Getting Rid of Agag

In 1 Samuel 15:1-3 we find the word of the Lord delivered to Saul by the mouth of Samuel, the prophet. God tells saul to go and destroy all of the Amalekites, take none of their stuff, and leave not a single person alive. However, we find in 1 Samuel 15:8-9 that Saul and his men have left the king and his family alive, as well as some of the best of the herds and belongings.

Then we find Saul lying to Samuel in 1 Samuel 15:13-14, and he seems to truly believe the lie that he tells Samuel. This pattern of believing that he has done the right thing seems to hold true in 1 Samuel 15:20, as Saul continues to defend his actions as having been following the will of God.

Then, in 1 Samuel 15:22-23, we find the oft-quoted "to obey is better than sacrifice." We find here that God would much prefer our total obedience than to have us disobey His will, even if we're disobeying Him for the purpose of sacrifice. 1 Samuel 15:28 shows us that Saul will lose the kingdom of Israel because of his disobedience, even though he thought he was obeying.

After this disobedience, Saul was never given another opportunity to speak to Samuel. 1 Samuel 15:35 does tell us that Samuel mourned for Saul, but never spoke to him again. It also shows us that the Lord was grieved that He had made Saul king.

Let us be careful that we always fully obey the Lord's commands, so that we won't lose the station we've been given. Our obedience to His will is the most important thing we can do in life. When God tells us to remove something from our lives, or from our borders, let's get rid of all of it, and not try to leave any piece of it alive, no matter what the purpose we might have in it.

The Later Glory of the Victory

How often do we go about complaining because of the hard time our family is having? How often do we blame God or question His will because some thing has come up that seems like it's just too hard to bear? 1 Samuel 23 gives us an example where the Lord used the enemies of David attacking the Israelites in order to save David's life. The chapter starts with the Philistines attacking a town called Keilah, and David asks God if he should go and fight them, and God instructs him to save Keilah. So, David follows the instruction of the Lord, and he wins a great victory (1 Samuel 23:1-5).

Saul, the current king, has been trying to kill David, and he sees this as an opportunity, since the city apparently was walled and gated (1 Samuel 23:7). However, the Lord had anointed David to be king, and David was in the will of God in saving the city of Keilah. So Saul here is not fighting a battle against David, but really he's fighting against God. David prays again, and God instructs him to leave the city (1 Samuel 23:10-12). Now remember, the king should have been protecting his people, but instead, he was more worried about killing God's anointed; God's anointed was protecting the people.

So we see toward the end of the chapter that Saul finally almost catches up to David, but God steps in and brings the Philistines back into the picture when a messenger comes to Saul in urgency that they are "raiding the land". Apparently, the part of the land that they were raiding was important enough to Saul for him to turn back to go fight them this time, and David was able to escape. So God used the very thing that David had won the victory over to cause Saul to stumble in his pursuit of David. If we are in the will of God, He can deliver us from one enemy using another one we've already beaten. We need to be sure to get the victory over our enemies when God leads us, so that He can use that for His glory on down the road.