Focus Text: 1 Samuel 15.13-17
“Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, ‘Blessed are you of the LORD! I have performed the commandment 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?’ And Saul said, ‘They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.’ Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Be quiet! And I will tell you what the LORD said to me last night.’ And he said to him, ‘Speak on.’ So Samuel said, ‘When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?’” (1 Samuel 15.13-17).
Samuel was a man of tremendous conviction and courage; when it came to serving God, compromise was not in his vocabulary. This incident with Saul is one which contrasts two opposite sets of values; Saul feigning his valuation of the voice of the people while actually following his own appetite for power, and Samuel valuing only the voice of God when it came to a choice between right and wrong. Saul was not the first to attempt to stretch the mantle of situation ethics over his sins nor was he the last. However, Samuel was not swayed in the least!
It is here that courage took over. Saul’s credential were well known; his height caused him to tower head and shoulders over all Israel (1 Samuel 9.2). His ability to garner support was obvious in the fact that his armies had just won an impressive battle over the Amalekites. Further, Saul was at the apex of his career from a human standpoint. However, these things did not impress Samuel nor was he dissuaded from his mission by these circumstances. When Saul uttered his first words of self-justification, Samuel’s response was swift and unmistakable. Saul attempted to place the blame for not completing his task of utterly destroying the Amalekites on the people; “the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed!” Saul said. Mark carefully Samuel’s next words! It is here that any weakness or equivocation could prove spiritually fatal to Samuel, but hear his words. “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the LORD said to me last night.”
To Saul’s credit, he was not so drunk on power as to dismiss Samuel’s command to desist from speaking; rather, he said, “Speak on.” Sobering words, words directed at the powerful head of state followed. Methinks one could have heard a pin drop when Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel?” The implication clearly is that Saul had ceased being little in his own eyes and was allowing pride to call the shots; this was the source of Saul’s great sin!
When the voice of compromise and self-justification speaks, courage of conviction says, “Be quiet!” Regardless of the source of that voice, fidelity to God demands that we say, “Be quiet!” No matter how many people echo that same voice nor the unpopularity of our stance, the chant of the crowds must be drowned out by our own resolute whisper, “Be quiet!”
Questions:
1. What was Saul’s first claim as regards his mission to utterly destroy the Amalekites?
2. How did Samuel challenge that claim? How did Saul justify the sparing of Agag and the other spoils of war?
3. What did Samuel mean when he spoke of Saul as being little in his own eyes?
4. From this story, make two lists of character traits, one for Samuel and one for Saul.