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What is Your Agag?
What is your Agag?
“The best skill at cards is knowing when to discard.” ~Baltasar Gracián
It is a stupid thing, really, to keep. That little trinket that sits, undisturbed in the back of a closet, on a shelf, or tucked away safely somewhere. It serves no purpose other than to remind us of a time, a person, a place long since passed from our lives. Every now and then we pick it up, and the nostalgia washes over us, then we put it back where we ran across it and go about our daily lives. What is that thing? Each of us has an answer to that question. Again, there is no real purpose to have it other than to pull our thoughts backwards. So, why do we keep it? Because we want to reminisce and to experience feelings or experiences we have had.
In I Samuel 15, the prophet Samuel relayed to Saul to, “go out and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child an infant, ox and sheep, camel, and donkey.” Saul, wanting to do God’s will, and having the best of intentions, went out to Amalek and, “devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword.” All except, as it says earlier in the same verse, the king of Amalek, Agag, and all the best of the oxen and the fattened calves and the lambs and all that was good. After the victorious battle, Saul erected a monument honoring himself.
Saul had caught king Agag and likely, as was customary of the time and region, would have paraded him around in the streets as a conquered king; a parade celebrating Saul’s victory. Saul would delight as he enjoyed the spoils of the fatted claves and the good things, and added the best of the herds to his own.
We all have the Word of God available to us. Like King Saul, though we sometimes let what we want to get in the way of God’s will. Saul wanted the joys of victory and the spoils of war. He lifted himself up and had convinced himself that he had done God’s will. Jesus tells us that, “on that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:22-23) That lawlessness is allowing our own lusts get in the way of the will of God, just as Saul had done.
Samuel was sent to Saul again who says a similar look-what-I-did statement that Jesus describes. Saul had convinced himself of his righteousness despite disobeying God. Samuel brings Saul low asking why he heard the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen. When faced with our own sin how do we react? Is it like Saul as he began to backpedal? Rather than admitting his sin, he tried to cover it up, claiming it was for the Lord. Unfortunately for him, God had already seen him erect the monument to himself. The credit was not to God, but to himself. Jesus tells us that the scribes and the pharisees, the hypocrites, “love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Saul had his reward. He was feeling particularly good about himself until faced with judgement from God. He could do nothing but watch as Samuel killed king Agag and slaughtered all the animals and destroyed the spoils. The joy of sin is temporary, and to make things right might be painful. For Saul, it was severe as Samuel, likely with much spilled blood on his robes, came to Saul and told him that his kingship is forfeit for this disobedience to God.
Jesus tells us that, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) We must put self aside and move forward. We cannot hold on to sin and sinful desires like the mementoes we keep reminding us of the past. No matter how much we wish to relish in that time before our walk with Christ, we must understand that we must destroy all those things which pull us back to earth away from God. In the end, if we have those tethers, then, just like King Saul, we will lose the citizenship in the kingdom of God.
Lance Byers
April 26, 2025
