Pride Blinds Us And Makes Us Deaf To The Truth

1 Samuel 15:1-3 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. ² This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. ³ Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

This was a message from the spiritual leader of Israel (who is speaking on behalf of the Lord Almighty) to the political and military leader of Israel. The message was clear: totally destroy the Amalekites. (WHY?)

Coming out of Egypt the Amalekites attacked Israel. Moses’s Hand held up by Aaron & Hur.           Exodus 17:14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.”

Deuteronomy 25:17-19 Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. ¹⁸ When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. ***¹⁹ When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

Even though this happened more than 400 years earlier, God still held this sin against the Amalekites because time does not erase sin before God.

God could have judged the Amalekites just like He did the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But God had a plan and here we see it. He would use the Amalekites to test the obedience of Saul and all of Israel.

This may seem harsh for God to say totally destroy every living thing. God was merciful to them for 400 years giving them the opportunity to repent and they did not.

Genesis 15:13-16 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ***¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

JERICO Joshua 6:17 Now the city shall be doomed by the Lord to destruction, it and all who are in it. (We put God in a box) We serve a sovereign, righteous and Holy God and clearly sin and wickedness in the eyes of God has a limit.

1 Samuel 15:4-6 So Saul summoned the men and mustered them at Telaim—two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand from Judah. ⁵ Saul went to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the ravine. ⁶ Then he said to the Kenites, “Go away, leave the Amalekites so that I do not destroy you along with them; for you showed kindness to all the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites moved away from the Amalekites.

The Kenites were not part of God’s judgement, because they showed kindness to Israel when they came out of Egypt.   Judges 1:16 The descendants of Moses’ father-in-law, the Kenite,    (Jethro)

1 Samuel 15:7-9 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. ⁸ He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. ⁹ But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

Saul and his men obeyed God as far as it suited them; so they did not obey God at all. Partial obedience is complete disobedience.

1 Samuel 15:10-11 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: ¹¹ “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry/grieved, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

God’s heart was grieved over Saul’s disobedience. The man who started out so humble continued to stumble down the path of disobedience. God knew from the beginning Saul’s heart, ways, and destiny.

Yet as all this unfolded, God’s heart was not emotionless. Saul’s disobedience grieved God.    (Can we Grieve God? Do we Grieve God?) Eph. 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, (through our disobedience)

Samuel was angry/grieved, and he cried out to the LORD all night: Samuel had God’s heart. It grieved God to reject Saul, and it grieved God’s prophet to see him rejected.  We can know if we have God’s heart when the things that grieve Him grieve us, and the things that please God please us.

1 Samuel 15:12-13 Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.” ¹³ When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”

Saul isn’t grieved over his sin. Saul seems quite pleased with himself! There is not the slightest bit of conviction or sorrow in Saul, even though he has just directly disobeyed the LORD.

Saul is so blinded by his pride that he could directly disobey God and then set up a monument in his own honor to celebrate the occasion.

The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions: Saul comes to Samuel with such boldness, actually boasting of his obedience. And he believes what he’s telling Samuel. Pride always leads us into self-deception.

1 Samuel 15:14-16 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?” ¹⁵ Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.” ¹⁶ “Enough/be quiet!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” “Tell me,” Saul replied.

The livestock that God clearly commanded to be destroyed can be seen and heard. Pride not only blinds us but makes us deaf to the truth of our sin.             What was completely obvious to Samuel was oblivious to Saul.

We all have blind/deaf spots of sin in our lives, and that’s why we need to constantly ask God to show them to us. (How close to God-admire from afar)

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

The soldiers brought them… they spared the best of the sheep and the oxen: Again we see excuses from Saul — he blamed the people, not himself. Then in his disobedience, he claimed to do it for a spiritual reason. (sacrifice to God)

But in the midst of his excuses, Saul reveals the real problem: He says they spared the animals “to sacrifice to the LORD your God.”

The LORD was Samuels God not Saul’s God. Saul was Saul’s God. In his pride, Saul had removed the LORD God from the throne of his heart. (Replaced-himself)

Vs15 Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.” As it turns out, not even this was true. We know Saul let some Amalekites get away. David later had to deal with the Amalekites:

1 Samuel 27:8 Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites.

1 Samuel 30:1-2 David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it, ² and had taken captive the women and everyone else in it, both young and old.

If your familiar with the book of Ester there is a man named Haman, an evil man who tried to wipe out all the Jewish people in the days of Esther. Hamen was a descendant of Agag: Ester 3:1 After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles.

Most ironic of all, when Saul dies on the battlefield, He was fighting the Philistines. The enemy God had given Saul the opportunity to make completely irrelevant. But because of his prideful heart and his rash, selfish, ungodly, legalistic vows, they were allowed to escape and regroup.

(Saul dies in 31-fell on his own sword) 2 Samuel 1:6-10  “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa,” the young man said, “and there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and their drivers in hot pursuit. ⁷ When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, and I said, ‘What can I do?’ ⁸ “He asked me, ‘Who are you?’ “An Amalekite,’ I answered. ⁹ “Then he said to me, ‘Stand here by me and kill me! I’m in the throes of death, but I’m still alive.’¹⁰ “So I stood beside him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band on his arm and have brought them here to my lord.”

When we don’t obey God completely, the “left over” portion will surely come back to haunt us, or even try to kill us.

1 Chronicles 4:42-43 And five hundred of these Simeonites, led by Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi, invaded the hill country of Seir. ⁴³ They killed the remaining Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day.  (300 years later during the reign of Hezekiah)