SUNDAY, JANUARY 19
Scripture: 1 Samuel 15:1-9

Here we see Israel’s first king Saul being sent on a mission given by God through the prophet Samuel. God said He would punish what Amalek did to Israel when they came out of Egypt. At that time according to Deuteronomy 25, they waited until the very end of Israel’s day of travel attacking the procession where the elderly, the women and the children were. They killed the unarmed and the innocent. They did not war honorably! Now God directed Saul through the prophet Samuel, to wipe out Amalek. That was the assignment, ‘Kill them all!’ Saul’s behavior in this assignment was the epitome of self-will. Saul showed us what self-will looked like in disobeying God’s command. Doing what he himself thought best, Saul spared Agag, the king of Amalek and the best of Amalek’s animals. It was a descendant of Agag who killed Saul at the end of Saul’s life. Saul’s disregard for God’s command became his own death sentence. Sadder still is the fact that through his own disobedience he lost his call and assignment as king and created the path for his own replacement. Self-will does not establish God’s Kingdom. It establishes our own and must be judged! Self-will earns God’s Sword-Pergamos is the picture! How would we like to go to church where God sent a sword to destroy the rebellious? Pergamas became a place of judgment! How would we like to pastor nonstop judgment? It will happen in the last days.