LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
A Man Without Discernment
When Saul is proclaimed king of Israel, young, handsome and humble, he seems to represent all the expectations of the nation. Shortly after assuming the kingdom, he receives an order from God: he should destroy the sinful city of Amalek with everything it had. Amalek was the worst threat to Israel of a holy life and consecrated to God.
However, Saul disobeys, spares the king of the city, and the best of his animals. Saul uses his own judgment, instead of obeying God's clear command. For this and other disobediences, he is rejected as king – although he still sits on the throne. Over time, he becomes a deranged king who sees enemies everywhere, even among his children. His forty years on the throne were a burden to Israel, and to God himself.
One day he commits, perhaps, the greatest of follies. A madness such that even his own servants did not want to second: he kills 85 priests, and with them their families and animals, an entire city, the city of Nob. The cause? The high priest, the head of that great family, had given protection to David, his rival. Saul's extermination was total and inhumane, a true work of madness.
But here is a sad fact that draws attention: that what Saul did not do to Amalek, he did to the city of Nob; what he was not able to do in obedience to God, he does out of spite, as revenge against his enemy. Likewise, how many times do the children of God kill what they should let live, and let live what they should kill!
Amalek had already represented a danger to Israel in the time of Moses, and for this reason he was attacked. And for Christians today, in this time of grace, it also represents a danger in what it typologically means. Amalek is the flesh, with all its appetites and desires. Together with the world and the devil, they make up this triad of permanent enemies of the Christian.
How should Amalek not die? How should meat not be put to death? Paul says in this regard: "Put to death therefore your members which [are] upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, vile passions, evil lust, and unbridled desire, which is idolatry. On account of which things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. In which ye also once walked when ye lived in these things" (Col. 3:5-7, Darby). Saul, a man without spiritual discernment, misdirected his hatred. He should have hated what God hates, and loved what God loves.
The lives of many Christians may offer this and other stark contradictions. How many times do you love what God hates, hate what he loves, remember what he forgets, forget what he remembers? How many times do you complain when you should thank, support when you should resist, recriminate when you should bless?
May God grant his children the grace and spiritual discernment to attack where they really should.