1 Samuel 15

God had a plan for the land that would be Israel that He began to reveal to Abraham 2000 years before Jesus was born. The Lord renewed His promises concerning the destruction of the peoples in that land, the land of Canaan, during the lives of Moses and Joshua.

Though the people of Israel would not always obey the Lord's directives concerning the land and His judgments against the people that lived there, He had never abandoned His intentions. Now He had put Saul in place as king, and He expected Saul to follow out His directives spoken through Samuel in every detail.

The Lord remembered what the people of Amalek had done to Israel on their way out of Egypt. See Exodus 17:8-16 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19. Now centuries later, the Lord told Saul to utterly destroy Amalek, just as He had revealed to Moses. The instruction was unmistakeable. “Devote to destruction all that they have.”

Saul did not do this. He substituted his own judgment for the Word of God. He kept alive what might be useful and destroyed what seemed worthless.

Even before Samuel was able to assess Saul's disobedience with his own senses, God had already passed judgment upon Saul. When confronted, Saul claimed that he had obeyed. He first hid behind a supposed plan to offer sacrifices to the Lord, and then he blamed the people.

This was not Saul's best moment.

The Lord used this turning point in Saul's reign to make one very important point: God wanted a king who would obey Him entirely in everything that He said. God was looking for a man who would lead others in hearing the Word of the Lord and following that Word. Saul would not be that man, nor would that man come from Saul's descendants.

“Because you have rejected the Word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.”

There was nothing more to say, at least not in this life. But there was much more to happen, as the chapters that follow this sad moment will show.

This was a dark moment in the history of Israel. In those generations recorded for us in the Scriptures where confusion and disobedience seem to overtake the Lord's people, even the inspired accounts that we have of these people and events seem to reflect the dim light of the times they record.

The heaven that Christ has won for us is a kingdom of light. The kingdom under Saul was increasingly a place that was hard to understand.

When bad news seems to take the lead, our hearts yearn for the good news of eternity. There will be no need for excuses and lies when the Lord's good purpose has been fully established. Even now, we can walk in the light as He is in the light. Even dark episodes of fear, disorder, and sin can find a satisfying resolution in the righteousness and blood of the Lamb of God. Forgiveness is freely available, and a new day of light and life is abundantly granted to all who will put their trust in King Jesus.