1 Samuel 15: The Last Straw

"He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble." (Luke 1:52)

Saul's time on the throne has come to an end.  The events of 1 Samuel 15 are what finally do him in.  And this chapter makes it clear that Saul's transgression, the very thing that separated him so dramatically from God, is disobedience.  We've already seen how the crown had made Saul prideful and arrogant, but the greater crime, which obviously results from those vices, is how he disregarded God's commands.  He made himself the ultimate judge and ignored the true Judge.  In looking over Saul's brief reign, it doesn't immediately seem clear that he's done anything seriously egregious.  But then in this chapter Samuel spells it out for us: "Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims, and not rather that the voice of the Lord should be obeyed?  For obedience is better than sacrifices: and to hearken rather than to offer the fat of the rams" (1 Samuel 15:22).  For obedience is better than sacrifices.  Saul wanted to make sacrifices to God in this chapter, and in previous chapters when he would perform the sacrifices himself rather than wait for the proper officiant.  He felt that the sacrifice itself was what was important, and that it didn't matter who did it or in what way.  His pride blinded him to the truth that he was grievously disobeying the specific orders of God -- just as Satan had done when he was cast from Heaven, just as Adam and Eve had done when they ate the fruit, just as all of us do when we think ignoring God's commands is no big deal.  God doesn't need a sacrificed animal, He needs us to obey Him.  In 1 Samuel 15 that meant Saul needed to kill all the Amalekites, including their king, Agag.  This might be a hard matter for us to think on, but God's ways we must remember are mysterious.  Saul does not kill all the Amalekites, and even spares the life of Agag, in direct disobedience and defiance of God's orders.  He tries to make the excuse that he spared the animals in order to make sacrifices to God, but again as we've seen it wasn't the sacrifices God wanted but Saul's obedience.  Why Saul didn't kill Agag isn't immediately clear.  Was it a false pity?  Was it so he could march the captured king back home as a sign of his triumph?  Whatever the reason, Saul disobeyed God and was thus officially cast away as Israel's king.  Samuel makes it clear by the end of the chapter that Saul is no longer God's chosen king.  His last disobedience was the last straw.