amalekites were not. The Kenites were good and kind to the Israelites. They had aided and assisted them whenever possible. Well, as it seemed, the Kenites would be in the line of fire once the attack had started. And so Saul prudently advises the Kenites to go down from among the Amalekites so that he would not destroy the innocent Kenites along with the guilty Amalekites. Their track record in helping Israel had earned them the courtesy of such a warning and very wisely these Kenites took Saul's advice they left the Amalekite area before Saul attacked and honestly this shows real foresight wisdom and discretion on Saul's part we can't say he's bad or wrong for moving these innocent Kenites out of the way He's actually very thoughtful. When it came to the Amalekites, however, Saul was not gracious or thoughtful. God had told him to strike them and that is precisely what Saul did. He aggressively attacked these troublemakers and he defeated them. Indeed, he attacked them over a broad area from Habila as far as sure which is to the east of Egypt. He utterly destroyed all of the Amalekite people with the edge of the sword, young and old, women and men, boys and girls, infants and children. Every Amalekite died except one. Saul captured Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive. and he held him as a prisoner. Now, what Saul planned to do with Agag is really uncertain. Would he put him to death later on? Would he humiliate Agag, turn him into a pitiful, begging wretch? We don't know what Saul was thinking, but we do know what Saul did. Saul spared Agag. Well, there's one other matter which our text notes, Saul also spared the best of the livestock, the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good. These beasts were not destroyed. That's not to say that no animal died in this whole affair. Everything that was despised and worthless was quickly, utterly destroyed. the old sheep, the sickly or injured oxen, the fatlings that were maybe not so fat anymore, a lamb who had a deformity or an imperfection. These despised beasts, these worthless animals were mercilessly slaughtered, but not the prize-winning livestock. Those were too good to be liquidated. They could be used for breeding purposes. They could produce a superior herd for Saul and for his cronies. Now in all honesty, we have to admit that Saul was largely obedient here. He followed most of the Lord's commands. He did attack and smite the Amalekites. He did put the Amalekite population to the sword. He killed men and women, infants and children, young and old, male and female, and he did utterly destroy much that needed to be destroyed. He was mostly, mainly, obedient. But he was not wholly obedient. Now, he wasn't wholly disobedient. He wasn't even mainly, mostly disobedient. The percentages were extremely high for his performance when it came to exterminating the population of Amalek. If there were a thousand Amalekites, then his percentage was 99.9%. That's statistically perfect, but it's not actually perfect. Agak is the one exception. And so, as most of the Lord's will was carried out, not all of God's will is carried out. And God demands careful, thorough, complete obedience. He doesn't accept a high percentage, 99.9. He doesn't except statistical perfection as actual perfection. But he says, if you're going to obey me, you have to obey me jot and tittle. Thoroughly, completely, exhaustively, without exception. This shows us why the law is such a harsh taskmaster. Because even if we obey, Most of the commandments, most of the time, it's not our 99% obedience that's really crucial. It's that small but significant percentage of disobedience. And as the Apostle Paul points out, if you break the law at one point, you've broken the whole law. You have to keep it all. God requires perfect, perpetual, personal obedience to every single commandment, all the time, by the letter of the law and in the spirit of the law. And you are never allowed any deviation, any variation. And even the most holy and consistent Christian has to look at that and say, that's not me. And honestly, it's more than one tenth of one percent. It's quite a few percent, actually. My batting average is not nearly what I would want it to be. In fact, in reality, it is quite low because even those commands that I do manage to keep, I often keep them from wrong motives and with wrong goals and ends in view. And so oftentimes, my outward obedience is betrayed by my internal failings of motivation and heart and desire. This is why Isaiah can say that even our righteousness is like filthy rags before God. Now as we honestly think about this, it drives us to two places. It drives us first of all to a sense of despair over our own ability to keep the law. And we have to say I don't keep the law. In fact, it's true, I stumble at many points. So it drives us to the end of our self-confidence and the end of our sense that I have done enough to earn God's favor. But then it drives us beyond that oasis of despair to Christ. who did keep the law. Thoroughly, completely, entirely, personally, perpetually. Jesus kept every single command of the law at every time, simultaneously. And he did so in such a way that he never let the least bit of the law, the least jot or tittle, fall away. His obedience was absolute, utter, perfect obedience, in spirit as well as in letter. Every good thing he was required to do, he did do. Every evil thing that he was prohibited from doing, he never did. And so his obedience is a seamless garment. And this seamless garment, which is His righteousness, is not for Himself alone. It is for you, and it is for me, and it is received through faith. Because when we believe in Christ, His perfect righteousness based on His full obedience to every jot and tittle of the law, that beautiful robe of righteousness is given to us and we are clothed in it. And so if we had been put in Saul's place, we would have equaled Saul's failure or we would have probably eclipsed Saul's failure. So we can't set ourselves up and say, oh, tut-tut on Saul. He was such a bad man. I would have never done that. We would have all done that. We would have all been Saul's, placed in that spot and given that opportunity. That's why we do not put trust in ourselves. And if you are somehow still trusting in yourself for your own righteousness, for a righteousness of your own making, Don't look inside yourself, look outside yourself to an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ which is ours through faith. And so we come before God not clothed in our own good efforts. We come in the righteousness of Jesus and we are accepted through His righteousness. Well, the problem comes for Saul and that his obedience was not complete. He was not completely obedient. Saul left Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive. He spared Agag, who was probably the single most important Amalekite who was alive in that whole day. That one instance of disobedience to God violated the universal nature of God's command. The Lord had said, now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has and do not spare him. And he meant absolutely everyone, including Agag, the king, the head, the representative of the Amalekite people. Obedience was also very spotty when it came to the animals. The best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings and the lambs, all that was good in his sight, these he also spared. And when it comes to the animals, here's where Saul's percentages go down precipitously. Saul actually kept quite a bit of livestock, far more than a single solitary lamb or ox or sheep. And though he would later try to suggest that he kept those animals in order to sacrifice them to the Lord, that excuse really doesn't wash. And neither is it accurate to say that the people took the animals, as if Saul was some innocent victim of popular opinion. The fact is that Saul broke the Lord's commands by keeping any and all of those animals alive. they were all supposed to be destroyed. Saul's failures are even more significant when they are seen against the background of the war with the Amalekites. Commentator Baldwin observes that Saul is here engaged in a holy war as opposed to a war of aggression or of self-defense. It is a war at God's command, carried out as His judgment and on His behalf. The victory is the Lord's, so there is no material advantage for the army. All the spoils of war belong to the Lord and are therefore holy. People and property alike are put under the ban for this reason. No one may take possession of them. Now, in what we might call a normal war, whether it's an aggressive attack or an act of self-defense, the victor keeps the spoils, and rightly so. That was allowed under God's law, but not in a holy war, not in a war that God initiated as an act of judgment against a nation under His curse. In those cases, in this holy war, the spoils belong to God and God said, burn them all, destroy them all. They're all to be liquidated. And so Saul's disobedience is not merely a violation of a particular specific command, although it is a clear and direct violation of specific commands. This is also a completely inappropriate act in defiance of the holiness of God's war against these wretched evildoers. It is as if Saul wants to make this the type of war where he is free to collect booty for himself. But that's not the kind of war that God had sent Saul to engage. This war is a punitive action against evildoers whom the Lord himself is punishing." So in reality, Saul is actually declaring himself autonomous. He is saying, I am a law unto myself. Saul is acting as though he can write his own rules, make his own decisions, regardless of what God had told him to do. God said, kill them all. Saul replied, I'll spare King Agag. Saul commands him to destroy every last animal. Saul decides to cull out the best of the herds for himself. You see, Saul is exalting his own opinion above God's word and against God's revealed will. This is what sin usually, often is. It's an exaltation of my will over God's will. And every time you and I face temptation of any sort, where we have a clear, thus saith the Lord, and we decide, you know what? I'm not going to obey that. We are doing exactly what Saul does here. We're declaring ourselves independent and autonomous. We are a law to ourselves. I will do as I see fit. I will not feel bound to obey what God has called me and told me to do. If he has forbidden something and if I want to do it, well, I'm just going to ignore his prohibition and go ahead and do what I want to do anyway. If he has told me that I ought to do some good thing, but if I don't care to do that good thing, I'll just ignore what he has said and I will neglect my duty. This is so often how sinful human beings behave. This is sin in practice. It is the rejection of God's will and the promotion of our own human opinions. It's the exaltation and the worship of self. This is the spirit of our age. We do not live in an age where people even generically respect authority and are likely to obey. We live in an age where people say, I will make my own rules, I will do as I please, and nobody's going to tell me otherwise. And so they just push ahead. They are autonomous agents who think that they are God and they despise the true and living God. Now what makes this so very egregious in this case is that Saul is the Lord's anointed. He is the king of Israel. He is the theocratic ruler of God's people. and his position as the theocratic king makes all of his disobedience all the more heinous. Not only is he sinning, but he is setting a sinful example which leads all of those who are around him and under him into sin themselves. His wickedness excuses and emboldens their wickedness. Because they can always retreat into saying, well, King Saul did it. What's the big deal? That's why it's so very important that leaders behave. That they are humble, obedient servants of Christ. And that's true in the civil realm. It's true in the family sphere. It's especially true and important in the church. When church leaders, when pastors and elders are not behaving, are not obeying, when they think that they can make their own rules and do as they please, they are a reproach and a blot on the name of Christ. and they teach God's people by their disobedience that there is no problem with Christians living disobedient lives. I'm not about to say that pastors generally or your pastor specifically or any of your elders are perfect men who never fail. This is not to set up the leaders of the church as these examples of perfect obedience. But it's simply to say that they are striving for that, and when they do stumble and fall, they set an example of humble repentance before God's people, where they're able to own their own sins rather than pointing the finger elsewhere and saying, it's that guy's fault. It's her fault. I wouldn't have done what I did except for he made me do it. The whole blame-shifting game. is just so phony and so false. Real godly leaders will stand up when they have made mistakes, when they have committed sins. They will honestly own it. They will confess it and they will seek the forgiveness and the reconciliation of those they have sinned against. I've been in Presbyterian circles for a long, long time. I've seen a lot of pastors behaving badly. And what happens normally, typically, when church leaders are caught in bad behavior? They blame shift. They push it off on someone else. They say, oh, well, if you had come to me sooner, I would not have done that. So it's your fault. Because you didn't come to me sooner. And this is just so wrong. We are to set an example of humble, godly consistency. That's why you need to pray so very much for me and for your session. That we would be men of integrity and we would not use our positions of authority to lord it over the congregation. but that instead we would humbly serve the congregation in a Christ-like fashion. It's much of what David will do in his kingship, but you see none of it in Saul. And then finally, what makes this whole situation so unbelievably bad is that Saul doesn't seem to care at all. Not a bit. He's very casual in his disobedience. He doesn't appear to have pangs of conscience over this. He just shrugs his shoulders and he goes his way and does as he pleases. And it's no big deal to Saul. And even in the rest of this chapter where Samuel is going to come and nail him to the wall, Saul is like, well, what's the big deal? These animals So what? And Agag, well, he's just Agag, just one guy. Calm down, Samuel. That indifference that so often is the case among the ungodly is just breathtaking. You would want Saul to look at himself and say, oh, what have I done? But he's like, Full speed ahead. I don't care. Because I'm the captain of my own destiny and I'll do as I please. I write my own rules and nobody's going to correct me. And if I want to keep some animals for my herds, who's going to say that's wrong? It's godless. It's lawless. It's self-idolatry. And so as we see Saul, we're seeing him in slow motion falling fatally to his own ruin. He is plunging headlong to his own destruction." Very sobering. Let's pray. Lord, thank you that you have shown us this picture of a man carried away and falling to ruin. And Lord, we pray that you would give us, especially those of us who are leaders, leaders in the home, leaders in the church, leaders in the community, give us the integrity and humility to submit our hearts to you and to your word, to render obedience out of gratitude and thanks, and never to think ourselves above your law and beyond your authority. Hear us, Lord, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.