What Is This Sound?

           Then Samuel said to Saul, “I was the one the Lord sent to anoint you as king over his people Israel. Now listen to what the Lord says. Here is what the Lord of hosts says: ‘I carefully observed how the Amalekites opposed Israel along the way when Israel came up from Egypt.  So go now and strike down the Amalekites. Destroy everything that they have. Don’t spare them. Put them to death—man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey alike.’"
                So Saul assembled the army and mustered them at Telaim. There were 200,000 foot-soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. Saul proceeded to the city of Amalek, where he set an ambush in the wadi.  Saul said to the Kenites, “Go on and leave! Go down from among the Amalekites! Otherwise I will sweep you away with them! After all, you were kind to all the Israelites when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from among the Amalekites.
                Then Saul struck down the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, which is next to Egypt. He captured King Agag of the Amalekites alive, but he executed all Agag’s people with the sword.  However, Saul and the army spared Agag, along with the best of the flock, the cattle, the fatlings, and the lambs, as well as everything else that was of value. They were not willing to slaughter them. But they did slaughter everything that was despised and worthless. 
           Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do.” Samuel became angry and he cried out to the Lord all that night. 
           Then Samuel got up early to meet Saul the next morning. But Samuel was informed, “Saul has gone to Carmel where he is setting up a monument for himself. Then Samuel left and went down to Gilgal.”  When Samuel came to him, Saul said to him, “May the Lord bless you! I have done what the Lord said.”
                Samuel replied, “If that is the case, then what is this sound of sheep in my ears and the sound of cattle that I hear?” Saul said, “They were brought from the Amalekites; the army spared the best of the flocks and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord our God. But everything else we slaughtered.” (I Samuel 15:1-14)      
    

          Let’s begin with what Saul was not doing. He was not saying, “It’s wrong to kill.” He had no trouble with killing. He spent years trying to murder David and he did kill any animals that he and the people didn’t like the looks of. This wasn’t a case of Saul trying to be good or merciful. It was a case of Saul and/or the people saying, “Oh, don’t kill that one, I want it.” As the leader of the people, what the people did was with his permission and he was responsible.
          When Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul had two choices. He chose to lie. “The people made me do it.”  Remember Adam? “The woman You gave me gave it to me, and I ate.”
          So here’s the problem. Israel had insisted that God give them a king to lead them. He gave them Saul, and He gave Saul orders because Saul being king didn’t mean God wasn’t still God. When Saul went into battle, he did not follow God, he said that he had followed the people. A leader cannot lead by following. God didn’t have to remove Saul from the throne. Saul had removed himself and put “the people” in his place – and God’s.
          This is our constant choice. Joshua put it well, “If you have no desire to worship the Lord, choose today whom you will worship, whether it be the gods whom your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my family will worship the Lord!” (Joshua 24:15-16)