Satan is so subtle. He just gets you off track a little bit and then he keeps you there. Even as I'm speaking, somebody may be sitting here or watching online off track. And it's the devil doing it. Because maybe there's something in God's word, even if there's not in the comments that I'm making, that is just for you.
That could be a turning point. You say, well, I get bored. Do you talk to God about that? Because, and then what do you do to work? Listen, getting bored is part of life.
But boredom is no joke. It is a serious force. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
Now, let's join Pastor Rick in 1 Samuel chapter 15 with the conclusion of his study called One Last Chance. He also took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. And right there at verse 8 is the dramatic music in the movie. that alerts the watcher or to the viewer That something went wrong. And we're very wrong.
You know, and you're seeing a movie about, you know, I don't know, a murder mystery, and they show you a paperclip. You know, well, evidently, that paperclip's gonna fork into the story, well, they wouldn't zoom in on it. And here it is zooming in. On Saul sparing the life of the king of the Malekites. Another example of his incomplete Obedience.
What a scary word. We all have incomplete obedience. That's why we need the Savior. But his was systematic. and he had no intention of fixing it.
and the far-reaching implications that Come along with this is here's a man that is encouraged, that is given a second chance, and this is what he does with it. And as I mentioned, five centuries later. The uh The Agite Haman is going to attempt to exterminate the Jewish race, and he almost pulls it off. Amalek is a type of the flesh. We should not pass by this.
And Saul was to utterly defeat the flesh as we are. We're not to sign a treaty with the flesh. We're to avoid that. It's very difficult. I'm not trying to oversimplify it.
But in refusing to deal with the flesh, He Compromised himself, and that's going to cause great problems. It says, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
So it was a bloodbath. And he was again partially Obedient. The Amalekites will show up again in chapter 27, in chapter 30. Saul will be. Finally, he was executed, botched.
You know, he attempted to kill himself to spare himself from being tortured by the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. And so he has an Amalekite finish him off, and that is very symbolic. The Amalekites are connected to Saul's blatant disregard for Verse 9. But Saul and the people of Pardon me, 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 unwilling to utterly destroy them, But everything despised and worthless they utterly destroyed.
Oh there it is. There's the indictment. Saul and the people spared. His word was law. When he said, We killed the man that ate this day, the people were lining up to do it until they found, of course, the details.
That there was an innocent man. It was not somebody in the amongst the tribes that just disobeyed Saul. And here The people are not protesting, and that's why they are included. They are accomplices. No one said We're supposed to finish them off.
Well, you see, maybe they didn't know. details to get caught up in.
Well, what we do know is the king knew. And that's all we need to know. Haman, again, an Amalekite directly linked to Agag. Mordecai, who will deal with Haman, is directly linked to the tribe of Benjamin, directly linked to Kish. Saul's father.
Making the book of Esther a rematch. Between Saul and God's people, and Amalek, unfinished business. And of course, Mordecai, he didn't play. I'm not bowing to that guy, he's a punk. It's like, what a guy, you just endangered all your people.
Yeah, I didn't see that coming, but I'm still not bowing down to him. And it was a magnificent story. Mordecai is one of the great heroes of the Bible. I mean, his words to Esther, fine, Esther, let me tell you, it's like this. Sister?
You either step up, or somebody else is going to do it, and you will lose your thunder. And Esther, smart gal that she was, she was not only. a woman of great pulcharitude. She was also smart. And she said, Yep, I'm helping.
Even if I die, I'm helping. What a woman. What a man. Continuing here in Verse 9 And all that was good They were unwilling to utterly destroy. And there it is, this is the will.
They chose not to do what they were supposed to do. I would not be surprised if Saul stood in front of the army commanders before they went out. And this is the mandate I have from God through Samuel the prophet: we are to destroy everything. and not take any plunder. And then he goes and sees the plunge with no, this is good stuff.
It'd be a shame.
So I mean look at that bull. That's a prize. Let's uh let's keep it. And this is the selective obedience, which is disobedience. And so he While he's plundering, The Amalekites are escaping.
I mean, this isn't like they just go and see, oh, there's a couple of sheep, let's take them. These are herds. Enough to feed the city. And so they're taking their troops to, you know, herd cattle and sheep. Instead of chasing the enemy.
And this characterizes Saul for the rest of his. Reign as king, what is he doing? Instead of dealing with the Philistines, he's chasing David. Satan is so subtle. He just gets you off track a little bit and then he keeps you there.
Even as I'm speaking, somebody may be sitting here or watching online off track. And it's the devil doing it. Because maybe there's something in God's word, even if there's not in the comments that I'm making, that is just for you. That could be a turning point. You say, well, I get bored.
Do you talk to God about that? Because, and then what do you do to work? Listen, getting bored is part of life. But boredom is no joke. It is a serious force.
And some of us, you know, you stay busy, you stay in motion. A moving target's harder to hit than a stationary one, and you stay busy. And those who succumb and just don't get rolling, you make yourself an easier target.
Well, all that was good. And we're unwilling to destroy.
So the motive is covetedness. This was the fall of Achan. Aiken said, I saw it. Incidentally, Where was Achan? He stole garments and gold.
Where is he going to wear those clothes? I mean it's like Is that a a garment from Jericho? Yes, you like it. You better not let Phineas see it. He'll spare you.
Where was he going to spend the gold?
Well, there was, you know, actually a dollar general just down the road. And you know, just madness, sin, it just makes us crazy, it makes fools out of us, and you know, that's why we are so against it.
Well, anyway, Saul stacked up the victories against these surrounding pagans, and while he was doing these victories that I mentioned earlier against the Edom and Zobah and all these other ones, they were plundering those people.
So they were used to this. They were ready for this. It was part of the spoil of war. This was to be an exception because he was God's instrument. This was his last chance as God's instrument.
Anybody could be a general and go and wipe out a village or a city, but not anybody could submit to this. clear word of God in the face of these TEMPTATIONS Joshua, this is what he told the people when they went to Jericho. He said, And you by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things, and make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it.
So the moment God commanded, that all was to be destroyed. was the moment that anything salvaged became accursed. And Saul said, Well, uh you know, maybe. He cherry-picked God's word. I'll take this commandment.
So I was watching a documentary on a. A hitman. Not that I've got any ideas of moonlighting. But uh I think he's still alive serving time in Trenton, New Jersey. He will be for the rest of his life.
He killed over 100 people. He says there's more than two hundred.
Well, as he's talking about his murder, so you see him, the first interview, and he's a little, you can see he's disturbed by some of the things he's done, but he's not going to admit it. By the second interview, he's a little bit more cocky. By the third, he's into what he did. And he's an older man, he's much older by the third interview. And so you see this progression of evil.
What happens when you don't nip this in the bud, when you let it run? The flesh will not be merciful to you.
So, my point is: he's in this interview, and at one moment, he mentions that he had to make a hit on a homosexual. And he dressed he had he said, well so I dressed up like one of them. And I don't want to offend them.
Well, you killed 200 people. You were worried about offending gay people. Are you sick? Oh, yeah, he's demon-possessed. His whole thing is messed up.
His whole way of thinking. Talk about having an unclean spirit. He's got like a stadium's worth. And those kind of people, you know, you're glad they're locked up. Because they are.
irretrievable.
Now, what does that have to do with what we're talking about here? I completely forgot. Oh, well, maybe to come back and we'll all be blessed, or to stay away, and then I'll just be angry at myself.
So He viewed God's word as Again, a hindrance.
So, you know, you could. It was okay to disobey God. In Saul's mind, you just couldn't disobey Saul. And we covered that last section with his son Jonathan, who dipped his spear in honey in a wood. Let's kill him.
But what about you, Saul? You disobeyed a clear commandment of God. Yeah, but I have good reasons why I disobeyed. And this selective obedience is deadly stuff. Oh, they're cherry-picking, that's what I was saying.
So, here you have a serial killer. Who's, you know, the Ten Commandments mean nothing to him. But yet he doesn't want to offend a certain group.
So he's cherry-picking what it's twisted, it's messed up. And I'm not saying. Saul became. Anyway, we'll leave some of that for the story to come. We've got to finish this.
So, not an uncommon practice. To pick the facts we like and discard the facts we don't like, God says it's dishonorable, it's shameful, is lying. You may not like them. You may want to avoid them. But you cannot cherry pick them.
You cannot say, I'll take the first Ten Commandments, but I'll throw the others away. Unless God, well, God, of course. Yeah. The Sabbath, and we're glad he did, or else we would not have air conditioning and heating on Saturdays.
So the battle against the flesh, Proverbs 29:1, he who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. And that was Saul. In other words, if you keep getting after somebody, Look, we asked you not to do that. They do it again.
Well, look, can you please stop? And they do it again until finally. This the it's it's very contentious now. And that's what the proverb says. You constantly rebuke somebody, they get stiff-necked on you.
They have no right to be this way. And it is to their own destruction. And everybody else's annoyance, but uh you know that's that's happen precisely what happened to Saul.
So the man outside of Jesus Christ. lives to please himself. These are the lessons. And the one who lives to please themselves? Israeli pleased.
So I wasn't a happy guy. I mean, we don't see him playing the flute. I mean don't you associate playing the flute with joy?
Alright, never mind. Yankee Doodle is a fun song. Anyway, that's a recorder.
So the rhythm, shot. Why? Because when God moved in rhythm Paul uh Saul Tugged and jerked in the opposite direction.
So it says here at the bottom of verse 9: but everything despised and worthless. that they utterly destroyed. How insulting to God. You said destroy it all. We took what we wanted, and the junk we threw out.
He goes, We obeyed you. That's precisely what he's going to tell Samuel. Wait till we get to that next session. I did everything you said to do.
Well, the people may be. Man. Verse 11: I greatly regret. This is now God speaking. No, verse 10, sorry.
Now the word of Yahweh came to Samuel saying, I greatly regret that I have set Up Saul, verse 11, as king, for he has turned back from following me and has performed. has not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to Yahweh all night. Verse 10, where it says the word of the Lord came to Samuel. I can The look on his face when he He's going to get two of them.
This one here, when God says, I'm. I'm just I wasted my time with Saul. And then at the end, He'll get another one when they say, Saul's out building a monument for himself, Samuel. I mean, the look on Samuel's face when he heard that, knowing that God had said this already about him.
So God would not talk to Saul at this point. He talks to Samuel. And he says in verse 11, this is anthropomorphic. In other words, he's assigning, you're taking a human characteristic. Yeah, um Regret And God is taking that characteristic and saying, listen, so you understand where I'm going with this.
I am completely dissatisfied with how this turned out. There was no other way to do it. I did not make a mistake. It was not an oversight. I knew it would get here.
But that does not lessen the intensity of my regret and disappointment at how things happened. That's what God is saying here. It's not what I wanted, not what I had in mind. And because it turned out this way, I'm pretty upset. A scorching word of divine displeasure.
and the dread of this Saul never really cared about. He found out about this just those Unfazed by it. In fact, he buckled down. He stiffened his neck. He was constantly rebuked.
It says, For he turned his back from following me. God says that that's rebellion. He rebelled against me. Instead of being a man after my own heart, he was against my heart. As the kings of the other nations.
That's how he performed. Remember, the Jews said, We want a king like the other nations?
Well, you got one. And it continues. and has not performed my commandments. Blunt. That is to the point.
Spiritual negligence. God's word is unimportant. Saul's pleasures is more important. And it grieved Samuel. The Hebrew word, therefore, grieved, is really it burned him.
Made him very, very angry with displeasure. That identical Greek word is found in Jonah 4. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And here it comes. He became Angry.
He was exceedingly angry.
So there's an it's emphatic, there's an intensity. Samuel was angry. At Saul. He was angry at the outcome and he was brokenhearted. You say, well, why did the translators then do this interpretive translation and use the word grieved instead of angry?
Well, you probably go down to verse 15. Which they probably did to try to capture where Samuel's head was. And there at verse 35, sorry, I said 15, 1 Samuel 15, verse 35. And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, And Yahweh regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.
So there it is reinforced. And there, the translator is likely giving them the benefit of the doubt, because a very difficult task to translate accurately, consistently.
So many little twists and turns. Anyway, there is their they say, okay, he's grieved and he's angry at the same time. And they use the dominant emotion of grief. to express his anger. That's my defense of the translators.
But that is what is happening. A lot of emotions are flying around because of that. And so Saul, where's Saul? While Samuel is greed before God, Saul's out skipping around playing hopscotch. He could care less if Samuel is grieved.
He doesn't even care that God says, I regret. Imagine God saying that to you. I'm sorry that you even had a chance. Oh, man, that's just terrifying to even say it. And he cried out to the Lord all night.
See how much emotion this man threw into this? I I read Dani you know, Daniel said I I fasted, I waited on God, I had no strength. And where did these guys get these emotions? I've tried, I can't get there. But I can appreciate them getting there.
At least I've got that. And so he cried out all night. I would have said something like, you know what, I never liked him anyway. I'm glad he's getting fired. He's bad news for Israel.
Are you going to defrock uh d d defrone him tomorrow? No, he's going to be around a while, but he prayed. Here's Samuel, he was a man of prayer. The Lord does not count partial obedience as whole obedience. Not when it's willful like this.
There are times where God said to David, It was in your heart, David, and I'm going to accept that. You didn't get to do it, but I'm going to accept it. But this is flagrant. The lessons. Saul It's not that he refused to do anything that the Lord commanded him to do.
He just refused to do all that the Lord commanded him to do. And the the killer to that is He really didn't care. If he grieved over it, it would have been so much different. We're going to come across other kings as we move through the chronicles. Who, you know, Manasseh, the former, the worst of all, he repents in the end.
He had to get dragged with a hook in his nose to get him to do it. He repents. Verse 12.
So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul, went to Carmel, And indeed he set up a monument for himself, and And he has gone on around passed by and gone down to Gilgal.
So Samuel has to confront Saul. Having God Speak to him first and tell him what's going on, giving him his instructions. And it was told Samuel, Saul went to Carmel. That is not Carmel. Uh by the sea, northern Israel, where you can actually stand on Mount Carmel and you can see the the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea.
You just look that way, look that way, and there it is. It's nice. And that's where, of course, Elijah had the showdown with the prophets of Baal. This is a Caramel in Hebron, in Judah's territory. But he says indeed he set up a monument for himself.
So Samuel is looking for Saul and he says, where is he? And he said, Well, he went he went to build he went to put himself on a pedestal. He's all about himself. What's he celebrating? Himself.
Well, who does he love? More than anyone, himself. Who's in second place? himself. Who's in eightieth place?
He just loved himself. People were just things to use. He praised himself before going up to praise God. See, Gilgal's where he's going to praise God. But first, he stops to make a monument to himself.
I've got a good idea. Let's make a statue. For my victories over the Amalekites. And then it will be a statue of me. Could you imagine I've always fantasized about having big poster pictures in a white suit, of me Hanging like banners in the church.
like the communists used to do with Mao and Stalin. Your course is insane! And that's what Saul is doing. He's down there, he's right over there at Office Max. I want the poster to be this big.
Is that vinyl? It's just the craziest thing. And so, right on the heels of God's judgment, the historian says: don't forget who this guy is. Don't forget for one second he's self absorbed. John's Gospel, chapter 4.
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth. And you know, Absalom will do the same. Absalom's going to put a statue of himself in the Valley of Kings, and he never became king. What is up with that? Maybe it's not.
The arrogance, I can't wait until Joab does him in. He's just such a figure that you just want him off away from everybody. His others, even worse than Absalom, his buddy. We'll get to those things. Anyway.
Uh this uh character of Saul. Again, not the worst in Scripture, and I'm closing this up now. This is the one last chance that he got and he wasted it. because he lived for himself. He lived to please himself, and that is a great warning to us from this section of scripture.
Watch it. I can tell you if you serve God and you and you suffer enough defeats doing what you think is right. You're going to become disappointed with God. And at that time, you're going to have to battle through it. Because if you give in, you're going, Satan's not going to be merciful to you, you're going to lose ground.
So the best thing the servant can do When it seems like God is just leaving them to struggle, the best thing the servant can do is struggle. But if the servant then says, that's it, I'm going to start living for myself, I'm going to please me. you are opening up a door that you're going to regret you opened. It's better to just take your hits and wait. no matter how long it takes.
Oh, let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for letting us look at your word. We thank you for allowing us in. Salvation that we have through Jesus Christ. Without this salvation, we would not be here.
subjecting ourselves willfully and delightfully To the things you have to say to us. May you help us live to be obedient to please you. May you get us all home safely. We ask you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Uh Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel. If you'd like to listen again to this or other messages or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreference radio.com. Here, you can also listen to interviews with Pastor Rick to learn more about his life and ministry.
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