Saul had been charged by God
to carry out divine justice against the Amelekites, who had acted cruelly
toward the Israelites as they came up from Egypt. Saul’s obedience to the
command, however, was incomplete. As a result, God instructed Samuel to go to
Saul and tell him that he was no longer fit to rule over God’s people. The
exchange between Saul and Samuel is one of the most pitiful in Scripture.
Rather than offering true repentance, Saul offered excuse piled on top of excuse.
Saul’s heart proved to be, as the law had warned, “lifted up above his
brothers” (Deuteronomy 17:20).
The punishment meted out
against the Amelekites and their king, Agag, is a true picture of what we would
be subject to apart from the love of God that placed his own Son between his
wrath and us. Yet, somehow Saul thought better of God’s sentence of utter
destruction against the sinner. Saul’s failure to recognize the grace that had
been extended to him and the condemnation that followed this self-delusion
offers a warning against such presumption. We have what we have only by the
grace of God. The only appropriate response in the light of God’s mercy is to
present our bodies “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” And rather
than offering pious sounding religious intentions, as did Saul, we need to see
that true obedience to God’s will is what constitutes our “spiritual worship”
(Romans 12:1).
