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Reference

1 Samuel 15:1-35

Sermon Notes

Have you ever heard of the book or movie titled, The Stepford Wives?  In the movie, Walter and Joanna Eberhart are the newest residents in a suburban neighborhood in Stepford, Connecticut after deciding to relocate their family from New York City with the loss of Joanna’s job as a television producer.  At first, Stepford seems to be the perfect place to reconnect as a family.  However, it becomes apparent to Joanna that the women in Stepford are incapable of thinking for themselves and later discovers that the reason why they stare vacantly, talk in unison, and seem to live only to please their spouses with no ambition, independent thought, or passion is because the real wives were turned into robots who are fully compliant and agreeable to their wealthy middle-aged husbands.  The men had their trophy wives, but they didn’t really have a marriage that was intimate or personal. 

I read a quote from Tim Keller from his book, The Reason for God, where he describes the danger of making God out of our own imagination by only paying attention to the places in the Bible that do not contradict or offend you:  “If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction.[1]

The temptation we all face is to make God palatable to our own tastes and appetites.  We want a God that fits a mold that we create so that we can like and worship him.  You are not the only one who must address and fight that temptation, I have to do the same.  My task every time I open the Bible before you is to present to you the God of the Bible, instead of the god of our imaginations.

Two weeks ago, as I was preparing my sermon, “Did God Endorse Genocide?”, I reflected on Israel’s rebellion against God by refusing to enter the land of Canaan out of fear.  They reported to Moses and all of Israel that the land of Canaan did indeed flow with “milk and honey,” but they did not believe they were equipped to take the land from the Canaanites.  Here is what they reported: “…the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan” (Num. 13:28–29).

The first group of people mentioned for why the 10 spies did not think they could take Canaan are the Amalekites, who were the descendants of Anak.  We do not know a whole lot about Anak other than that he was a large man (Deut. 9:2; Josh. 15:13) who was violently evil, which was also the reputation of his descendants, which some scholars believe Goliath was a part.  The Amalekites were also known for their vehement hatred of the Hebrew people (more on that in a moment). 

1 Samuel 15 helps us understand how faith in a holy and good God can overcome the kind of doubting that can lead to disobedience.

The Amalekites Doubted the Legitimacy of God

We know that they heard of the way the Hebrew God delivered the Hebrew people from the power of the Egyptian gods.  Every one of the ten plagues that God sent upon Egypt was intentionally designed to mock the gods the Egyptians hoped and trusted in (see Exod. 7:14-12:36).  We can assume that the Amalekites had heard of what happened in Egypt because of what Rahab said to the spies when she hid them within the city of Jericho in her brothel: “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt...” (Joshua 2:9–10).  

The first chance the Amalekites had, they attacked Israel in an effort to destroy them.  God miraculously delivered Moses and the Israelites and used Israel to defeat the Amalekites; God then told Moses: “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven” (Exodus 17:14).  In Deuteronomy 25:17-19, God condemned the Amalekites with these words:

Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget. (Deut. 25:17–19)

If you want to get some idea of the kind of distain the Amalekites had for Israel, you really do not need to look any further than Haman in the book of Esther who existed because of Saul’s failure to obey God’s command to destroy them.  Haman is introduced in Esther as “Haman the Agagite” and most likely was a descendant of King Agag of the Amalekites.  When Mordecai (a Jew) would not bow in homage to Haman, we are told that he was, “…filled with fury” and after he discovered that Mordecai was a Hebrew, he “…sought to destroy all the Jews” (see Esther 3:1-6).  Haman was able to manipulate the king of Persia to give Haman authority to have a letter sent to all the providences of Persia with the king’s seal to, “…destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day… and to plunder their goods” (see Esther 3:12-14). 

The Amalekites, like the Amorites and the peoples of Canaan, were known for their excessive violence, wicked practices, and sexual deviancy related to the gods they worshiped.  The spirit of their distain is heard through Haman’s desire to, “destroy, kill, and to annihilate all Jews… and to plunder their goods.”  So, God commanded Saul, the first king of Israel: “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1 Sam. 15:3).  Notice that Saul was commanded to destroy everything and to take nothing.  This was not an act of imperialism, but an act of divine justice upon the sins and evil of the Amalekites… sins that God had relented from judging for over 400 years, and after demonstrating that there was not any God like Himself, they attacked his people anyway. 

The reason why the Amalekites doubted the legitimacy of Yahweh is found in what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:25, “…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”  Simply put, the Amalekites were self-absorbed with a glory that did not belong to them.

Saul Doubted the Legitimacy of God’s Glory

What about Saul?  What was his sin?  God commanded him, as an extension of the holy justice of the God of the Hebrews, to destroy all of the Amalekites and to plunder nothing.  God’s command was not one of imperialism but justice.  So, what did Saul do?  We are told what he did in 1 Samuel 15:8-9, “And he [Saul] took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction 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 fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.” 

Saul spared the worst of the people and saved the best of the plunder!  As the king, the people followed the command of their king, this is why the blame is Saul’s for not obeying the command of the LORD.  So, we are told that the word of the LORD came to Samuel and this is what God said: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments” (v. 11).  When Samuel heard this, he was angry, and he cried to the LORD all night. 

We will look at Samuel, but for now, notice the way Saul justified his actions when confronted by the prophet Samuel.  The first thing you must notice is that Samuel rose early to meet Saul (because he didn’t sleep all night), and learned that Saul was more concerned about his glory than the LORD’s.  Look at what Samuel was told while looking for Saul: “And it was told Samuel, ‘Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal” (v. 12).  Saul set up a monument not in recognition of God’s ability to deliver, but for his prestige as king; Saul had become wise in his own eyes and in doing so, he became all the more a fool.  This is what the self-justifying and self-glorifying rationalizing of one’s actions over what God has commanded will lead.  Can you see where Saul’s rationalizing was leading him? It leads to the same place it led the Amalekites: “…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”  In the case of Saul, he became his own arbitrator of truth.

Samuel found Saul in Gilgal, but before Samuel could even get a word out, Saul spiritualized and justified his refusal to obey God’s command with religious talk: “Blessed be you to the LORD.  I have performed the commandment of the LORD” (v. 13).  To which Samuel asked: “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and lowing of the oxen that I hear” (v. 14)?  In other words: “Oh… did you now?”  Samuel’s question should have been enough to remind Saul that the command of Yahweh was to destroy everyone and everything regarding the Amalekites, not to spare the worst of the people and save the best of the plunder. 

Notice how Saul rationalized and justified his sin: “Saul said, ‘They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.’” (1 Samuel 15:15).  Samuel reminded Saul that as the king, he was sent on a mission, and it could not have been any clearer: “Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed” (v. 18).  Furthermore, Samuel continued: “Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the LORD” (v. 19)?  Listen carefully to Saul’s response and then I will show you how Saul was able to rationalize away his sin: “And Saul said to Samuel, ‘I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.’” (1 Sam. 15:20–21).   

Saul was self-deceived and we know this because, as Tim Keller explained, “…self-deception is the ability to rationalize and justify things you know are true or are wrong.”[2]  There are three ways a person rationalizes and justify things they know are true or wrong, and we see it in Saul’s response to Samuel.

  1. We blame people or our circumstances. Saul immediately threw his soldiers under the bus by blaming them for sparing the “best of the sheep and oxen.”  In essence, one of the ways we rationalize sin is by looking at our circumstances or the people around us as an excuse for sinning against God.

 

  1. We justify our sin by the good we can do. Saul’s response was essentially: “Yea, I know I was told to slaughter all the sheep and oxen but look at the way I can now sacrifice them to the LORD in worship.”  We look at the good we can do or are doing on the scale of our own wisdom and so long as the good we can or are doing outweighs the bad, we are able to justify our sin. 

 

  1. We justify our sin by comparing our sin to greater sins. Saul justified his sin by telling Samuel: “…the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.”  Do you hear what Saul was saying?  “Samuel, we did obey God because we did most of what he told us to do.”  We look at our own sins like pornography and say, “Well, at least I am not sleeping with my neighbor or coworker. God knows how much I love my spouse and would never sleep with another woman!”  We fudge on our taxes and say, “I know I didn’t report everything, but at least I didn’t rob a bank. At least I reported all of my income.”[3]

So, what was Samuel’s response?  “Stop!”  Stop the rationalizing of your own sin Saul!  What I can’t get over regarding Saul’s tragic story is his use of his “piety in an attempt to cloak his disobedience.”[4]  Think of the ways we use language or a posture of piety to cloak our own disobedience.  What was Samuel’s response to Saul’s rationalization?  It is the response of God’s word to our own rationalization of sin:

Has 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 listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. (1 Sam. 15:22–23)

Application 

What is at the root of the kind of doubt that leads to disobedience?  The worship of self, the worship of an idol above God, or the misplaced trust in the wrong kind of glory?  All of the above.  In light of Saul’s tragic story, Tim Keller is helpful:

At the heart of self-deception is a refusal to handle the most traumatic truth of all. If there is a God, he owns you utterly and you must obey him completely. If there is no God, your life is totally meaningless and nothing is right and wrong and no one knows which end is up. Either there is a God and you owe him completely …

Total submission. Not apart. Not saying, “I’m going to do my thing over here but then I’m going to go and put money in the offering plate.” Completely or meaninglessness, and there’s nothing in between. A self-deceiver is unwilling to think about the implication of the most traumatic … You have to realize that the most traumatic of all truths is the truth there is a God and you owe him everything. Nobody wants to see that. So, force that on yourself.[5]

What Saul had was a “Stepford God” and as a result, all that he was left with was his own sense of piety.  What he lost was far greater than what he gained, for Saul lost his kingdom and he was rejected by God (see vv. 27-35). 

The irony of 1 Samuel 15 is the way that it ends with king Agag being brought to Samuel.  Even though many of his own people that he served as king were slaughtered by Saul and his solders, he came to Samuel “cheerfully” because what he valued most was spared, which was his own life.  As he came, we are told that Agag reasoned: “Surely the bitterness of death is past” (v. 32).  Because many women were made childless under his reign as a king, Samuel did what Saul should have done: “And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD in Gilgal” (v. 33).

In closing, I would like to point you to another King, who, although without sin, “…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8).  In Hebrews 10:5-7, we read of this King: “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.’ Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book” (Hebrews 10:5–7).  Jesus is the perfect King, who, unlike Saul, made himself low on our behalf so that all of our sins could be forgiven.  Agag deserved to be hacked to pieces, Jesus did not deserve the cross.  Yet it was on the cross that Jesus became sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). 

To receive Jesus requires the surrendering of your glory and your idols.  To receive him as the all satisfying sacrifice made for your sins, he must become your monument in place of yourself.  To come to Jesus is to recognize your sin for what it is.  To come to Jesus is to come to a God not of your making, but one you can truly have a relationship with.