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Mr. Smith, would you open us up with a word of prayer, if you don't mind?
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us, your love for us, and thanks for bringing us here today. We pray that you'd bless our time together, that it be profitable, that you'd strengthen us in your faith and our love for you.
Be with Brother Mike as he opens your word.
In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Alright, let's go to 1 Samuel chapter 15. If I remember correctly, we ended at verse 31. So we'll pick up in verse 32 and go to the end of the chapter. I'll read the last two paragraphs.
It says, And 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. But Samuel said, As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among you.
And Samuel hewed Agag into pieces before the Lord at Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Ramah. But Saul went back to his house in Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death.
For Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord had regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. So, y 'all tell me what we learned last week, if we learned anything. What did we learn last week about the rejection of Saul as a king?
Why? Disobedience. He disobeyed. So, what would, before he was, this caused being rejected as king would also have made him lose the dynasty. What's that? Same thing as what? His disobedience. Because of his disobedience earlier in the book, he said he would not have a dynasty.
So, that means Jonathan was not going to be the next in line. And if you, as we go on through the book, it's interesting that Jonathan is aware of that because he, when he is fighting with David, and David's on the run, he says, when you're on the throne, I'm going to be your right-hand man.
So, even Jonathan knows that his dad's kingship is rejected as king. This is going to take some time to catch up. And then their dynasty has been lost. And it's lost forever. There's no getting it back.
Now, last week, we heard Samuel say that God does not change his mind. Does anybody remember what the context was and how we should understand that God doesn't change his mind? And what specifically was it talking about?
Well, yes, the first part of the chapter, it was he mourned because he had chosen Saul. But as he told him, hey, you've lost the kingdom. It's over. You're rejected as king. And as Samuel went to leave, what did we say he did?
He reached as an act of supplication, he touched a hem of his garment, and as he turned, it tore. And he said, just as, in my translation, just as your robe has been torn, so has the kingdom been torn from you.
And then he said, what does he say? God will not change his mind. So, when we're talking about God changing his mind, what was he specifically talking about? He will not change his mind about, hey, you can pray.
You can do whatever you want. You can do offerings of sacrifice. God ain't changing his mind about taking the kingdom from you. It's over. It's done. Now, does God change his mind? There you go. Not the way we do.
Does, humanly speaking, does prayer move God? Yes. Humanly speaking, yes. You have not because you ask not. Okay? Humanly speaking, when we're reading Scripture, we need not qualify everything by God's eternal decree.
Because if we do that, that makes God a sterile God, makes God a God of no emotions. We do agree that God has emotions. Do we all agree with that? Okay. Because we're fixing to see God has emotions. Now, how we understand those may be a little different, but the way we should understand it is that God is a God that is intimately involved in the decree of his people.
Look, God didn't do like the deists believe. God spun up this thing and then let it go, and man's running its course, and God steps back and lets man do what he wants. And then, at certain times in history, God steps into place to help, yeah, slows down the spinning, yeah, or fixes something.
Okay? Yes, sir.
I give up. Oh, yes, sir.
So when we get down, as we move forward, we need to understand that God is legitimately and seriously grieved over Saul. Seriously. How many people's translation down there at the last one says regret or relent or repent?
Okay. All right. Just so when I get there I know how many different words I'm going to have to deal with. Okay. So back at verse 32, and then Samuel said, Bring Agag to me. So what was the sin of disobedience?
He was judging his king because what did he not do? In short, he didn't kill everybody. He didn't kill everything. It's interesting as we go through this as well, when we get to the episode, episode, the chapter where King Saul's chasing David, he gets to the city of Nob where the priest, there's 85 priests there.
They have helped David, given him some food. They sent him on his way. Ahimelech says, Hey, look, what we did, we didn't violate anything, nor will we have come against you or your people. And the very thing that he was rejected for not doing, which was killing every man, woman, boy, and girl, you know what he does to the city of Nob, his own countrymen?
He kills every man, woman, boy, girl, infant, cattle, sheep, everything. And 85 priests of the Lord. That's what he does. So rejected for not doing what God told him to do, but then took upon himself, once again we see the progression of Saul, to doing what's right in his own eyes.
So Samuel said, Bring Agag to me. What should Saul have done immediately? We said this last week. When he was called out on his sin, he actually came to the realization, Okay, I really haven't obeyed the voice of the Lord.
What should he have done immediately with everything that was left over? Men, start slaughtering them. Yep, start slaughtering them. He should have killed Agag right then. But what did he not do? He still didn't kill Agag.
So what does Samuel have to do? Bring him to me. Bring him to me. So Samuel says, Bring Agag to me, the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came to him cheerfully. Now remember, how long did we say this has probably been?
From the time that they invaded the land of Amalek to the time they got back to Gilgal. Maybe like four days. It's 120 miles. Average they would move would be 30 miles a day. We could throw another day or two in there if we wanted to because they were wrangling cattle and all that stuff to get it back to Gilgal.
So let's just say it was four days. Agag's thinking, Okay, well, yeah, maybe by this time they're not nearly as angry at me. They haven't killed me yet. Maybe Saul was going to prance me around like a trophy, which was common for people to do when they conquered other lands.
They would haul them off and either hooks through their jawbone, hooks through their nose, or hooks through the cheek, and they would drag them around as a trophy. Well, he's thinking, Well, maybe this is, and I think it's a legitimate thinking from Agag's perspective.
Hey, they haven't killed me yet, and they're saving all these other things. He says, Well, maybe the bitterness of death has passed. But then Samuel says this to him in verse 33. As the sword has made women childless, so shall the mother be childless.
I'm sorry. So shall your mother be childless among women. What had Amalek done 500 years back? What did they come up behind here and do when they were coming across the peninsula? That's it. They got the weak, the slow, the women, the children, those who were in the back.
And now he's saying, Hey, what your predecessors did, you're fixing to have done to you. And not only did his predecessors do that, but the Amalekites were always warring in that area. Man, they would just go in.
If you know anything about history and how they operated, they would just go in, and they would just level little villages and towns, rape the women and children, pillage it, and then burn it. They wouldn't even set up shop there.
They wouldn't like it. You know how most people would go in, and they would just start to habit the land that they have conquered. That's not what they would do. They would just take those little lands right down there, and they would just decimate them and leave them crushed.
And Samuel says, Hey, what you have done, now it's going to be done to you. And it says that Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal. You don't see that at church every Sunday. What's that?
You don't see that? Hacking somebody? Yeah, hacking them to pieces. So here it is at Gilgal. Man, that's a bunch of stuff that's happened here so far. What's happened here so far in the book? No, in this book.
Oh, they did, but they passed it around. So far, they have anointed a king. They have gone back there, renewed the kingdom. Samuel gave his farewell speech. Now it is where he lost the dynasty too. So now the very same place that he was commissioned as a king, he's lost the dynasty.
Now he's been rejected as king, not known what he's supposed to do. And then what does Samuel do? Before the Lord, as an act of worship, he chops Agag to pieces. That sounds like a violent thing, doesn't it?
We understand that this is not out of anger. And I know that might be hard for us to understand, but what Samuel's doing is doing just what the command of the Lord told him to do, which was kill him, cut him into pieces.
Think about a sacrifice when it was taken from the brazen altar or from the butcher tables which were laid out. Were they angry when they butchered the animal? Were they? Were they angry when they cut the guts open, pulled out the livers and all the fatty tissue and all that?
No, they weren't. It was an act of worship. What's more bothersome to me in trying to understand this is Samuel is not mad, he is in grief. Samuel is in great grief over the failure of Saul, and then in a time of grief, what does he do?
He chops Agag to pieces. And then, what does it say? It says in verse 34 that then Samuel went back to Ramah, but Saul went back to his house and give you of Saul. So here it is, Samuel and him part ways.
Part ways. And the text says that he doesn't see him again until the day of his death. Now, the day of his death should be understood not the day of Saul's death. It should be the day of Samuel's death, the day of Saul's death.
And why? Do you remember the Witch of Endor? When he went to the Witch of Endor and says, Hey, I need you to bring up Samuel. Samuel is raised up, his spirit is, and what does Samuel tell him? You're going to die today.
You and your sons are going to die on the battlefield. That was the last. That's when he saw him again. He never saw him again. Now, we don't know if they passed each other in his little circuit from Gilgal to Ramah to Bethel.
We don't know, but we know this. There was no intentional meeting from this time until the time that he died, Saul died, which was in the day of his death. He was killed in battle. And then it says, verse 35, in the middle of it, it says, For Samuel grieved over Saul.
Why was Samuel grieving over Saul? Yeah, sure. He had seen him come into something very humbled, and then now he has seen him kind of go his own way, do his own thing. Why else has he grieved over Saul?
He sees the apostasy of Saul. I mean, why did God say he had rejected him back in this chapter? He has turned back from following me. What does to turn back and follow me? What does to turn back mean?
Apostasy. Yeah, he turned back from following me, and he did not obey my word. If that's not a clear understanding of apostasy, then I don't know what is. Look, he was supposed to be going towards God.
What did he do? He turned and went the opposite direction. Now, was he a good nationalist? Yeah, yeah. Once again, he's a successful deliverer. There's some parallels between him and Samson, if you think about it.
Was Samson not a great deliverer of his people? Yes, but was Samson faithful? Now, I know he ends up in the Hall of Faith and all that, so forget all that for a second. But show me one time in the narrative of Samson where he was faithful.
He was unfaithful. He broke every vow he had. He did what he wanted to do. And the only times that he did cry out to the Lord, they were still self-centered. So you go look at this guy here. He is basically doing the same thing.
But one thing we do not see from Saul, he never cries out to God. He never cries out to God. He never once has a heart of repentance. He never once has a heart that says, you know what? I have sinned against the Lord.
I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back to my first works where I was humbled. Now, just a recognition of a transgression, which he did recognize, that's not repentance. Would we all agree? Right? We would all agree?
Okay. How else would Samuel have grieved over Saul? Yeah. I mean, he has shepherded this man. Yeah. Certainly, he had shepherded this man. We don't know the exact time frame, but we do know that him and Samuel were in contact with one another because the prophet, the prophet priest, and the king did work with one another.
If you remember what I told you last week, we think about the king being the sole authority under a monarchy and that is true in the sense that when you don't have a theocratic state. But who had more authority than the king?
The priest. The priest and prophet. Because the prophet and the priest, you'll even see this as you get into the New Testament, if you see the political power that the priest had in the time of Jesus, I mean, they were basically a ruling party of the people.
And he was the mouthpiece to God to Saul. You know, and here it is. He has continually rejected the word of the Lord and Samuel is deeply grieved. And then it says, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.
All right. The word that's used there in the Hebrew and it's used multiple times in this passage is a word called niham and it has a wide range of understanding. It can have the idea of to console. It can have the idea of grief.
It can have repentance. But every time the word is used in the Old Testament, not just here, in the Old Testament, it has with it the feeling of sorrow. That is what we're seeing here that you use when it says that the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.
I prefer the translation that says grieved because I believe that is what is used. And why would I say that? When you do exegesis, you go back to where times this word is used in speaking with the context of God.
And other times it's used, one specifically is Genesis 6, 6. That word is used and if anybody remembers what it says, it says that God relented that he had made man. It actually, the word niham is what's used.
It says that God was grieved that he made man and then he was sorrowful in his heart. Okay. So we should understand that God is legitimately grieving over the failure of Saul. Now I know, well at least this is how I think, is man, how is he grieving over something that he decreed?
Because when God decreed it, it is not yet playing out through redemptive history. Is God not, does God not have emotions that he can respond to his people? Understand? Does that sound clear? Is that not clear?
Does God respond to his people? Yes. Okay. Can he not respond with emotion? Yes. Can he not respond with grief? Yes. Why do many people have a problem with God responding over grief towards his people but no problem with response with wrath?
Right? How can God be hurt? Yes, sir. Sure. Sure. Now the argument would be, and I'm on your side, the argument would be that Jesus was only feeling that in his humanity, and I disagree with that because you can't separate the hypostatic union in that way.
It's so intertwined that then you have, if you try to split that where he has this nature and this nature and they're completely separate, that was a heresy back in I think the third century that was had that he did not.
He has two natures that are completely intertwined together that are inseparable. So that when Jesus grieved, lamented over his people, he said, Hey, I would love to have gathered them unto myself, but they would not come.
They were unwilling, and Jesus weeped as he was going into the city. I think it's in chapter 17 of Luke as he's going into the city, he's grieving. Well, to say that's only his humanity doesn't make sense because he's specifically saying why he's grieving.
He's grieving because of their apostate heart. In this case, God is grieving over the apostasy of Saul, and we should understand it that way. Now, if we take this to the point, we said earlier when the same words used back earlier that when we think of God, we try to use it in anthropomorphism, meaning God has a hand, but we know he doesn't because he has a spirit.
Well, in this case, this is often thought is called anthropopathism, and that is the feeling. We try to explain that God has a feeling that he doesn't really have, but we're trying to understand that in human terms.
I think that's wrong. I think that's very wrong because then if you're going to follow that to its fullest extent, you're going to say that anthropopathic is only trying to explain a feeling of God that we can't understand, then you have to follow that to his love.
That means God really doesn't have love for us. We're just trying to explain it that way. Understand or no? I think we should jettison that idea. What was that? I think if you have an impassibility view that says that God does not have changing feelings, I think if impassibility is the view that God does not have changing feelings, I think you should jettison that, too.
You should abandon it because there are hundreds, and I almost printed them out today, almost, hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of passages in Scripture where God actually feels. We're going to read this morning in Amos.
I want you to, as we read in Amos, if you can remember, you're going to hear him say, I hate and reject what you're doing. And then in the next verse, but I could delight. So, you see, those are words that are expressing God has emotion.
Is hate an emotion? Yes. Is delight an emotion? Is love an emotion? Yes. Is grief an emotion? Yes. But God, the God that's not like you and I, and I said this a couple weeks ago, you know, in Psalm 51, it's very clear, man, God ain't like you and me.
He doesn't operate like you and me. You and me have a hard time going, man, how could I love someone so much and then have my anger and wrath kindled against them that I've got my sword made wet, pulled back, my bows drawn back and ready to execute that.
We can't do that because we don't have emotions that are perfectly holy and perfectly righteous. All of our emotions, our grief, our anger, although sometimes righteous indignation is true, all of that still go through the lens of what?
Fallen humanity. God ain't like that. He's perfect. And there ain't one person in here that's righteous. If you're in here and you're a believer, you've been declared righteous. Yes, sir.
Sure, but we don't act upon God. Yes. Back up because does he emote? No, he does not.
Everything that happens happens from within. So when you talk about nothing moves God, you have to be careful when you say that because we just all agree that prayer moves God.
Okay. Sure. Correct. Yes.
So every emotion per se, we want to talk about, but God does not emote. He does look, he doesn't have, who in here has ever had a temper tantrum and flew off the handle? Okay. All right. Does God have a temper tantrum and throw off the handle?
No, but the Bible does talk about his wrath being unbridled. So in our mind, I don't know about y 'all, that almost sounds like outburst and it's not. It's controlled and his wrath was done with precision.
Okay. But there's nothing that, there's no force per se that comes upon God and makes God react. God is acting. Okay. We know the difference between a response and a reaction. God can put in his decree that he's going to respond in such a way that answering the prayer, I'm going to decree the fall of humanity and God's going to grieve over man.
He's going to decree the fall. I mean, he's going to decree the drowning of all of mankind and God truly be grieved in his heart. Look, I mean, to say that God was getting his jollies off drowned in all of humanity is to make God out to be a very, very hateful, vengeful, and vindictive God.
Okay. I say, yes. Does he take out revenge? Yes, but he was not vindictive. Okay. Understand? No. Brian, you good? I see you posting up over there. And the reason specifically it says is because Saul was a failure as a king.
Look, Saul would continue to be a good deliverer. He would continually fight against the Philistines. He would continually make conquests to deliver his people. But it will be from this day forward that Saul will begin to go, hey, man, everybody's against me.
Everybody's against me. And he begins to put men to death that try to take his kingdom. He begins to be terrorized by a demon spirit. And we'll get into that next week. But what we do need before we go into the first and foremost, what does this text, not any other chapter,.
What does this chapter reveal about God? What does it reveal about God?
Okay. Yep, he won't be mocked. Yep, that's for sure. He won't be mocked. Look, if we're reading this just to get historical information and we don't see how this text, what this reveals about God and how it points to Christ, then we failed.
That is one thing that's difficult to do is find, you know, you teach through until you get to a certain stopping point and then you've got to stop. But what does this text reveal about God? That's it?
Okay. Despite of man's action. Despite of man's action, his decree will be carried out. Despite of man's actions. What else? I think it shows God's very merciful here. God should have wiped Saul off the planet right then.
Should he not? Yeah, he should have. But what did he do? He showed mercy. And there is coming a point, and it is even said to David, not in this, it's in when he gives the Davidic covenant, he goes that he removed his steadfast mercy from Saul.
Removed his mercy. How should we understand? Hey, if God removes his mercy from someone's life, what does that say about that person's eternal state? Damned. Damned. What else does it reveal about God?
Patient and long-suffering. Very patient and long-suffering. Matter of fact, he was long-suffering and patient. If we take the King James understanding, which I do, he sat on his hand for two years and didn't do anything, and then the first time right from, so for 38 to 40 years, he got a consistent pattern of disobedience.
That's what we do know. And God was very patient and long-suffering. Now, why was he patient and long-suffering? Was it for Saul's sake? No, it was, one, for the sake of his people so that he would not break the covenant that he had made when he said, I will always have a deliverer.
And that deliverer, he said, look, man, Saul is going to deliver my people. Is that not what he said? If he had wiped them out, there was nobody there to take his place, there would have been no deliverer.
It would have been a covenant breaker. He would have been a liar. So at this point, he lets him carry on for 40 years per se. That's what Acts says. Until he raises up another person that will take his place.
What else do we just reveal about God? That he loves his glory and the glory of his name will not be diminished. He chopped Agag to pieces. Was that not a glorious act? Think about it. I know we're talking about butchering somebody.
Was that not a glorious act of judgment that God said, look, this is what you're supposed to do? God brought glory to himself by the butchering of another man. God's glory will not be diminished. Now we go, man, that's kind of tough.
That is the way God made it that time. Now, it doesn't give a right to go out and commit genocide. But in this case, the reason for doing it was for what he had done to God's people. How does this text point to Christ?
All right, so Samuel's love for Saul points to Christ as his priest and prophet. Okay, how else? Saul, back up. Okay. Yeah, he didn't waver in his, I mean, hey, imagine. And Jack just left. Imagine Jack chopping somebody in pieces.
Y 'all realize how old he would have been. That guy was probably 80 years old. And like Jack just, all right, bring him here. Pulls out a machete and went to hack him. I mean, yeah, he was faithful to what God had commissioned him to do.
This text points specifically to Christ in that, hey, we got a king that's coming that ain't going to be a failure. That's going to obey perfectly. That's going to do all that God required. And it ain't going to be found in King David.
It ain't going to be found in King Solomon. It ain't going to be found in all those other kings that were failures after that. It's going to be found in King Jesus. And he's going to do exactly what he came to do.
And that's to die for the sins of his people. And he will atone for the sins of his people. He will propitiate the wrath of God. And then he will be exalted on high as king of kings and lord of lords.
No more man kings. This will be the God-man king one day. That is great because we all need a king. We need a warrior king. We need a shepherd king. And Saul that. He was a warrior until he has to fight a Goliath who may jeopardize his head and shoulders probably taller than him as he was head and shoulders taller than everybody else.
And then when he sees the fact, oh wow. This could be the way that my kingdom is torn from me forever. What does he do? He offers booty to somebody else that will come and do it. Tax free. You'd be tax free if somebody will go kill him.
I'll give him my daughters too. I can give him an ugly one. He actually says he's going to give him Michael. You remember when we get to that point it says I'll give him Michael so that she'll be basically a thorn in his side.
So what does that say about her? She's a contentious woman like a dripping rain on a roof. Click, click, click, click, click, click. What verse? I didn't hear you. Okay. No, that would be more of an allegorical interpretation which that needs to be.
Allegorical interpretation is subjective to your opinion. That's what winds up happening when you look at allegories. Now there's one time where the Scripture is used as an allegory and Paul says what he's doing it for and it was to make a distinction between Mount Sinai and the New Covenant.
It's in Galatians. And he even says I'm doing it so you can understand. Okay. What we see Saul doing here was actually doing something very gracious. Were the Canaanites under? Was Jethro under the judgment of God?
Anybody remember who Jethro was, right? What's that? Moses' father-in-law. Was he under the judgment of God? He was not. He was not under the judgment of God. He actually, when they came out, it was Jethro that says, Hey, dude, you can't do this on your own.
You need to set you up some people that will help you. And that's what he does. The Canaanites were his descendants. And he actually says, Hey, look, you're not who God told me to come kill. I know you're mixed up down here in this area with them.
I know you're kind of intermingled with them. You need to get out. I don't want to kill you for the judgment on someone else. I think that's a very good act of graciousness. But to make that leap? No, I don't.
I would say no. It was a very gracious act of Saul. I mean, he could have went in there and just said, Hey, tough. You all are hanging out with them. You're roasting sausages or whatever it is by the fire.
But he didn't. He remembered how he had enough history of the exodus to go, Hey, man, these guys were good to Moses and my forefathers. Anything else? Sure. He does fulfill those. Yeah, specifically. The only priest part he does not fill, he does not fulfill the high priest, which he was still interceding for his people.
And if we remember, he couldn't be the high priest because he wasn't a son of Aaron and all that. I know that's a whole other thing. But, yeah, certainly. We have a better prophet, a better priest, and a better king that's coming.
And they're all going to be in one person. And that's in Jesus Christ. Yep. What else?
Reveals that God's covenant with his people is an eternal, unbreakable. Unbreakable. The new covenant is, yeah.
And why is it unbreakable? It's made with God. It's not a Caesarian covenant like the Mosaic legislation, which is you do this, I'll do this. You do this, I'll do this. You do this, I'll do this. The new covenant is I will do this.
I will do it. And I'm not going to need you to do anything. You're not going to need to obey. You're not going to do these religious actions. You're not going to have to go and have this man go in with funny clothes every year and make an atonement over this box that I will be glowing over the top of.
We're not going to have to do that anymore. And the reason why they had to keep doing that is because their sins were never really forgiven. Remember that. Under the old covenant, the sins were never really forgiven.
They were just put off. Just put off. Just put off and put off. Hundreds, thousands of years, just put off and put off and put off until that day when Christ would come and it says under the new covenant that our sins will be remembered no more.
Sins are actually forgiven when they're not remembered again. That's when forgiveness happens. Anything else?
We've got five minutes. We'll get out early. Tim, you'll pray for us? Thank you, Father God, as we now approach you in the worship of the psalm and in the preaching of your word. Father, I pray that you would open up our hearts to be receptive.
We pray that you would bless the men of God in his labor as he proclaimed your truth. We love you and we thank you and we praise you and we give you your name, all the glory. Amen. Amen. God bless. Amen.