Today is the day

4:36 p.m. Today's project was to teach I Samuel Chapter 15 to our weekly ladies' Bible study. This amazing chapter has one of the most blatant examples of direct disobedience recorded in scripture, as well as one of the most famous rebukes.

Through the prophet Samuel, God told King Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites, down to the infants and animals. Why such a tremendous judgment?

God had declared in Deuteronomy 25: 17-19, concerning Amalek,

Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget.

Now that Israel was an established kingdom, it was time for the king to act on God's behalf. "Vengeance is Mine," says the Lord. "I will repay." (Romans 12:19) Only a holy, righteous God has the right to exact punishment on the evil. Human rulers are then tasked to act in His behalf, upon His established laws.

Saul exhibited God's mercy by warning the Kenites to leave Amalekite territory, for they had shown kindness to the Israelites (Judges 1:16), just as He spared Lot from the destruction of Sodom, just as He warns the remnant of believers to flee Babylon prior to its destruction (Revelation 18:4). Then the slaughter took place--or did it?

In verse 9 of I Samuel 15, we find that Saul did not destroy all of Amalek. He and his men kept all of the best of the animals and even spared King Agag! (You'll recall that Haman, the arch-enemy of the Jews in the Book of Esther, was called an Agagite, so obviously, some Amalekites had survivied in the Babylonian empire). And it was not until 250 years later that we are told in I Chronicles 4:43, that King Hezekiah, the 14th king from Saul, finally wiped them out of the land)!

Saul's longtime mentor and friend, the prophet Samuel, had to deliver one of the sharpest rebukes in the Bible to his protege:

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.

Exact, unhesitating obedience to God's commands is a problem for us today as well, isn't it? God tells us to make that difficult phone call, honor our marriage vows, apologize, share Christ with a friend--do we leap up to obey, drag ourselves to do it, do only some of the task, or pretend we didn't hear the Spirit's voice?

Or do tempting valuables, like the cattle Saul and his men saved, keep us from obeying?

Hebrews 3:7-8; 12-13 say,

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness..."

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Today, not tomorrow, is the day to begin obeying God with your whole being--body, heart, mind and soul!