27th October 2024 am. - 1 Samuel 15 v.1 to 31 - 'God rejects Saul...'

As we enter chapter 15, so we come to a tragic event - Saul had been slipping, but here he finally lost it. God is God and He requires obedience of His representatives. The Amalekites were likely distant relations of the Israelites and in Exodus 17, they had ambushed and killed the stragglers (Deuteronomy 25 v.17 to 18) and tried to frustrate what God was doing. Here Saul was commanded to execute God's judgment on them, but he failed to obey. Saul is drifting away from God - and when we begin to drift, we, ourselves are often the last to realize. God reads our hearts and here, He sees that Saul is both disobedient and unrepentant - he is more concerned about losing face than losing God. We can learn a lot from this passage about God and ourselves. The supporting reading is 1 John 2 v.1 to 11.