Failing to Learn A Lesson On The Dangers Of Being A People Pleaser...

This week, we have been looking at the life of the very first king of the Jewish people, a man named king Saul. Wednesday, we looked on as King Saul, as a result of being focused on his fear of failing to please people in a way that resulted in him failing to keep the commandment of the Lord, lost the possibility of establishing his family as the ruling family of the Jewish people.

While Saul would retain his position as King, neither Jonathon nor future generations from his family tree would have the opportunity to be king. Instead, the Lord had now sought out a man after His own heart, which was a heart that was focused on pleasing God by faithfully trusting and following God. In other words, the Lord had already picked out the man who would lead the Jewish people after Saul was finished as King. The Lord had already made His decision and was already beginning to act on that decision.

Now, at this point, you would think that King Saul would have learned his lesson on the dangers of being a people pleaser. And at this point you would be wrong, as we see in an event from King Saul’s life that Samuel records for us a little later on in 1 Samuel 15:1:

Then Samuel said to Saul, "The LORD sent me to anoint you as king over His people,  over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the LORD. "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. 'Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'"

Now to fully understand what is happening here, we first need to understand who the Amalekites were. The Amalekites were the descendants of a man named Amalek and were the enemies of the Jewish people. In a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of our Bibles called the book of Exodus, we see the Amalekites make an unprovoked attack on the Jewish people as they left the nation of Egypt. The Amalekites attacked the Jewish people during a time when they were extremely vulnerable and were struggling through the wilderness.

Now this attack made a deep impression upon the Jewish people which they had not forgotten. As a result of this attack, God commanded the Jewish people to exterminate the Amalekites in Exodus 17:14-16. And now, God was commanding Saul to make good on that command and remove the hated enemy of the Jewish people from the earth. We see Saul’s response to God’s command in verse 4:

 Then Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. Saul came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley. Saul said to the Kenites, "Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, so that I do not destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt." So the Kenites departed from among  he Amalekites. So Saul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He captured Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 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 not willing to destroy them utterly; but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

Here we see that while Saul obeyed God’s command by extending grace to the Kenites, who were part of the Midianite people who showed kindness to the Jewish people on their journey from Egypt into the Promised Land; While Saul obeyed God’s command by removing from the face of the earth what was despised and worthless of the Amalekites; Saul chose to disobey God’s command by keeping the best of the possessions of the Amalekites.

In addition, Saul allowed the king of the Amalekites to remain alive. However, while Saul viewed his partial obedience as being okay, God viewed Saul’s partial obedience for what it really was, which is total disobedience, as we see in verse 10:

Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, "I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands." And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the LORD all night.

Now it is important to understand that when the Lord says “I regret”, He is not saying that He was surprised. And the Lord is not saying that He made a mistake. Instead, the Lord is expressing the emotional consequences that the selfishness and rebellion of Saul had in His life. You know, that regret that comes when the person you have been pursuing rejects you. The regret that comes from betrayal.

The Lord had created Saul for relationship with Him and Saul responded by rejecting that relationship. The Lord was filled with regret because Saul had failed to represent him in a way that stood firm when it came to following and obeying Him. Samuel then gives us a glimpse of his response to Saul’s rebellion. When Samuel uses the word distressed, this word literally means to burn with anger. Samuel was stoked in anger at Saul.

And as Samuel fumed in anger, Samuel cried out to the Lord in frustration with Saul’s rebellion. However, Samuel’s frustration would only grow, as we see in 1 Samuel 15:12:

Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul; and it was told Samuel, saying, "Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, then turned and proceeded on down to Gilgal." Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, "Blessed are you of the LORD! I have carried out the command of the LORD." But Samuel said, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?"

 The following morning, Samuel arose to pursue King Saul, only to discover that Saul had built a monument for himself. Now a question that arises here is “why would Saul build a monument for himself? I mean, don't other people build monuments to honor you, don't they? So why is Saul building a monument to honor himself?”

The reason why Saul built a monument for himself was to remind people of all the great things he had done for them. You see, Saul wanted the people to remember all that he had done because he was afraid that the people would not be pleased with what he had done. So Saul was attempting to shape the opinion of others in a way that resulted in them thinking highly of him.

And as Saul saw Samuel appear in the distance, we see Saul attempt to shape Samuel's opinion of him by brownnosing him. "Blessed are you of the LORD! I have carried out the command of the LORD." Samuel, however, would have none of it. In his stoked anger, Samuel confronts King Saul with the facts of the situation. Samuel basically says to King Saul "If you carried out the command of the Lord and removed any evidence of the Amalekite's existence from the earth, then why are all these animals still alive?" We see Saul's response in verse 15:

Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed."

Once again, we see Saul attempt to play the blame game. Saul basically says “Oh those animals. Well that was not my doing. That's not my fault. You see, we removed most of the Amalekite's from the face of the earth, but the people who went with me, well they wanted to spare the best animals to use to worship the Lord. This is not my fault; this is their fault”.

Tomorrow, we will see Samuel’s response to Saul’s attempts to play the blame game...