Day of Reckoning •1 Samuel 15

Notes

We think of the day of reckoning as somewhere in the distant future, at the end of all things. It’s a dramatic, never to be repeated, awesome event.

That day is coming, and it is awesome, because that’s when the sentence is carried out. But the actual reckoning is going on now, in this life. A day comes for people, and it comes for nations, where at a certain point, God says, “You’re done.” I’m not working with you any longer.

God likes working with a man who is like-minded, a man who is after His own heart, who greatly respects Him. Thinking like God or being a person after God’s own heart are other ways to say, God-fearing. That’s called the fear of the Lord.

We’ve already seen how if a guy doesn’t think like God, he doesn’t fear God, he naturally works against Him.

If a person doesn’t have the fear of the Lord it doesn’t mean he’s not afraid. He definitely reacts to fears, but what he fears isn’t God, he fears other created things. Those things control a person’s life and direct his obedience.

So what we see today is that kings and nations come to their day of reckoning.

I’m reading in 1 Samuel 15 (to verse 3).

1. God gives Saul a holy mission, vv. 1-3.

A. Samuel emphasises the authority of the Lord over him and over Saul: the Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people. God is over the both of us. So listen to what God is saying through me to you.

B. God is saying it’s the day of reckoning for a nation called Amalek.

1. Some four hundred years ago Amalek attacked Israel as they were coming out of Egypt. Joshua led the people into battle and Moses prayed on a hill. When he got tired Aaron and Hur held up his arms until Joshua won the battle.

2. God promised that He would utterly blot out the rememberance of Amalek from under heaven.

3. People do not get better naturally. They become more wicked and depraved. Now that day has come. God tells Saul to utterly destroy Amalek.

C. He uses a technical term: put Amalek under the ban. The word means to devote to God. That happens in two ways.

1. One is to set something apart for God as a holy person or thing.

2. It also means that something is meant to be completely destroyed as from God. This is not up to the discretion of men, this is a sentence of God. God is doing a holy work in the judgment and destruction of a people.

D. So this is a holy mission God is giving Saul. He is to represent God and carry out the will of God. This comes through the prophet raised up by God to the king raised up by God.

2. Saul does not carry out the holy mission, vv. 4-9.

A. He musters the people, 210,000 soldiers from Israel and Judah.

B. He tells the Kenites to separate themselves from Amalek.

1. The Kenites showed Israel chesed, covenant lovingkindness. They helped direct Israel in the wilderness when they came up from Egypt. Moses’ father-in-law was a Kenite.

2. Just as Amalek sowed wickedness and will now reap judgment, the Kenites sowed kindness and are reaping kindness, if they believe Saul’s word. Otherwise they will be wiped out along with Amalek. But they leave and they are saved from destruction because they believe Saul’s warning.

C. But Saul does not put Amalek under the ban of God. 

1. He wipes out most of the Amalekites and everything that is despised and worthless.

2. But he and the army take all the good things. They weren’t willing to destroy them. They said, gee, what a waste to destroy this perfectly good herd of oxen, and all these good things. They’re valuable. I could use that! They keep the Amalekite king Agag alive, presumably as a trophy, as proof that Saul was victorious over him.

3. That wasn’t devoting everything and everyone to God under the ban. That was picking and choosing like any army of outlaws looking for plunder and spoil. They ignored the holy mission and did their own thing.

D. What that means is, you can’t see God in this, that He is holy, righteous, true. Or if you do think of God, you might think, well, God approves of looting and plundering. He is a God like all the other gods, who oppress and take from others. It really doesn’t represent God rightly at all.

3. God tells Samuel about Saul’s disobedience, vv. 10-11.

A. Samuel is far away. He doesn’t see what’s going on. 

B. But God sees everything. He hears every thought. He knows everything.

C. And He tells Samuel the absolute truth: “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” God is sorrowful because in disobeying God Saul is dooming himself.

D. This grieves Samuel. It makes him angry. He’s angry because it’s so unnecessary. It didn’t have to happen.

4. Samuel confronts Saul, vv. 12-31.

A. Just like there is a day of reckoning for nations, there is a day of reckoning for every person who will ever exist. Now Saul’s day has come.

B. Saul is unaware that the day has come. He just built a monument to himself, to commemorate his victory over the Amalekites. Generations to come will know who he is and what he has accomplished. I did a pretty good job, if I say so myself. He knows he didn’t do exactly like Samuel told him to do, but he has some spin for that.

C. Saul comes out happy and friendly, maybe a little too friendly, “Blessed are you of the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord!”

D. Samuel says if everything is okay, how come I hear oxen and sheep making noise?

E. And Saul justifies himself with two lines of reasoning. 

1. He throws the people under the bus. They brought them from the Amalekites. I didn’t do it, they did.

2. But it’s for a good purpose: they’re going to sacrifice them to the Lord. The Lord likes sacrifice, right? So it’s good, right?

3. Spin is defined as a special point of view, emphasis, and interpretation presented for the purpose of influencing opinion. So if you look at things this way, it all makes sense and everything is good. See?

F. Samuel has the perspective of God, who is always right and never accepts spin.

1. He says, shut up, and I’ll tell you what the Lord said to me last night.

2. You did not ever have ambitions to be king. You were little in your own eyes. This was God’s idea and you are responsible to Him.

3. God said to you go put the sinners, the Amalekites, under the ban, and completely bring them to an end.

4. You swooped down upon the spoil and did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. Why?

G. Saul repeats his spin, I did what God wanted, I brought back Agag. The people did this thing, and it was to sacrifice the animals for the Lord. See this my way.

H. God is more pleased with the heart that wants to please Him. That’s more valuable to Him than burning meat. Disobeying Him is like seeking unclean power and knowledge. Being stubborn is like worshipping the devil. That’s what the devil does.

I. Samuel pronounces judgment: because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.

J. Now Saul makes confession to Samuel but that doesn’t change God’s mind.

1. He says, I have sinned. He agrees with the truth. I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

2. And then he asks Samuel to pardon his sin and make it all good again.

3. Samuel says, no, I’m not going back with you. He repeats: You have rejected the word of the Lord and He has rejected you from being king. This is something that confession will not fix.

K. This word from the Lord is unchangeable.

1. When Samuel turns away, Saul grabs Samuel’s robe to stop him, and he tears Samuel’s robe. That means he used a lot of force to stop Samuel. Stop, stay here. No. The Lord has used that same kind of force to tear the kingdom from you and give to another who is better than you. It doesn’t matter how hard you hang on, the Lord has more force and you will lose the kingdom.

2. The Lord is not going to change His mind. The word translated “glory” is a word that means, enduring, perpetual, continually, forever. He is not a man that He should change His mind. He is God. And you have rejected His word.

6. Saul is going to hang on to the kingdom anyway.

A. He says to Samuel what he is really thinking. I need you to go back with me so I can worship the Lord before the elders and the people. This has to look right. If you don’t go back with me it’s going to look wrong.

B. Samuel goes back with him because it doesn’t change anything.

C. Saul worships, Samuel is right there, with the elders, in front of the people. Everything looks as it should. But it only looks like that on the surface.

D. Saul is rejected as king. He just got fired by God, but instead of ceasing to be king he continues to act as king. He is continuing to be stubborn, unreasonable, unyielding to God.

E. His worship is not acceptable to God because the heart is not yielded to God. It’s only outside motions. It doesn’t mean anything to God. Does everyone see that?

5. It’s the day of reckoning for Agag, vv. 32-33.

A. Agag comes cautiously to Samuel. Some translations have “cheerfully”. Things have gone pretty well for him. His people are wiped out, but he’s alive, and that’s all that matters, right? So he’s thinking everything is going to work out okay after all. Surely the bitterness of death is past. Let’s just be glad we’re alive and celebrate life, huh?

B. God’s judgment is according to truth. You reap what you sow. The punishment fits the crime.

C. Samuel says the truth. Your sword has made women childless. You are a worthless murderer. So now your mother will be made childless. He’s an old man, but he hacks Agag to pieces before the Lord. He is devoting Agag to the ban as God directed.

D. The problem was Saul did not do as God wanted, which means Amalek survived the day of reckoning. They appear again in Scripture.

1. Much later on, in the time of the Persian kings, a Persian noble gets offended that one of the Jews refuses to bow down to him. But he doesn’t want to just kill one man, he wants to destroy all the Jews in the Persian Empire. He gets the king to write the decree. His name is Haman, the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite. This threat to the whole Jewish nation comes because Saul did not obey the Lord’s command to put Amalek under the ban. That’s the account in Esther.

2. But even before that, in 2 Samuel 1, a young man comes to David with the crown and arm bracelet belonging to Saul and says I came across him after the battle, and he was wounded. He asked me to kill him before the Philistines did, and I saw he couldn’t live so I killed him. David says, who are you? Your servant is an Amalekite.

3. Saul’s disobedience was against God, against the nation, and against his own life.

6. The chapter ends in sadness, vv. 34-35.

A. Saul continues to be king. He is an outlaw even as he sits as king.

B. Samuel stopped going to see Saul. He mourned for him.

C. The Lord was sorrowful that He had made Saul king. 

7. So what?

A. It’s the day of reckoning all around us. And eternity is before us.

1. God remembers all our sins, wickedness and rebellion, and will hold us accountable. Did you do what you were commanded to do? Did you ignore, rebel, continue to be stubborn and store up for yourself wrath from God?

2. God will judge everyone. No one can escape that judgment.

3. He will judge according to total knowledge and absolute truth. There is no spin with God.

4. No outward religious ritual can save you because God sees the heart. No confession of sin can save anyone. No man can forgive your sins.

5. When God judges, no man can say anything. What God tears away no man can keep.

6. We are temporary. He is perpetual, forever, eternal. He is not a man that He should change His mind. He is God.

B. Our great need is to be saved from the wrath of God against sin and rebellion. When we stand before God in judgment we do not want to hear: “Depart from Me; I never knew you.”

C. Jesus is so valuable because only He died to take away our sins. Only He makes us known to the Father. You become known by God when you receive Jesus as your Saviour and Lord. He says, John 10:14-15 “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”

D. The most valuable thing we can have is the fear of the Lord because that is clean and endures forever.

1. Saul craved the approval of men. He cared how he looked to others. In doing that he disregarded God. He didn’t think about God’s approval. He had the fear of man, and no fear of God. We can all relate because we also fear men and want their approval.

2. The fear of the Lord is to be concerned about what God thinks. That’s all that matters. What God thinks about you is everything. Poor Saul set up a monument to himself so everyone would think well of him. The real question is, “What does God think about you?” Does God know who you are?

He does know you if you are in Christ.

Let’s pray.