Lessons from David: How to Be a Giant Killer (3 page)

This was God’s commission through Samuel to Saul. Amalek had come out and fought against the Israelites when they were vulnerable and on their way out of Egypt (Exodus 17:8-14). Now that Israel was a kingdom and had a king, God wanted vengeance on the Amalekites.

This may seem harsh to us today because truthfully speaking, vengeance isn’t acceptable New Covenant behavior. Now that Jesus has come, He has made a huge difference. In my book entitled,
The True Nature of God,
I contrast and harmonize the difference between how God acted in the Old Testament as compared to the New Testament. This teaching really shines the light on how the Lord can be “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), and yet appear so different in the two testaments. This teaching will really set you free!

In the Old Testament, groups of people who had given themselves over to idolatry and immorality were like cancers in the body of humankind. If left untreated, that sickness would spread quickly to the rest of the body. As terrible as it is to amputate someone’s hand, arm, or leg, loss of limb is still superior to the death of the entire person. Sometimes you just have to cut the diseased part out in order to save the rest of the body. This was exactly what God—in His love and mercy—was instructing the Israelites to do. By utterly destroying these men, women, children, and animals, they were cutting out a cancer that threatened to kill the rest of humankind.

Before Jesus came so people could be born again, transformed, and delivered of demons, there were entire societies that were so given over to the devil that they were demon possessed. Men, women, children, and even their animals were demon possessed. There is much archaeological evidence—statues, writings, and the like—that establishes this as fact. The sin of these societies was gross beyond what we can even imagine in our society today, and our sin is pretty gross in many ways. These people were participating on a wide scale in beastiality, sodomy, child sacrifice, and all these kinds of things, to the extent that they couldn’t be cured. There was no cure before Jesus came. So although the command given to Saul constituted an act of judgment against specific individuals, it was also an act of mercy upon the world, as the actions of Israel were meant to literally cut this cancer out and destroy it.

“The People…”

Saul was given this command to destroy all of the Amalekites—men, women, children, and animals—but he didn’t do it. He saved the king and brought him back with the best of the sheep, oxen, and cattle. When Samuel arrived, Saul claimed that he had done the will of the Lord (1 Samuel 15:13). But Samuel asked:

What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?

In other words, Samuel was asking, “If you have truly done the Lord’s will, why am I hearing these animals? I told you to destroy everything—men, women, children, and animals!”

And Saul said, ‘They have brought them from the Amalekites.”

There he was placing the blame on others again and saying, “The people made me do this!”

For the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. And Samuel said, ‘When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?’

Samuel was exposing the root of Saul’s sin. He said, “When you were little in your own eyes, God anointed and promoted you. But when you were lifted up, you became independent, started doing things your own way, and chose not to do what God said. Instead of killing these animals—like you were instructed to do—you decided to bring them back and sacrifice them. It was when you became arrogant that God rejected you.”

Pride & Humility

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18

God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

Humility is necessary to walk with God.

He [God] hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to…walk humbly with thy God.

Micah 6:8; brackets mine

You must walk humbly in order to walk with God. This is a lesson we can learn from David. David was a humble man. At times, he messed up royally and committed terrible sins, but he didn’t try to shift the blame onto anyone else when he was reproved. He shouldered the blame himself, repented, and lay before the Lord. David was a humble man.

Humility doesn’t mean you do everything perfectly. It doesn’t mean you don’t sin. Humility means that you have a heart that is sensitive toward the Lord. Even though you might act like you’ve lost your mind and gone crazy sometimes, you genuinely love God.

Humility is different than arrogance. Saul got caught up in arrogance. Pride isn’t only thinking that you are better than everyone else. Pride is essentially being self-reliant instead of God-reliant. This attitude of independence is one of Satan’s biggest inroads into our lives.

Only
by pride cometh contention.

Proverbs 13:10; emphasis mine

I have a booklet entitled,
Self-centeredness, The Source of all Grief,
that expounds more on this. The only thing that makes people mad is their self-centeredness or self-reliance. This is Satan’s major beachhead in our lives. If you want to shut the devil out of your life, begin to prosper, and see the blessings of God work, you need to walk humbly with God. You won’t find God until you come to the end of yourself. At the end of yourself is where you’ll meet Him!

Stay Small in Your Own Sight

Samuel told Saul, “When you were little in your own sight, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel.” When Saul was humble, God promoted him.

At one time, I was a member of a church that had started in someone’s basement. In about two-year’s time, it grew to 300 people. It outgrew its little church facility and took over the large grocery store building next door. On opening day, there were about 500 people in attendance. The church had nearly doubled. It was exciting to be part of what was going on. People were praising God, but they were also praising the pastor and themselves. They were saying, “Look who we are!” They were giving a tremendous amount of attention to what they had done. This just struck me wrong.

People were standing up and prophesying, “This church is going to explode! It’s going to do this and that!” Then the Lord spoke to me this exact passage of scripture, 1 Samuel 15:17. So I went against the flow that day by standing up and saying, “It’s wonderful what God has done, but all this started when we were little in our own eyes and humble before the Lord. If we get into pride and arrogance, all this can leave just as quickly as it came.”

I wasn’t real popular after that, but that’s exactly what happened. The church went through a really terrible time for a while. The pastor ended up getting into some things, got divorced and left the ministry. The church fell apart. Since then, it has resurrected under another pastor and is now doing better than ever before. This principle applies to individuals as well as churches.

Years ago, there was a major media minister who fell into sexual sin. His sin was made public and finally the minister had to deal with it on his Sunday program. I watched and listened to what he had to say, trying to figure out how something like this could happen. As he confessed, he spoke of how he had fallen into pride and claimed achievements that had come because of God’s goodness as his own accomplishments. He said he had over 8 million dollars coming in every month. He was on more television stations than any other person in history. He said, “I’m reaching more people than Jesus ever did.” He also went on to say, “I thought I could do anything.”

At that moment, I saw very clearly why this man fell. He was no longer humble and dependent on God. He thought he was the one causing all this prosperity in his ministry.

From the life of David, we learn that we must walk humbly with God. Saul, David’s predecessor, was the Lord’s first choice to lead Israel, but he didn’t continue walking with God because he became lifted up in pride, did his own thing, and disobeyed.

“It’s Not My Fault!”

And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel? And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?

Samuel reproved Saul, but Saul kept on saying, “It’s not my fault! You don’t understand. I did obey God!” But he didn’t.

And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil….

Saul’s cry was, “It’s not my fault! The people did this. They took the spoils of sheep and oxen.” But Saul was the king. He was the one responsible. He knew what they had done. He could have commanded them to obey God’s directions. The Lord wouldn’t have held him guilty if the people had truly done all of this. However, Saul was the one who did it, and the people had his full approval.

The people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed.

This verse clearly reveals that Saul knew these things “should have been utterly destroyed” (1 Samuel 15:21). He knew what the people were doing. So Saul attempted to justify himself by saying that he and the people took these things “to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal” (1 Samuel 15:21).

And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

When God tells you to do something, it’s not open to negotiation. You don’t need to “interpret” His command. You just need to do what God has told you to do.

Obey God

I’ve had people say to me, “God has told me to come to Charis Bible College. I know I’m supposed to come, and I believe I’m supposed to come now. But it’s only a couple more years before I can take an early retirement. If I wait until then I could have that much more money than if I go now. Also, it’s not a good time to sell my house right now. The market should be better, if I just wait a year or two.” So they rationalize things and don’t obey God. They lean on their own understanding and wonder why everything starts heading south. They tell me, “I don’t understand why nothing is working. I just can’t figure out what’s happening!”

I answer, “Well, you aren’t obeying God.”

“Oh, no! I am obeying God. I’m going to come, but I just have to wait until this and that happens.” They try to explain it away, but that’s not what God has told them to do.

The Lord told Saul to kill all of the people and animals there, when he fought against them. Instead, he decided to bring them and offer them as sacrifices before God. That’s not what the Lord told him to do!

And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

You can’t make deals with God and say, “Lord, I know You told me to give this money right now, but I need it. I have something I really want to spend it on. I’ll tell You what. I’ll just take this money and get what I want now, and then I’ll double it and give You that much later.” No. That’s not pleasing to the Lord. He wants you to obey Him and do what He told you to do—when He told you to do it!

To obey is better than sacrifice.

What Are You Allowing?

Samuel continued by saying:

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

Strong statements, indeed! Not doing what God has told you to do is rebellion and stubbornness, which is as iniquity and idolatry. We just haven’t placed that kind of stigma on rebellion and stubbornness! I’m sure you wouldn’t tolerate witchcraft in your home. If your children came home with an Ouija board, started putting séances together, or tried casting spells, you’d be all over them like a coat of wet paint, declaring, “Not in this house! As long as I’m breathing, I will not allow witchcraft or idolatry in this house!” You wouldn’t let them make some little graven image and begin to worship it. But there are many parents who just allow their kids to go through rebellion, be stubborn, talk back to them, and disrespect authority and not even think anything of it. They reason,
Well, they’re just teenagers. That’s normal!

Now don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying that you can, or should completely control your children. But I am saying that if you discern rebellion, you ought to resist it. If you detect stubbornness, you should be doing something about it. Many people just don’t place that kind of importance upon this. They argue, “But rebellion is normal!” No, it’s not. First Samuel 15:23 tells us it’s the same as allowing witchcraft into your home!