September 29, 2019: Day 15 – I Samuel 15

We have a problem Houston.  We might want to think of Saul as having compassion in this chapter, which is why he killed all the women and children but saved the king and the sheep of the king.  I’m not sure I would go that route.  So God commands Saul to go and kill the Amalekites and to make sure that no individual and no livestock is kept alive.  Saul slaughters them but keeps the king and some of the best livestock.  The reason he gives Samuel, who still happens to be the high priest, is that he wanted to sacrifice these perfect animals to the Lord and present the king of the Amalekites to the Lord.  He tries to who that his intentions were good.

The response he gets, and it is a great response, is do you think that God prefers sacrifices over obedience?  You disobeyed thinking you would please the Lord.  It is not okay to disobey just because you think you have a better idea than the commandments of the Lord.  It is not okay to second guess God and come up with a better plan than the plan that God has.  It is never okay to do that.  

Then something interesting happens.  Saul is sorry for what he has done.  He apologizes, he recognizes his sin, but he is not forgiven and he is not given a second chance.  Samuel says it is fine for you to be sorry but the Lord will remove the kingship from you and give it to someone else.  Remember he has already told Saul this news a number of chapters earlier.  But as we said yesterday it seems almost forgotten and I wonder if it was simply not going to be enforced until this new event, this new disobedience takes place.  

Almost as a display of the anger of the Lord, Samuel, again who is the high priest, takes the king of the Amalekites and hews him into pieces to show that this was not what the Lord wanted.  A bit gory here.  And this chapter ends with the Lord being sorry for making Saul king. So, if you are God and you know how things are going to turn out, how can you be sorry.  What would you expect.  But that is how we are seen to God, He is sorry every time that we sin and turn our back on him.  But the difference between us and Saul is that we have an eternal sacrifice which cleanses us from our sins.  That sacrifice is God himself found in Jesus who allows us to when we say like Saul: we are sorry, to actually make a difference and wash us clean from our sin.