Infidels take great offense when reading in the Bible that God commands Moses and other servants of His to utterly destroy certain heathen nations. But God acts here as a wise and loving physician, who amputates a diseased and incurable limb from the human body in order to save life. So God cut off those depraved heathen nations in order that the human race, and especially His chosen Israel, from which the Savior was to come, might be kept from being infected and destroyed by their inhuman vices.

Now, God had commanded King Saul utterly to destroy the abandoned race of the Amalekites and all its possessions. But Saul disobeyed; and when confronted by the prophet Samuel and rebuked for his disobedience, he excused himself by declaring that the people had taken of the forbidden spoil, and best of the sheep and of the oxen, in order to sacrifice them to God. But Samuel reminds him that in God's eyes obedience is better than sacrifice, and the disobedient king must hear the awful sentence against him: "Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king." [1 Samuel 15:23] And, alas! Saul had by his disobedience forfeited not only his kingdom, but also the favor of God and his salvation.

Let us take Saul's warning example to heart. Let us beware of all self-chosen paths in life, of all self-elected forms of worship. So many misguided and fanatical spirits would serve God in utter disregard of His revealed will, after their own way of thinking, and so come under God's just condemnation. And there is also much lip service even among so-called orthodox Christians. But let such men beware! Our Savior says: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 7:21).

God helps us, for Jesus' sake, to believe and to do at all times what He clearly revealed in His holy Word for us to believe and to do. Only he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.

[devotion text by Rev. F. W. Herzberger (1920) -
from the Family Altar - CPH (1957 edition)]
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