Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): As you look back on your life, maybe you've made a real mess of things. Pastor Ed Taylor says don't lose hope.

Pastor Ed Taylor: The problems in our lives because of the flesh and because of our mistakes, because of our sin, requires a skilled wise God to come and rescue, to fix, to mend, and to repair us. Trying to fix something that has been broken by the flesh or, I would say this, trying to fix something in the flesh that was already broken because of the flesh will lead to disaster. You've got to get that.

You and I have to grasp it. Taking things in our own hands will not solve the problem. It will make things worse. We are at the mercy of a God who loves us, who has compassion on us, who is all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and has the resources to correct those things in our lives that we have broken.

Guest (Male): Hello friend, welcome to another Abounding Grace broadcast. Pastor Ed Taylor will join us in just a second as we continue our way through First Samuel. Perhaps like the man we'll meet today, you're really not in a good place. The good news we'll bring before you today is God specializes in turning a mess into a success for His glory. He loves to give second chances, and King Saul is about to receive one here in chapter 15.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Take your Bibles, open them to First Samuel, chapter 15 is where we are. First Samuel 15 in our Bible study, verse by verse through the book of First Samuel. It's been a good study. Unfortunately, we're watching the downfall of a man. We're seeing it in many of the attributes that are possessed by a man who, with great privilege and opportunity, by the time we get to our section here in chapter 15, his behavior is going to be compared to witchcraft.

Now, if you were to talk to Saul, who's King Saul now, before he was ever anointed king, and said, "Do you think in a couple years in your life that you're going to be involved in behavior that will be compared by a man of God to witchcraft?" I'm most certain that the response would have been, "No way, never. That's not my heart, that's not my desire." And yet we see it happen. And we not only see it happen in the scriptures, but we see it happen far too much. Lord, help us not to walk down a path that in just a few years we went from great potential to great disaster.

Now, as we open up chapter 15, I was thinking of how I am not very good with my hands. I'm not good at fixing things, anything, ever. I'm not good with my hands. I'm not good with a saw. I'm not good with a hammer, nothing like that. If I break something or if something breaks that I own, I'm truly at the mercy of a wise, skilled person that knows what they're doing. I really don't have even the capability of figuring out.

Now, I can tinker a little bit with electronics and such, but even then, we just had an electronic thing break in our house and there's a brother in the church that I call right away, that we connect right away, because this is his world. He would know exactly what to look for and even with one little suggestion, just telling us what to do, it's like, "Oh, it's broke. It's completely broke. There's no hope. I can't even fix it." He didn't say that because he hasn't seen it yet.

But here, when I look at that, I thought, spiritually it's the same thing for you and for me. You're just like me spiritually. What I mean by that is this: when something breaks in our lives spiritually, we are at the mercy of a wise, skilled God to fix it for us. We are unable to fix our own mistakes. We are unable to undo our own mistakes. We are very much at the mercy.

The problems in our lives because of the flesh and because of our mistakes, because of our sin, requires a skilled wise God to come and rescue, to fix, to mend, and to repair us. And we learned, didn't we? Trying to fix something that has been broken by the flesh or, I would say this, trying to fix something in the flesh that was already broken because of the flesh will lead to disaster. You've got to get that. You and I have to grasp it.

Taking things in our own hands will not solve the problem. It will make things worse. We are at the mercy of a God who loves us, who has compassion on us, who is all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and has the resources to correct those things in our lives that we have broken. And when we jump in and try to fix things on our own, it only gets worse. Remember what we learned. Jot it down. Romans chapter 8, verse 8 says, "So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God." How often in the flesh can we please God? Never. Never.

I believe one of the solutions in our life is to admit when we're in the flesh, to acknowledge that. Our only hope when things are amiss are to cry out to the God who loves us and submit ourselves humbly to His care, knowing that He has the wisdom and the understanding and the direction. He knows how to care for our lives far better than we do. King Saul makes sinful mistake after sinful mistake only to complicate things by jumping in and trying to fix them with more sinful mistakes.

He doesn't take wise counsel. He leans on his own understanding. He thinks he's got it all figured out. Chapter 15 is a key chapter in the life of King Saul. We're met with a man that's blown it countless times. I wonder how many of us could say the same thing in our lives in various ways, that we look back on a season of our lives and we've just blown it. We've blown it small, we've blown it big, and maybe even trying to respond to the error by fixing it, and then that's where we just blow it there.

Chapter 15 opens up with such great hope and such great promise for you and I because if that does describe your life in any way that you've blown it, understand this: we serve the God of the second chance. God does in His grace extend mercy and grace and gives us a second chance. After all that we've learned about King Saul, you would think chapter 15 would open up and God met Saul and wiped him out and gave Israel a new king. It just didn't work out.

But instead, what we read of is Samuel weeping and mourning. We read of God's heart going, "Man," recognizing it and seeing it for what it is. From the human perspective, this was a bad choice. We already knew that. That wasn't something new. God already told them it was a bad choice choosing a king. It was a bad choice because the king would use them and draft their kids and take advantage of them. They needed God to rule over them, but instead, they chose a king and now we see it unfold, what a bad choice it is.

And yet, chapter 15 is another chance. We open up with such great hope. Samuel also said to Saul, verse 1, "The Lord sent me to anoint you king over Israel, over His people, over Israel. Now therefore heed the voice of the words of the Lord." Isn't that the phrase that you hear when you've blown it? God is great and Saul, God has anointed you Saul. You are in God's favor.

This is in light of all the errors that he's made, all the sins that have been committed, and here's the word. If you're listening to this right now and the description of your life is that you've blown it, listen to what the Bible says. "Now therefore heed the voice of the words of the Lord." That's the way out. Turn to the Lord. And here are the words for Saul, verse 2, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he laid wait for them on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'"

So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Telaim, 200,000 foot soldiers, 10,000 men of Judah, and Saul came to a city of Amalek and laid in wait in the valley. What we're seeing here essentially is a second chance for King Saul. That's what the Lord will do with us. He'll send a messenger after messenger after messenger giving us opportunities to get things right. And here is Saul's chance after so many failures on so many different levels. God is graciously extending another chance to King Saul.

It comes in the form of a battle as the king and the leader. It comes in the form of a war. Keep in context because this is a troubling passage. It's one of many troubling passages in this second section of Samuel. You have to keep in mind this is war. This is a war against two countries. And the command of God to wipe out everyone is a very specific command. And some would ask, "Wait a minute, how could God do such a thing? How could God order such a thing?"

Well, one of the things we need to remember is that the Amalekites, the descendants of Esau, the unbelieving brother of Jacob, the enemy of Israel, have been a thorn in the side of Israel since coming out of Egypt. They have been utterly bitter enemies wanting to destroy. You could say that the Amalekites are involved in something that's still ongoing today in the unrighteousness of anti-Semitism. They hated the Jews and wanted to wipe the Jews from women, children, infants, on. So God orders their destruction.

While it does pose a difficulty, it shouldn't be too hard to conceive from God's perspective what's being dealt with here. This is one of the many places where the critics of the Bible and the critics of God will come and try to force us with an explanation. How could God order the utter, complete extinction of a people group? Now, my first answer is, I don't know why God does all the things He does. I really can't answer that question in particular. I'm not God. I'm not in His mind. I don't know the ways of God.

The Bible tells me, and I affirm it to be true, that God's ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. So I humbly, when I'm forced into a corner with this particular passage and others like it trying to force me with an answer, I honestly respond, I don't know in particular. I don't know exactly why God would do such a thing and why He stops some things and allows other things. I don't know why I have a desire for one thing from God and God doesn't fulfill it; He has something different.

But I do know this: even though I don't know why, I do trust God. Even though I can't explain why, I trust His wisdom. I trust His faithfulness. I trust His direction. I trust His will even when, no, especially when I don't understand it and I can't put my finger on it. But I do see from a practical perspective, I do understand the wisdom in this military campaign. The Amalekites were vicious, cruel, wicked, heartless people. That's the testimony of the Amalekites throughout the scriptures.

They wanted to exterminate the Jews and they weren't just waging war on the nation, but waging war on God Himself. The Bible says all the way back in Genesis chapter 12, God lays this principle before us. He says, "I will bless those that bless you and I will curse him who curses you, and in all the families of the earth, you shall be blessed." So you take on the Jewish people, you take on the very heart of God Himself. And so the Amalekites have waged war on God.

They engaged in very vile, false idolatry worship. They offered up their children as living sacrifices to worship their false gods. They killed and brutalized and were a blight on humanity. The path that they were on would surely end in their own destruction and every generation from them. And this command is not unparalleled as God Himself, seeing the wickedness of the world, wiped out a world except for Noah and his wife and his family. It's not an unparalleled, it's not a brand new decision that God would make.

History shows us that nations that have persecuted Israel have been severely judged, even to this day. And so I can see that. It's not as a difficult as a passage, although while I don't understand the knowledge of God, I also don't doubt Him. I trust that His command to destroy the Amalekites was a righteous command because it came from a righteous God. This wasn't Saul just making it up. God gave the direction.

Now, on a side note, let's step back for a second and allow the Amalekites to speak to us in typology and in picture. The Amalekites, if you like to write in your Bibles, right there in verse 3 or verse 2, the mention of Amalek, you can circle it and write next to it "flesh," because the Amalekites in the Bible are a type and a picture of the flesh, which we've been talking about and learning through the life of King Saul.

The fleshly life, the Bible says that if we walk in the flesh, we will be involved in all sorts of ugly sin. Our flesh, our old sinful habit patterns. Not in the spirit. We walk in the spirit, the Bible says we won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh. But then the Bible also says that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and the two are contrary to one another so that you and I don't do the things that we wish.

Amalekites here speak of living in the flesh and living for the flesh. You can jot it down in Deuteronomy chapter 25, we learn how wicked the Amalekites were. You know what they did? The Amalekites would attack when they attacked the children of Israel, they didn't do a frontal attack on all the strong men and all the men of valor, they loved to hit the back of the pack and attack from behind as the people of Israel marched through the wilderness.

What that means is the Amalekites loved to pick off the sick, the elderly, the feeble, the young, the tired, the weak. That's where the flesh attacks. They would go after those that were the most vulnerable. And that's how the flesh works in our lives, isn't it? So often our flesh will exploit an area of our lives where we're weak, feeble, and being held back from the Lord.

So often the ones that are very fleshly, if you look maybe you look at an episode in your life where you were very fleshly, there's a good chance that you weren't at the time pressing into the things of the Lord, but you were hanging out in the back just sort of hanging out. You're still a part of the group, but you're really not pressing into the things of God. Big pictures for us. If the Amalekites represent the flesh, and they do, and in God's eyes the Amalekites are to be completely destroyed, then the picture follows, doesn't it?

That you and I need to continually kill and destroy the flesh in our lives. Jesus said the same thing. He said it a different way though. He said, "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off." Now, as we saw in our last Bible study together, He's not speaking literally. That's not going to solve your sin problem if you cut your hand off and then your left hand causes and then you cut your hand off and now what do you do? My foot caused, okay, well cut that one off. That isn't at all a literal statement in the sense of cutting.

No, rather, Jesus was saying look, radical sin requires a radical response. And it's not okay to enter into hell with all of your appendages in sin instead of dealing with it radically. And so often many are weak and feeble because they won't radically deal, like King Saul would not radically deal with the flesh as we'll see in a moment. God declares of the flesh that you're going to have war with it throughout all generations.

There is no truce with your flesh. There is no compromise with your flesh. There is no peaceful existence with your flesh. There is no opportunity you and I, as we saw in Romans 8, with those in the flesh do not please God. You need to do along and I need to do what God told King Saul to do and that is we need to daily regularly wipe out the flesh. It is not okay to make excuses for the flesh. It is not okay to feed the flesh. It is not okay to ignore the flesh, but rather we need to destroy it.

You can jot it down in Galatians chapter 5, I've already quoted it, but there is a battle, it's Galatians 5:16, where it talks about the spirit and the flesh. There is a battle for supremacy in my life and there's a battle right now for supremacy in your life. And your heart and desire just in a very simple way for Bible study and for worship and for fellowship and for prayer and for communion this very night, of all the options that are laid before you, that very desire is a step in feeding the spirit.

You may not think it's all that big a deal and it's just Bible study and that's what we do, we're committed to, no, no, no, there's so much more spiritually going on in your life. This is a desire to feed the spirit. And you're really eager to learn, you're feeding the spirit. You're taking notes to study later, you're feeding the spirit. God reveals something in the middle of the Bible study and you just take care of it, you just offer it up, you're feeding the spirit.

You notice when you're feeding the spirit you can't feed the flesh. You have to go back and forth. When you're in the spirit, you're in the spirit. And then maybe a fleshly thing comes up and you go, "No, no, no, I say no to that, I'm in the spirit." Or then you go over in the flesh and you go, "Well, I don't know, I got that thing, I really don't mind." And now you're in the flesh and you're not in the spirit. There's no middle ground. So the command to King Saul is very important for him. It's very important for us. Verse 6.

Then Saul said to the Kenites, "Go and depart, get down from among the Amalekites lest I destroy you with them, for you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt." So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites and Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag, the king of the Amalekites alive. You took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But, that can't be good.

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 unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, they utterly destroyed. Now King Saul has a desire to protect the Kenites and show them favor and I think there's still a piece of goodness in him. In everything they deemed despised and worthless, they destroyed. But he allowed King Agag to live.

Now, if we continue on with our picture, let's just understand what he did here. The king of the flesh got to live. The king of the flesh. And the possessions that were desirable in the flesh, oh, he got to keep those too. So the king of the flesh lives and the best, what they deemed was the best that the flesh owned, they got to keep that too. Why? Well, you might want to mark this. It's very important that you see this. It's a problem with us. This is the root. This is the root of many, many issues in your life. It's very simple. It says in verse 9, they were unwilling to go all the way. They were unwilling.

Do you know what Agag means? Agag means "I will overcome." That's his name. I will overcome. Here's the king of the flesh, "I will overcome," spared by Saul. You know what's happening here is King Saul decided to do things his own way. He's going to try to fight the flesh with the flesh and what happens? You can't win because if you're in the flesh, you can't please God. He's in rank disobedience here. He didn't wipe out the Amalekites as he was told to. They're going to remain a thorn in the life of the children of Israel for many, many more generations to come because of this act of disobedience.

You see, serving God acceptably involves doing the will of God the right way, the right time, with the right motives. Serving God acceptably involves doing the right thing, the right way, with the right heart. It is impossible to please God when we take things in our own hands. God gave Saul another chance, but King Saul blew it again.

Larry: Thanks for listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. Ed, as you close things out today, you were talking about serving God acceptably, but what do you say to the person who sort of feels inadequate or unqualified to serve?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Well Larry, I think it all depends on what a person means when they say they feel inadequate or unqualified. So there's one side to that to say anything we're stepping into by faith that's beyond our ability, we're going to feel inadequate and even feel unqualified. But if we conclude that because I'm doing something new and I'm going to have to learn something new and it's all outside my wheelhouse and therefore I can't, then that's the wrong conclusion.

Because God's always taking us from glory to glory and strength to strength and there is a healthiness about feeling or acknowledging that I'm inadequate or unqualified. I think that's at every level of ministry and service. However, it's very important that we acknowledge that God is able to qualify us and God is able to train us and help us and be with us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So if you approach something and you just step back and don't want to step into it because you are measuring your resources by the task, then you just have your eyes on the wrong place. Our eyes can't be on ourselves, they have to be on the Lord. We need to measure things by His power, His resources, His direction, His faith. But hey, we're all going to feel unqualified and inadequate at times. Just don't let it hold you back and please don't use it as an excuse. Step on and step forward and let the Lord qualify you and train you along the way.

Larry: Thanks, Pastor Ed. Today's message from Pastor Ed is titled "Obedience is Better Than Sacrifice." You can hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com.

Guest (Male): Abounding Grace is supported by listeners just like you and we are grateful for those that come alongside us with either a one-time gift or ongoing support. We'd like to say thanks today for a gift of $25 or more by sending you "The End Times in Chronological Order" by Ron Rhodes.

How do Old Testament and New Testament prophecies fit together? Why can you trust a literal interpretation of the scriptures? These questions and more are answered in "The End Times in Chronological Order." Call us at 877-30-GRACE or visit our e-store at calvaryco.store. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.