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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

Obedience vs Sacrifice

Father in heaven, we thank you for this new day you've given to us.

We want to thank you for seeing us through this week safely.

And now as we come to study your Word, we ask again for your Holy Spirit to please be with us, to guide and lead us, to teach us clearly that we might understand, to know how to apply these words to our lives.

So give us that understanding and that wisdom now, Lord.

We need it, even now, to teach us, to uplift us, to illumine our minds.

We are continuing our study on the King's series and today we're going to be looking at a topic entitled obedience versus sacrifice.

You know, when Saul had disobeyed and disobeyed Samuel's instruction from God about sacrificing to God and waiting for him instead of him doing it himself, and when Samuel came and he gave him that pronouncement that because of this foolish act, his kingdom would not continue, it's something very interesting that, Samuel does not say that he had been rejected as king, but simply that the kingship would not be passed down to his sons and they would not rule as kings.

His kingdom would not continue, but he was still king.

And so Samuel comes now to Saul again with a directive from God.

Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people over Israel.

Now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." God wants Saul to wipe Amalek from off the face of the earth, to basically destroy them and wipe them out of existence.

You see the Amalekites have been the first ones to attack and wage war against the Israelites when they first came out of Egypt.

This was that time when Moses stood on a hill and he held up the rod of God and Joshua and the Israelites were fighting in the valley below and when he held up the rod they they would win but when he got tied and let it down they would begin to lose.

And so, the brother and an elder, they came and stood there as he sat on a rock and held up the hand together and they ultimately prevailed against the Amalekites.

But this was the instruction that God would give to Moses to the Israelites just before he would pass away.

We read this in Deuteronomy 25 and verse 19.

Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven, thou shalt not forget it." They would be blotted out of existence and it was a clear direction from God.

The time of their probation would eventually come to an end.

And that instruction was now coming to Saul through Samuel from God.

God had given the Amalekites plenty of time, enough chances to change, to repent from their wicked ways.

And when he saw that their wickedness would never change anymore, no matter how much time he would give them, then he gave this judgment to them.

And the tool, the instrument that would be used would be King Saul and the Israelites.

And since Moses spoke those words in Deuteronomy, up to the time that Samuel gives this command to Saul, it had already been 400 years.

God had given 400 years to the Amalekites to change.

You see, friends, we must trust God and His judgment and His wisdom of those whom He chooses to close probation on, whom he chooses to allow to live longer.

We just must know that God gives everyone more than enough chances to change and to repent.

If we would dig deep enough into the lives of the people out there, we would see that God is just, that God has given everyone enough chances to come to repentance and to be saved.

You see, friends, God does not delight in afflicting and punishing people.

Yes, even though they might be wicked, they are still his children whom he died for.

Yet when we see all that judgment come upon them, God does not take great delight in punishing even the wicked.

For the Lord shall rise up as in Mount Parazim.

He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass His act, his strange act.

You see friends, when God has to stand up to punish 1 day, it is a strange work.

Because God is all about giving life and not taking life.

It is all about, he's all about creating and not destroying.

This is not something that he delights in.

This is not something that he is used to.

We continue to read Also in Ezekiel 33 and verse 11, the Bible says, God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

He's not standing over the wicked at the end of time, pouring out hellfire and rejoicing in it and saying, I've waited for thousands of years to do this.

The reason why God even now waits today is because He does not desire any to be lost, any to be destroyed.

He wants everyone to turn from their wicked ways.

Though He does not delight in vengeance, though He does not delight in destroying and taking men's and women's lives, He will and He must judge the wicked at the end of time.

And especially, He will take vengeance on those that are hardened in sin and refuse to turn from their wicked ways.

And so we read in Exodus 34, verse 6 and 7, And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth.

God is merciful, He is gracious, He is long-suffering, and then it says, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

Friends, if we come to God and we repent and we ask Him to forgive us, He will forgive.

But then it says, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Friends, God is a merciful, a long-suffering, a forgiving God.

When we come to Him, we can always have the assurance and the trust and the faith that if we confess our sins, He will forgive us.

But if we refuse to confess, if we refuse to soften our hearts and open our hearts to Him, if We refuse to surrender to him and ask him to change our hearts and lives.

He will not clear the guilty unless they show the fruits of repentance.

And so friends, God had given these Amalekites plenty of chances to change.

And now Saul, he has this directive from Samuel, from God, to go and to destroy them.

What does Samuel instruct him to do though?

We go back to 1 Samuel 15 and now verses 7 to 9.

And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to show that is over against Egypt.

And he took Agag, the king of the Malachites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

But the Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them, but everything that was vile and refuse, that they utterly destroyed." So the instruction was what?

Nobody would be left alive, not even the livestock.

And not only that, the Bible also says that he took of the best of the sheep, the oxen, and all the other animals.

So remember, everything should have been destroyed.

And so while Saul is celebrating the victory, he's marching towards home, while the victory that quote unquote God has given to him, God is communicating with Samuel.

And Samuel was not in Saul's presence at this time.

1 Samuel 15 verse 10-11 Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments.

And it grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night.

God came to Samuel, told him, I've seen what Saul has done.

He did not follow my commandment, my command.

And so God repented of making even Saul king now.

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Obedience vs Sacrifice

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