Judges 15

Chapter 15. Agag, or the Subtleties of the Self-LifeThen Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.” Agag came to him confidently, thinking, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” But Samuel said,“As your sword has made women childless,so will your mother be childless among women.“And Samuel put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal. (1 Samuel 15:32-33)We have already referred to Samuel 15 as an illustration of Saul’s character. But there is still a deeper type of the subtleties of the self-life in the picture of Agag, which the Holy Spirit has framed into the narrative of this solemn history. Both Saul’s and Agag’s lives teach the same lesson—offer the same warning—of the peril of a self-centered life. But they teach it in different ways, and the story of Agag is worthy of our prayerful and heart-searching consideration. Amalek or the Flesh Agag belonged to the race of Amalek and the family of Esau, who represent through their entire genealogy the life of the flesh. From the beginning of the human race, God has drawn the line of demarcation between two races—the fleshly man and the spiritual man. Just outside the gate of Eden the division began. The family of Seth called themselves by the name of the Lord, while the race of Cain went off and built their city of culture and pride and became the pioneers of worldliness and wickedness, refined and ameliorated by all the grace of human culture and all the attractions of earthly delight. The separation, though, soon began to disappear, and by the time of Noah the two races had mingled and intermarried. The result was progeny so degenerate and depraved that God turned with loathing from the whole race and pronounced the awful sentence, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth” (Genesis 6:7). After the flood God chose a separate family, the line of Abraham, and again endeavored to keep His chosen people separate. Down that family tree we see off-shoots separating from the central trunk and going out into the world. The first of these was Ishmael, a type of the spirit of bondage and sin. The next of these was Esau, the progenitor of a whole race who inherited the earthly spirit of their father—Isaac’s son who sold his birthright for a morsel of meat and afterward married the daughters of Canaan, becoming as corrupt and polluted as they were. In the same line were the descendants of Lot’s unnatural daughters, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Above all this, the race of Esau and subsequently the Amalekites were the representatives of the spirit of the flesh and the world. This was the reason why God pronounced the decree of their extermination. We find that when the Israelites left Egypt and started on their journey to the Land of Promise, Amalek was the first to attack them. It is not difficult to see in this the foreshadowing of the fact that the first adversary we have to contend with when we leave our sinful past of bondage and iniquity is the carnal nature in our own hearts. It soon asserts itself and tries to force us back into that life of bitterness and captivity to sin (Acts 8:23). This is what Agag represents, and this is what each of us has found to be real in the experience of the Christian life. The Spirit of Pride The name of Agag is significant. It is from the root word hak, which is a generic term denoting, like Pharaoh, “a ruler.” It represents the spirit of self-will, self-assertion and self-dependence. Its prototype is Lucifer, the prince of light and glory, who, being lifted up with pride and refusing to be controlled, turned from being an angel to a fiend and has become the desperate leader of the rebellious hosts of hell. We see it next in the supreme temptation of the Fall: “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5)—the desire for supremacy. We see it in the spirit of human ambition, in the despot, in the world conqueror, in high society and in politics. All belong to the same family—the race of Amalek and the house of Agag. Their cry is like the prodigal’s: “give me my share of the estate” (Luke 15:12) and let me be free from parental control to do as I please. There is no country where it is so rampant as our own United States. It appears to us as young mannishness and womannishness and calls itself liberty. But its end is lawlessness and that lawless one who is yet to embody the combined elements of human wickedness and pride, and end the present dispensation by defying God and man, and perishing, like his father, the devil, in his presumptuous pride. This spirit is found in every human heart. It may be disguised in many insidious forms, and it may call itself by illustrious names and ape the highest ambitions and the noblest pretensions, but it is Agag and Satan every time. The thing in you that wants to rule, wants to have its own way, to be independent, to refuse control, to despise reproof, is wrong in its very nature. The first thing you need in order to be of any use anywhere is to be thoroughly broken, completely subjected and utterly crucified in the core and center of your will. Then you will accept discipline and learn to yield and obey in matters in themselves right, and your will will be so merged in His that He can use you as a flexible and perfectly adjusted instrument. Henceforth you will only do what God wills and choose only what God chooses. This is the real battleground of human salvation; this is the Waterloo of every soul; this is the test question of every redeemed life. This was the point where Saul lost his kingdom and Agag lost his life, and where eternal destinies are lost or won as we learn the lesson or refuse to be led in triumph by our conquering Lord. Let us mark it well. Let us not miss the warning. Let us remember forever that no man can rule others until he himself is absolutely led of God, that no man can conquer foes until he first is conquered, that no man can lead in triumph the hosts of evil or the hearts of men until he himself is led in triumph as the willing captive of the Savior’s love and the Master’s will. The Flesh Must Die God has determined that the race of Amalek and the house of Agag should be utterly exterminated. They were not to be spared, but to be destroyed. It was a case of no compromise. There was nothing good in them. The last element of Agagism was destructive; and the whole community, with all their goods and belongings, must be put out of existence, just as in history when the effects of a household where some have died of contagious disease were wholly given to the flames. This is God’s decree against the flesh in us. It cannot be cleansed. It cannot be improved. It cannot be cultivated. It cannot be educated into ideals and principles. It must be exterminated. What is the flesh? Is it the bad principle in man? Is it some outward or inward evil that can be cut away like a tumor by a surgical operation? “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8). There is the uncompromising decree of the total depravity and the hopeless condition of the flesh. “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you” (Romans 8:9). There is the distinction clear as a ray of celestial light. Every man who does not have the Spirit of God is in the flesh. And everything outside the Spirit of God is flesh. Therefore, the flesh is not simply the sinful part of human nature, but the whole of human nature. It is the Adam race. It is the natural man. It is the whole creature, and the whole thing is corrupted and polluted. The tree is so crooked that it cannot be straightened without cutting it in two. The tumor is so interwoven with the flesh that you cannot cut it out without killing the man. There is no remedy. There is no hope. The old life must be laid down and the new creation, wholly born of heaven and baptized with the Spirit of God, must take its place as a resurrected life, as a new creation, as an experience so supernatural and divine that its possessor can truly say, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Do not try to sanctify the flesh. Slay it! Don’t attempt to evolutionize the kingdom of heaven out of the kingdom of hell. It is not evolution; it is creation. It is not morals or manners; it is a miracle of grace and power. Take no risks with the old man. He will fail you every time. You may think your trained hawk is a dove, but in an unsuspecting moment its beak will be buried in your flesh. Your little wolf may have all the manners of a lamb, but in an evil hour it will destroy all your lambs and perhaps rend you limb from limb. The flesh is hopelessly, eternally corrupt. It cannot please God, and it must be completely dethroned, renounced and crucified with Christ. Compromise with the Flesh We see next in this account the attempt of man to compromise with the flesh and to disregard God’s decree for complete extermination. Saul spared Agag so that he might use him to build up his triumph before the people. He kept the best of the spoil that he might sacrifice them to the Lord. He obeyed God’s command to a certain extent. In a sense he defeated Amalek and destroyed the nation. Saul did all God told him to do as far as it was agreeable to him. But he took his own way when it served his self-interest. His obedience, therefore, was not really obedience to God but obedience to self. He retained just enough of the flesh to destroy the whole service. The very essence of the command was extermination, and the very essence of the disobedience was compromise. The worst thing about it was that he tried to put the evil to good use. It was an insult in the face of heaven to bring the forbidden thing and offer it to the God he had defied. This is the spirit of modern religious culture: “Don’t go too far. Don’t be extreme. Don’t be puritanical. Go easy. Be liberal. Meet the world halfway. Marry that scoundrel to save him. Take the bar owner into church membership because you can make good use of his money. Put that brazen-faced woman up in the choir because she will draw her theatrical set to hear her sing. Go to the theater and the play with your husband to get him to go to church with you on Sunday.” Nonsense! The devil will always get the best of you in such an unequal contest, and instead of being saved the husband will drag the wife to his level. Or the operatic singer, instead of bringing her friends under the influence of religion, will bring the church to the level of her set and turn it into a clubhouse and a concert hall. The bar owner’s money will moderate the tone of the preaching so that it will be a comfort to Sodom, and vice and sin will sit unchecked and even count themselves the buttress and pillar of the cause of Christ. Do you think God will accept such service? Will He who owns the treasures of the universe, He who could create a mountain of gold in a moment, He who could send a thousand angels to sing in His sanctuaries, accept the money that is stained with the blood of souls and polluted with the filth of dethroned purity and honor? Will He accept the meretricious service that is sold for sordid gain? Will He go begging to the devil’s shrine, asking his permission to let go his captives that they may be saved? Absolutely not! Shame on our unfaithfulness and our compromise! Oh that we had the sword of Samuel to hew in pieces the compromises that are an offense to heaven and a disgrace to the bride of the Lamb! Indulgence Masked in Humility We see the fawning pleading of the flesh for indulgence. Agag came forth, walking delicately, mincing like a silly, coquettish girl, smiling, seeking by his blandishments to disarm opposition, to win favor—looking like an incarnation of gentleness and innocence. Indeed, he was the perfect gentleman! Surely, he could not harm a child! Surely, no one could dream of doing him harm! But that is the old flesh pleading for its life, pointing out its refinement, its culture, its graces, the good that it is doing and wants to do, its claim upon our consideration and regard. It will decorate our churches with the finest taste; it will sing in our choirs with all the harmonies of classical music and attract crowds; it will bring society to our churches; and it will give us a bright and liberal theology. It is full of humanitarian plans for the relief of the suffering and the uplifting of degradation, and it offers us a Pullman palace car prepaid to the gates of heaven. Surely, such a beautiful, gentle creature should not be rudely slain. But behind its disguises and fawnings, the Holy Spirit will show you, if you will let Him, the serpent’s coil, the dragon’s voice and the festering corpse of the charnel house. Death is not always repulsive at first sight. The daughter of Jairus was beautiful in her shroud and a flush of life still lingering on her cheek, but she was as dead as Lazarus festering in his tomb. And so that sweet-faced girl with her fawning charms, that brilliant minister with his intellectual sophistries, that voice that sings like an angel in the choir, is as corrupt and polluted as that poor creature that lies in the hospital dropping to pieces in the last stages of corruption, or that red-handed assassin reeking with the blood of his victim. They are both flesh, only at different stages of their moral putrefaction. Counterfeited Crosses We see in Agag the flesh feigning death. “Surely,” said Agag, “the bitterness of death is past” (1 Samuel 15:32). Similarly we find plenty of people in pulpits and pews, on platforms and in obscure corners, who would make us believe that they are dead. Yet we are reminded, when we get a good look at them, of corpses walking around in their grave clothes. They are so conscious of their deadness that we know they are alive. They are so proud of their humility that we would rather they were proud than humble. And they are so constantly in their own shadow that they try us by their religious egotism. Surely, people who are really dead do not know it, do not think about it, are unostentatious, unobtrusive, modest, simple, natural, free and, like good water, without taste, color or consciousness. Oh for this blessed simplicity and this place of self-forgetting rest! Oh for this fulfillment of the prayer, “Lord, let me die so dead that I will not know it!” There is no danger so great, especially among Christians somewhat advanced, as that of counting ourselves in a place where we really do not live. There is nothing so hardening to the heart as to take the place of self-surrender and then live a life of self-indulgence, self-will and adding to it the greater fault of self-complacency—calling things holy that are not, bringing the heavenly standard down to our own experience and filling ourselves with a self-complacent dream. Truly, we are to reckon ourselves as dead, but we are not to reckon that we are reckoned dead. We are to reckon on a reality and to insist upon it and take nothing less from God or from ourselves. Oh that we would dare to call things by their right names and have no counterfeit, even from ourselves! God’s Sword Finally, we see self exposed and slain. Agag could not deceive Samuel. The old prophet pierces him through with one glance of the Holy Spirit, and looking at his mincing, fawning figure, we can imagine him saying, “You cannot fool me. You are a murderer and a selfish, cruel tyrant. Your sword has made many a mother childless, and many an innocent victim has been crushed beneath your tyranny. Behind all your smiles is a skeleton and a serpent’s sting.” And then with that sharp sword, Samuel cut through his blandishments and hewed him to pieces before the Lord. A notorious woman, who was once the star of the vaudeville stage, had in her role a hideous song in which one verse may be translated, “Go bring thy mother’s heart to feed my dog.” It is a true picture of that diabolical selfishness that seeks to hold the very soul of her idolatrous admirer in her power, that can even make him rend his loving mother’s heart to please his devilish mistress. That is the skeleton back of the society queen. That is the serpent coiled around the heart of beauty and pride. “But that is the darkest and worst picture,” you say. Ah, but sin never stops until it reaches its worst. Here, God shows us the extent to which the smallest seed of selfishness can ripen. Let us ask God to expose it in our hearts. Let us open our being to the sword of Samuel, the sword of the Holy Spirit. That sword is described in the solemn words of Hebrews: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (1 Samuel 4:12). All that we need to be delivered from self and sin is to be willing to see it, to recognize it, to call it by its right name, to throw off its disguise, to brand it with its true character, to pass sentence of death upon it, to give God the right to slay it and to stand upon the sentence without compromise. Then there is power enough in the sword of the Spirit, in the blood of Calvary, in the faithfulness, love and grace of God to make us dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!