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 Telaim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek, and set an ambush in the valley. I Samuel 15:1–5.
This was one of the wars of annihilation, very similar to the ones which occurred in the book of Joshua. The story behind it can be found in Exodus 17: Then Amalek came and fought against Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose men for us, and go out, fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” And Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought against Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. So it came about when Moses held his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were heavy. Then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sun set. So Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this in a book as a memorial, and recite it to Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” And Moses built an altar, and named it the Lord is My Banner (Jehovah-nissi); and he said, “The Lord has sworn; the Lord will have war against Amalek from generation to generation.” Exodus 17:8–16.
It was a difficult thing that faced these slaves coming out of Egypt, unprepared for war, going along peacefully with their herds and flocks, and all of the women and the little children moving along with them—to be suddenly and viciously set upon by the warriors of Amalek, who came and began to slaughter the children, women, and men promiscuously. There was no way that these ex-slaves, these Israelites, could prevail against them, except by one thing: by the authority of God that was flowing down while Joshua entered in to get a few men together to fight against them. It was not a matter of an even match. The odds were overwhelmingly against them, but the supernatural power of God flowed to them through the intercession. Even that was such a strain, and the flow was so difficult that Moses scarcely could hold his hands up. I think it was beyond a physical weariness; it was a spiritual warfare. When it was all over and Amalek and his warriors fled, the Lord said, “I will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. I will blot out their memory forever. Write it in a book Moses!” So the war which takes place in I Samuel 15 was not a thing which was unscriptural in their day, but a thing which God had purposed to do from the days of that vicious assault that would have destroyed the whole body of God’s people. They were in no way prepared to defend themselves; there would have been a complete plunder, except that the grace of God flowed down through the prayers and the faith of Moses.
Saul, the first king, the first one to finally get the unfinished business left from the days of the judges (which Israel was lucky to survive), had a purpose set before him. He was told what to do: “Go down and destroy all of them.” So Saul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt. And he captured Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. I Samuel 15:7–8. He almost obeyed God. God had said to destroy them all. He did not want anyone to come back with a triumphant parade—“Look, here’s the king!” He just wanted Saul to get the job done and have it over with, to do the thing He told Saul to do. 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. Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not carried out My commands.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night. I Samuel 15:9–11.
This is an example for us who believe. When we become Christians and start serving the Lord, more particularly in this Walk, we are anxious to give the Lord our bad habits. We lay all of the things that were destroying us willingly at His feet. But it is something else to give up the pet thing that is close to your nature, the thing that you have identified with that is of the old self and flesh life. “Well, it’s not such a bad thing after all, you know. Really, I have to laugh when I sometimes think about it. I know I should repent of it, but it’s such a cute little sin. So I tuck it away, and I take it out and pet it once in awhile.” It may be a little pride, a little arrogance, a little rebellion that you like to indulge in from time to time. “Oh, I don’t give way to it very often, but I have a temper like a shotgun. It just goes off! Everyone has faults. Everyone sins a little bit, you know. I don’t think it’s such a bad thing after all.” It’s your Agag.
And Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul; and it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, then turned and proceeded on down to Gilgal.” (In a man who will not completely obey God, there will be just enough of the old flesh that he will be setting up monuments to himself. Somewhere behind disobedience, there is always an ego trip.) And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! (You know he’s feeling good; he has built a monument to himself, he has King Agag to display, he has all of these things he thinks are going for him.) I have carried out the command of the Lord.” I Samuel 15:12–13. This is always the way of those who do not completely do the will of the Lord: they still protest when you face them. “I did it, I did what God wanted me to do!” Ah, but was it with a whole heart? Did you really do what the Lord wanted you to do? Did you follow it through? Or somewhere along the line did your obedience fall short of what God really wanted? Of course, that is what you have in Ananias and Sapphira. They seemed to be ready to obey, but they were saying to themselves, “I don’t think God is going to care if I keep this money and we just hide it away someplace so we’ll have something for a rainy day. In case this whole thing blows up, we’ll have a little bit of money left over.” When people do not totally and wholly follow the Lord their God, somewhere behind their reluctance is fear, pride, unbelief, or rebellion.
But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my 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 oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God (I’ll bet); but the rest we have utterly destroyed.” Then Samuel said to Saul, “Wait (in other words, “Hold on, buddy, have I got something to tell you”), and let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And he said to him, “Speak!” And Samuel said, “Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord?”
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I did obey the voice of the Lord, and went on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal.” (He’s still making an excuse.)
And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?…” Sometimes, when people get a word from the Lord and start to walk in it, they will become evasive. They always want to find some way around it. “Now, this won’t hurt—the Lord surely didn’t mean this.” Don’t evade the word of the Lord; do what He tells you to do. “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” I Samuel 15:14–22. The greatest thing that you can give to God is a spirit which has a devotion to do exactly what He tells you to do. I can think of one thing the Lord told me to do which I was not able to do. When I say I was not able to do it, I may be making an excuse for it again. It was something God required in my personal walk with the Lord that I had not accomplished, and I set my heart to go on a real course of repentance over it. God speaks things to every one of us which aren’t anyone else’s business; they are between you and the Lord. However, if you do not measure up to what God tells you to do, you may deceive yourself into thinking that you are doing the will of the Lord when you are not. You may bring sacrifice, you may come to the House of God and worship, you may sing psalms, but you did not do what God told you to do. You’ll be in trouble sooner or later.
Mark 6 tells a story about Herod, who had taken his brother Philip’s wife and was living with her in adultery. When John the Baptist preached to him, Herod was just delighted, until John the Baptist pointed his finger at him and said, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother Philip’s wife.” Of course, the woman didn’t like that when she heard it; she wanted, and eventually got, the head of John the Baptist. But Herod, the King James version says, “heard him gladly and did many things.” There were probably more reform bills put through Judah in that season than ever before. “Why, the preacher really laid it out to the tax collectors, didn’t he? We’ll pass a law and make those tax collectors really toe the line. And we’ll stop this oppression, and we’ll stop that oppression, too.” he did many things, the Scriptures say. The one thing He did not do was the one thing he was told to do: to stop living with his brother’s wife. It was the same way with Saul: “Look at all the Amalekites I killed, look at what I’ve done!” But he didn’t do what God told him. The Lord said that to obey is better than sacrifice. When you get a word from the Lord, it may be the most difficult thing in the world to walk in, but you had better try to do it. Do not evade it, do not walk around it. Be sure, of course, that you do everything possible to get it defined by ministries of revelation so that there is no question in your mind about what God wants you to do. This was a definite word that Samuel gave, an exact word. But with that exact word there was evasion on Saul’s part. You should get an exact word, too, and then do what you are told.
In John 2 is the story of the wedding at Cana. Jesus, some of His disciples, and Mary, the mother of the Lord, were at the wedding, and Mary came to Jesus and said, “They have no wine.” The Lord was not going to interfere with it. But Mary walked over to the serving girls and said, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” So Jesus said, “Take your pitchers and reach into these big storage vats of water, and draw out and go serve the governor of the feast.” They did so and the Lord turned it into wine. Do you get the picture? Whatever He says to you, do it. You can’t do anything more blessed. To be obedient, to obey God, is better than sacrifice.
Is there some area of your life where you are keeping an Agag alive? Has God tried to deal with something in your life that you have not let Him deal with? I think that there is a potential danger in refusing to come to grips with a problem that God has commanded you to deal with. Do you have such a problem? Many times when people first become Christians, they kills Amalekites right and left. Everywhere you can point, they are killing Amalekites. But they keep a few things alive. The same thing was true when Israel went into Canaan. They wiped out several nations, but the trouble that they had was with the ones that they left alive, like the Gibeonites, with their moldy bread covenants (Joshua 9). Those were the ones who came back to plague them and bother them.
We must understand that the things we countenance remaining in our lives eventually will be the thorn in our side. Like the nations that the Israelites left alive, those problems come back to plague us again and again. Oh, if we could only learn to put away the things when God says to put them away. The sin that you play with—that is your little Agag. “Look, here’s my Agag. I kept him alive. I should kill him. I’ll kill him some day, but he’s such a nice little guy. And think of all those sheep, and all the rest of the plunder.” Have you already decided to sharpen up your sword for Agag? The thing that you keep alive is the thing that will rise up and bother you later.
This should be in the mind of all young believers, till they declare war on absolutely everything. “Oh, but this one little thing is not too bad.” But it starts growing and growing, and after awhile Satan comes in and seizes upon it. And it’s not just a little habit, a little mannerism, or something that displeases the Lord in the flesh anymore; it turns into a satanic oppression. I have watched people who, even though they have broken a habit, will say as they walk along, “Oh, I guess that wasn’t so bad,” and will slip back into it. The next time they will have a satanic oppression on them that they can hardly shake. Have you ever seen that?
“Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination (or witchcraft), and insubordination (not giving way to the authority over you) is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.” I Samuel 15:22–23.
The only way that a man can be a king is have principles over him which govern him and to which he is submissive. He cannot require that others bow down to him and obey him when he lives a lawless life himself. If he rebels against the word of the Lord it will be as witchcraft. If someone is rebellious, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the assault that comes from that rebellion and the assault that comes from witchcraft. So it is easy to pray against witchcraft when all it is is that people are rebelling against the word of the Lord or against someone who has taken a stand for things to be according to the Kingdom of God. It produces the same effects as if a coven of witches were going after you. Insubordination is like idolatry because instead of submitting to the authority over you, you have set your own opinion and your own desire on the throne, and instead of serving God, you are serving them. You have exalted self above God; therefore self becomes the idol. And that is why insubordination is like idolatry.
What a man of God Samuel was. He served the Lord from the early days of his youth, on through his old age; he led a long life for God. Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words (if he had stopped talking then, he would have been all right), because I feared the people and listened to their voice.” I Samuel 25:24. You can’t make excuses. When God gives me a word in leading the people and the brothers have confirmed it by revelation, I answer to God for that word, no matter if everyone else went against it. I have to be obedient to the Lord. There are times when this is very difficult to do; it is hard not to listen to the people, not to fear what they feel. You know that you love them, and you cannot develop an arrogance that rejects them and does not even care what they think, because you do care what they think. But your fear must be the fear of the Lord.
“Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord.” But Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” And as Samuel turned to go, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. So Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you.” Of course, that refers to David. Many, many years passed before there was an evidence of this, but just the same it was effective that day. That was the day the Lord accomplished it. “And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change his mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”
Then he (Saul) said, “I have sinned; but please honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord your God.” I Samuel 15:25–30. He said, “Don’t forsake me here! Please just stand there so that it looks good; let’s keep up the illusion that everything is all right.” Everything Saul does shows that his heart is not right.
What would you have done in Saul’s place? I would have said, “Forget about the kingdom! If I’m not pleasing God, I’m going to get down and start repenting and seeking Him. I’ll give the kingdom up. I don’t want it.” But he had a position and a pride. He said, “Please come back and stand there in your robes, and let me stand here as the king. Let’s keep up the front!” Oh, how many people do not care what God says as much as they care what people will say: “I feared the people, I was worried about what they would think.” We have to keep up an illusion; we still want it to look as if everything were all right. When God is through with something, maybe we had better just let it fall apart. Saul went on to be tormented and driven into fits of madness by an evil spirit. He was to walk in the most awful defeat that a man could ever know, and later he was to say of himself, “I have played the fool” (I Samuel 26:21).
So Samuel went back following Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord. (But don’t you think that, too, was a phony thing?) Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag, the king of the Amalekites.” And Agag came to him cheerfully. And Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” What he was thinking was, “At least they didn’t wipe me out. Out of all the Amalekites, I’m still left alive!” So he came up to Samuel, with all of his chains on, but smiling, and he said, “The bitterness of death is past.” (“I escaped!”) But Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death; for Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel. Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel?…” I Samuel 15:31–16:1. Then Samuel was told to fill his horn with oil and to go and anoint someone else to be king.
Samuel was not indifferent to Saul. He wept and grieved over him until God said, “All right, that’s enough. Stop your crying, cut off the water works! I rejected him. The time for grieving is past.” God sets a limit on how long you can mourn over something, but some people do not set one; they are sorry and they grieve and mourn until they make an obsession of it. God said to Samuel, “Come on, enough of that. Go anoint another king.” Years were to pass before the boy David was to become king, but that was beside the point. God wanted it started in motion. “Let’s get it going now. There will be a new chapter and a new life for Israel; I have chosen a boy of whom I said, ‘He is a man after My own heart’ ” (I Samuel 13:14). Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart (I Samuel 16:7).
I think this shows us something about the way we often give to God just a partial obedience. We worship Him with only part of our heart. The real heart of this message is the narrow margin between partial obedience and true obedience. How close Saul was to everything that God wanted to do for him and everything he was to do in the Lord. How close! He didn’t miss it by very much. “All the Amalekites I have utterly destroyed! I have obeyed!… Oh, yes, I did keep Agag alive.” One man out of a nation; what a narrow margin. But the thing was in his heart. “Out of all the plunder, we kept just the choicest sheep and a few other animals, and we were going to sacrifice them anyway.” Human reasoning starts saying, “Why on earth does God get Himself upset over that? When you balance the books, if they come out a dollar or two off, what’s the difference? Nobody will ever miss it.” God was not saying that. He wants them to tally exactly. Whatever He says, do it. I think that the key is not always that we are able to obey at the moment, but that we do not allow our hearts for one single moment to entertain the idea of partial obedience. That is why the Lord will not avenge us until our obedience is complete. This Walk will never see the judgments of the Lord come until we enter into those judgments ourselves, totally and completely.
You may say, “My obedience is not complete.” Don’t condemn yourself as a Saul; just say in your heart, “I’m going to work at it.” I have seen how this works in Christians who may have one problem that they have not overcome. This example may sound strange, especially to someone in this Walk, where we are not so legalistic, but it is a useful example. I can remember, long before the Walk came along, a girl who became a Christian in a little church in the Midwest where I was. She prayed and cried—I have never seen anything like the way this girl could cry—over the fact that she could not overcome one problem: she said “Darn it!” every time something went wrong. Every day that phrase would slip out, and every service she was down at the altar crying, “Oh, God, forgive me, forgive me!”
Now, I’m not saying that you will go to hell if you say “darn it.” That’s beside the point. But I noticed something, and it stuck in my mind: she kept saying “darn it.” I couldn’t be around her for five minutes without her saying, “Oh, darn it, wasn’t that a good service!” Then she would realize what she had done, and she would say, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” And there she went, crying away. She kept right on saying “darn it,” but she never excused herself. She never said, “It’s all right, I guess I can’t overcome this.” She kept on trying until she finally overcame it. When God convicts you of something wrong, do not whitewash it and excuse yourself. Do not decide that you are not going to battle it any more: “I’m sorry I didn’t overcome it, but it’s not so bad.” Do not start excusing yourself. If something is wrong, if you do it a thousand times a day, get down and say, “God, I’m sorry I did that. I still hold the same opinion of it.”
Back in the old revival days an old Farmer got saved. He went down to the altar, old style, knelt there on an old wooden bench, and accepted the Lord. And after he had accepted the Lord, he wanted to go all out for Him. He cried and cried because he knew he had to really walk with the Lord, so he wanted to get rid of his cigarettes. In the morning, when it was still dark, he would go out to milk the cows. After he milked them, he would light up a cigarette and start crying. He said, “Lord, I don’t approve of this habit at all. I’m sorry, Lord. I hate it, Lord!” That’s the secret. Even though he was still under bondage, he did not go parading his Agag; he was waiting for the hour when he could put his sword in it. He went along that way for two or three weeks, coming to church, crying, going to the altar, and getting saved all over again, because he felt desperate to get rid of that habit.
Then one day God spoke to him out of the Word. In those days we told everyone to read the Gospel of John (which is still a good idea), and he had read it through two or three times already. There is a verse in John 21 which says, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these?” He was standing outside, smoking away and already crying, when the Lord spoke to him, “Do you love Me more than that cigarette?” When he heard that, he broke down crying and said, “Oh, God, you know I love You!” And that did it; he threw them all away. God loosed him.
You see, it is one thing to be bound by something, and it is quite another thing to excuse it, pet it, and pamper it. There is an obedience that in our heart strives for a total submission to the Lord, a total obedience to every word that He gives.
Great teaching!