Samuel No.11 The Sound of Music

1 Samuel, chapter 15 1 Samuel, chapter 15 2 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt. 3 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. 4 But Saul and the army spared Agag, and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs, everything that was good.

5 These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed. 6 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, 7 I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me, and has not carried out my instructions. 8 Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

9 Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, Saul has gone to Carmel. 10 There he has set up a monument in his own honour, and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal. 11 When Samuel reached him, Saul said, The Lord bless you, I have carried out the Lord's instructions.

12 But Samuel said, What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear? 13 Saul answered, The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites. 14 They spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest. 15 Stop, Samuel said to Saul, let me tell you what the Lord has said to me last night.

16 Tell me, Saul replied. 17 Samuel said, Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? 18 The Lord anointed you king over Israel, and he sent you on a mission, saying, Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites. 19 Make war on them until you have wiped them out.

20 Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord? 21 But I did obey the Lord, Saul said. I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. 22 I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king.

23 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal. 24 But Samuel replied, Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? 25 To obey is better than to sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 26 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.

27 Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king. 28 Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned. I violated the Lord's command in your instructions.

29 I was afraid of the people, and so I gave in to them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, that I may worship the Lord. 30 But Samuel said to him, I will not go back with you.

You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel. 31 As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the edge of his robe, and it tore. 32 Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to one of your neighbours, to one better than you.

33 He who is the glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind, for he is not a man that he should change his mind. 34 Saul replied, I have sinned, but please honour me before the elders of my people and before Israel. 35 Come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God.

36 So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshipped the Lord. 37 Then Samuel said, Bring me Agag, king of the Amalekites. 38 Agag came to him confidently, thinking, Surely the bitterness of death is past.

39 But Samuel said, As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women. 40 And Samuel put Agag to death before the Lord at Gilgal. 41 Then Samuel left for Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.

42 Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. 43 And the Lord was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel. Let's go back to 1 Samuel chapter 15.

We've been making our way through this remarkable book for some weeks. Not always chapter by chapter. Occasionally I've skipped a chapter.

It's still full of meaning, even when I've missed it. It's just that I don't want to keep you on 1 Samuel until the millennium. Assuming that's still in the future.

Let's come to 15 and verse 14. But Samuel said, What then? Is the bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear? Have you ever thought, my friends, that sometimes God uses most extraordinary vehicles to communicate his message to men and women in Bible times and perhaps even in contemporary days? For example, he spoke to Peter, didn't he, through a cock that crew? And it's a great Spurgeon who says that I wish I had as much powers to convict in my preaching as that bird did when it crooned at just past midnight, 2 o'clock in the morning. And then on another occasion God took a donkey and spun the donkey around to speak to its owner and Balaam was addressed by the donkey.

And then you recall on a further instance how the most peculiar Bible college in the world was formed in the belly of a great fish as Jonah received some practical instruction in applied theology. God can use animals either audibly or by their significance of just being present on an occasion to speak. Now it seems to me, if you'll allow my address title this morning, that here is a case in point.

Samuel says, what then is the bleating of sheep in my ear? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear? The sound? The sound of music. Now I don't know what you think when you hear sheep, bah, or cows, moo. In fact, I could have called this the bah and the moo verse.

But when you put both noises together and imagine a sort of symphony of sound, it seems to me that it's a very plaintive one, a very wailing one, almost a dirge, a lament. And if I'm right in suggesting that that's what results from the convergence of the sound of the flocks and the herds, then it seems to me that they typify a background of music that, in many ways, helps us to understand this particular incident. You see, Samuel is here at a place called Gilgal, and he is confronting the king, Saul.

The reason why Saul is present in front of Samuel is, well, because there has been an attempt by Saul to fulfill the commands of the Lord. I say an attempt. Earlier on in the chapter you will discover that Saul is given the command by the Lord to turn round and face the Amalekites, the historic enemies of the Israelites.

When the Hebrews made their way from Egypt back to Israel through the Sinai Peninsula, on more than one occasion the fierce Amalekites took up all the stragglers and eliminated them. And God had declared in His Word to Israel, those who bless you I will bless, those who curse you I will curse. The descendants of Moses' father-in-law, the Canaites, they had been people who had helped the Israelites, and so they are sorted out from the Amalekites, who had been to the Israelites like the Nazis were in Europe some forty-odd years ago.

And the day had come when the iniquity of the Amalekites was complete, and when God asked His people to judge, condemn, and eliminate them from the face of the earth. And Saul was given that particular task. And he was told that he was not to spare any of the soldiers or of the women or of the children of the Amalekites.

Verse 3 of the 15th chapter, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them, put to death men, women, children, and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. And so Saul, mustering a force of 210,000 men, goes and he responds to the commands of the Lord.

But his response is half-hearted. And when Samuel sets out to meet Saul on the occasion that confronts you in the 14th verse and onwards, you discover that Samuel has had an intelligence by God in the form of a vision at night, which indicates that the obedience of Saul was only partial. And as Samuel approaches the king, the king endeavors to disarm the prophet.

As he says in the 13th verse, the Lord bless you. I have carried out the Lord's instructions. Oh, says Samuel, what then is the bleating of sheep? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear? Saul, you see, had preserved the life of Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and he had kept intact, alive, everything that was good, verse 6, of the flocks and of the sheep.

There were many animals that were preserved. Only those judged to be despised and useless in the eyes of Saul were eliminated. But everything that was despised and weak, they totally destroyed.

I can't see the number there, verse 9. Now, my friend, this is the point, you see. God has given you, like he gave Saul, specific commands. And you and I will one day be brought face to face with the whole question of obedience.

To what degree, to what degree did we fulfill the command of the Lord upon our lives? Is there an evidence that our obedience was partial? Is there some indication that our consecration was incomplete? In other words, could there be a time, and maybe you can hear it now, when the music, so to speak, of the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle is heard as a mockery on your claim to have been holy following the Lord. Samuel says to Saul, if your obedience is as intact as it seems, how come I hear the sound of music, the braying of the cattle, the bleating of the sheep? Saul's obedience was utterly incomplete. So, let that sound just live on for a moment, let it re-echo, as we try to work out why it is that Samuel hears the sound of music and what that music speaks to us about Saul.

The first thing I want to suggest is this, that Saul was a monarch who had a very faulty memory, a very faulty memory. Look at verse 17, will you? Samuel says to Saul, there was a time when you recognized you were small in your own eyes. You see, this man has become the king of Israel.

He is now the leader of the nation. Once he was just a country yokel. Once he had no prestige, no influence at all.

But God took him from the backward and gave him a position of prominence and authority. It said this, that only few men can carry a full cup with a steady hand. Now, this was Saul's problem.

The cup of success was full, and he spilt it. Not on the altar to honor God, but rather on one that would honor him. For you read in the twelfth verse that Saul had gone to Carmel.

There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal. The reason you see behind this bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle is the fact that Saul has had such a faulty memory. He's taken what God has done for him, and he has used it for his own advantage.

Now, it's possible, my friend. Think it through. I know it's not so easy in this rather stuffy, hot atmosphere this morning.

But it's possible for you to forget what God has done for you in your life. You know, the years have gone. Maybe you're one of my older friends, since you first trusted Jesus Christ as Savior.

And in those early days, you were so full of gratitude and indebtedness to him. But now you don't think of yourself as a sinner saved by grace, as just a worm and no man. You know, the years have gone by, and you have gained a measure of dignity and respect, and you're honoring yourself as a result.

Now, that's the problem of Saul. Once, Saul, you were low. You were just a little man in your own eyes.

But the years have gone by, and the very things that I have given to you, instead of returning them in praise and worship, you have used them to promote yourself. Even a monument to your own honor has been seen in Carmel, South Carmel, in the lower part of Palestine. The Lord's Prayer that we used with our boys and girls concludes with the doxology, remember? For yours is the power and the kingdom and the glory.

There is no other power than the power of God that we are to recognize. There is no other kingdom than his kingdom, over which he reigns supreme. And when a man arrogates to himself the power of God and the authority of God, that's the moment when the sheep can start their buying and the cattle their lowing, as a dirge upon the folly of men who do not turn the blessings that God has granted to them into means whereby they can worship him.

Never forget, my friend, that you're blood-bought, that the only dignity that you have is that you're one of the many who are washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, God's own Son. Of what does the music speak? It speaks of a faulty memory. It speaks also of a conflicting authority.

You see, no man, however large, however important, in the kingdom of God fails or should fail to be without someone else speaking the word of the Lord into his life. Verse 1 of chapter 15, Samuel said to Saul, I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel, so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what the Almighty says.

Here, you see, is Samuel speaking in the name of the Lord to Saul, reminding Saul that the reason why he is a king is because Samuel, in the name of God, anointed him in the first instance, and the commands that Saul has to carry out are the decrees that come from the Lord himself. But you see, sometimes in Old Testament history and on into the New Testament and down to the 20th century, there comes a time when those who have a sort of executive authority forget about the charismatic direction that God wants to speak into their lives through the prophets that he has, and this was a difficulty with Saul. He had forgotten about Samuel.

There's a sort of tension that exists between the two. Saul is now the upstart. Saul has gone beyond the day when he can hear the voice of God coming to him through Samuel.

Oh, my friend, I tell you, if there's anything that you ought to shun, it's being as deaf to the voice of God as Saul was on this occasion. Hear the music sounds. Not only because of Saul's faulty memory, but because of the conflicting authority Saul was taking a right upon himself greater than that of Samuel.

And as a result of all this, it seems to me that there's a blinding arrogance that befalls Saul. A blinding arrogance. Look, when Samuel comes to Saul and he says, What about the instructions of the Lord? What about you following them through to the minute detail? Saul is so blind that he says to Samuel, The Lord bless you.

Verse 13, I have carried out the Lord's instructions. Here's a man, you see, who's totally blind to the fact that his discipleship is incomplete. His consecration is partial.

It's so easy to become arrogant. As followers of the Lord God. So easy to become blind to what he wants us to do in every area of our lives.

It has been said that there are none more blind than those who do not want to see. And here is Saul, and he seems sincerely shocked by the fact that Samuel says, The evidence of your incomplete consecration is there in the animals that are behind you. What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this glowing of cattle that I hear? So if you put the three of them together, a faulty memory, conflicting discipleship, and a blinding arrogance, then you get the predicament that Saul represents.

And the reason for some invisible conductor taking up the baton and addressing those sheep and those cows and getting them to sing out their dirge. So Samuel can say, The very animals behind you, Saul, are a witness to the fact that your claim to serve the Lord is inaccurate and inexact. That's what the music speaks of.

Well, let's come quickly to the second thing that I want to share. Of what does this music warn? Of what does it warn? Well, it seems to me that it's warning us that God is not interested in a 50% commitment to Him. God will not accept partial obedience to any one of His commandments.

This is why it says in the latter part of the 15th chapter, To obey is better than to sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. You see, sacrifice is an external thing. Obedience is a matter of the mind, a matter of the will.

You can come along. Let's try and work this out in terms of contemporary Christianity. You can come along here and bring your sacrifice of praise.

Move your lips. You can bring your money, and you might do it on a regular basis, if not haphazard giving. But unless your will corresponds to those external activities, unless there is a heart devotion to God, then what you bring is as utterly unacceptable to Him as some of the Old Testament sacrifices when they brought their animals almost by the wagon load and sacrificed them to the Lord, and He rejected them because their heart was not right with Him.

And as you hear the sound of music in this 15th chapter of 1 Samuel, remember this, that we are being warned that God is not interested in 50% consecration. Look, if I offered you a gift in just a slovenly fashion to sort of fob you off, would you really be pleased? You see, it's a truism, isn't it, that it's not so much the gift but the thought that counts. A man may try to show his love for his wife and give her many, many things, but he's playing fast and loose with other women.

If he is failing in his loyalty to her, then all the things that he gives as a secret becomes public are reduced to mere ashes. They count for nothing. She doesn't want the externals.

They're easily donated. She wants the internals. So God, for Saul, and for all the Israelites, and for men and women in the 20th century, God is not concerned just about the externals, the sacrifices, or even the songs that flow out of our lips without a great deal of meaning attached to them.

He's concerned about our obedience. To obey is better than to sacrifice. Essentially so, even in Old Testament times, anyone could obey at any time, anywhere, any place, but anyone could sacrifice.

Only the priest could sacrifice, and there are only specific spots where the sacrifices could be made, and there are only specific animals that can be brought. You see, to sacrifice is a very narrow activity, but to obey, well, you can obey wherever you are. Therefore, obedience is always much greater than sacrifice.

Obeying God in a Monday can be much more worshipful than singing His hymns on a Sunday, because any idiot can sing a hymn. We can bring the animals in to bar. We can bring the cattle in to lull.

We can bring the parrots in to repeat what we have taught them, but that does not add up to something that's acceptable as intelligent worship before God. Obedience. That's what He wants from you, and from me.

And Saul says to Samuel, he has the impudence, he has the imprudence to say, but I have done what God asked of me. Right, says Samuel, if that is so, then what about the sheep? What about the cows? What about the noise that I hear? They rise up and show the fact, Saul, that your obedience is utterly incomplete, and your sacrifices, they're worthless. And as a result, God rejects Saul, which leads us to the next lesson that has to be drawn, because this music warns of this.

No man is indispensable in God's service. I want you to realize this, my friend. I don't care if you're a member of one of the mission societies down here on the coast of Worthing.

I'm not concerned whether you're an elder or a deacon of this church or a pastor or a vicar or anything else of any other church. God does not need you as an inspensable commodity within His kingdom. He can get on without you, if necessary.

And this is one of the things that Saul illustrates in his life. He came from the backwoods. God used him originally, and Saul took what belonged to God, and he exploited it for his own advantage.

And as a result of this, Saul's name is mentioned to Samuel in a dream, and Samuel is told that Saul grieves the Lord. Verse 11, I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions. Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

The book of Jeremiah, chapter 15, and verse 1, you discover that two of the great intercessors in the Old Testament, let me rephrase it, I need to lift up the sense, the greatest intercessors in the Old Testament were one, Moses, and two, Samuel. And Samuel spent the whole night in prayer for Saul, and God would not change his mind. Those that honor me, I will honor.

Those that dishonor me, I will dishonor. And you can get to such a state in your disobedience that all your past pretense at serving God is shown to be as hollow as it actually really was. And even when Saul, seemingly convicted by Samuel's preaching in the 24th verses, I have sinned, I violated the Lord's command and your instructions, even that cosmetic act of repentance, it carries no favors with the Lord.

Pharaoh once said, I have sinned. But he had had many opportunities before he came to that conclusion to prove that the sinfulness of his life was something that was so convicting him he was about to turn around. And here is Saul, mouthing the expressions of contrition and confession, but neither of which were acceptable by God for him to change his mind and allow Saul to continue as a man to found a destiny.

God is not interested in partial consecration. No man is indispensable in God's service. And so the final thing that I break out in the last part of my text from this chapter and show you is that you must eliminate what displeases God.

The Amalekites and Agag, you see, they stand for that which God has rejected. Now there are certain things in your life when you became a Christian that God immediately rejected. I mean by that they merited His judgment.

He doesn't want you to involve yourself with them or in them. If you come to the Lord and say, well, yes, I want to exercise some authority within your kingdom, but I am not prepared to make you king absolute of all my life and I still want to nonetheless minister to you, for you, then the Lord will say no. You see, you have to hew down your Agag.

You have to eliminate in your life what stands for the Amalekites. Now what that is in your condition, I can't work out for you. I know what the Agag is in my life.

I know what the Amalekites are. I know why sometimes I hear the echo of the sound of inverted commas music, the bowing of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle, as it's brought again to my attention that my consecration and discipleship is not as 100% as it ought to be. What are those illicit things that we refuse to bring to the feet of Jesus? I must ask you that and I must ask you that over against reminding you afresh of how great your salvation was, how insignificant you were when you came to the Lord.

Outside of His grace you were nothing. You recognized that, didn't you? There were times when you would sing and the tears would fill your eyes. Jesus, you lover of my soul, let me to your bosom fly.

Other refuge have I none. Hangs my weary soul in thee. You sang that, didn't you? There were times when you sang and you were perfectly sincere.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want. All my need in thee is found. And you were so 100% sure that that was the dedication of your life and by this you would steer the rudder or the root of your ship.

But then the years went by and the compromises came in. Now this is what happened to Saul and as a result he becomes one of the most pathetic characters in all of the Old Testament. And we find that until the day that Samuel died, verse 35, he never deliberately saw Saul again though he continued to mourn for him.

So let's try to learn today this rather warm morning in the tabernacle sanctuary. Let's try and learn from the illustration of Saul and the sound of music. God was displeased.

A man had a faulty memory. He forgot the privileged position that was his. He refused to submit to a greater authority in his life, the voice of Samuel.

As some of us have refused to submit to the preached word of God from the pulpits that we've attended. And as a result a blind arrogance hit him. So he became a more pitiful fellow than Bartimaeus in his spot as a beggar in Jericho.

Learn from this, my friend, and appreciate that God is not interested in your 50% consecration. No man is indispensable in the service of God and your response to the word of the Lord is to eliminate, hew down, the agag, the Amalekite from your life and thus bring pleasure to the Lord who can continue to use you in his kingdom as you continue to recognize that he is the King. Let's stand and sing the Lord is King.

464 in hymns of faith. 464 in hymns of faith. Father, we just ask that something of what's been shared today might stick on in our minds.

We pray, Father, for your help to be able to respond to the challenge of discipleship in such a way that brings honor and glory to you. Keep us submissive before our Lord Jesus Christ and may we live in such a way that brings warmth and gladness to his heart. Be with any dear friend here who especially needs your touch upon their lives, upon their body at this moment and we ask that you'll keep us all just following you, pleasing you and being helpful to one another.

For Jesus' sake, amen.