1 Samuel 15:35

REFLECTIONS

READER! pause with me over the perusal of this chapter, and mark, in the progress of Saul's history, the certain truth of that awful sentence of the apostle, that evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. And while we look at the king of Israel under this melancholy character, let us not forget, to gather from the history of the Lord's everlasting war with the Amalekites, that there can be no truce in this battle. Grace and corruption can no more join issue, than the iron and the clay in the image which the prophet saw. Put it down, Reader, in the maxims of your life, and see to it that your own experience corresponds to this most certain and unquestionable truth: the Spirit lusteth against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit. Lord, grant that neither the writer of this Commentary, nor the Reader of it, may be debtor to the flesh to live after the flesh: for if we live after the flesh we shall die: but, if we through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live.

Oh! most gracious God! give me to see, and awfully to feel the impression of it on my heart, in the history of the utter destruction of the Amalekites: that though the Lord long bears with the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction; yet the day, the dreadful day, the tremendous day of judgment, surely cometh as a thief in the night, Oh! precious Jesus, be thou my refuge, my covert, my strong hold, in that day of wrath!

One sweet improvement more would I gather from the perusal of this chapter, before I take my leave of it, and in the sorrow the man of God felt for the Lord's rejection of Saul, I would see how suited it is for the ministers of Jesus, to weep between the porch and the Altar, and lift up their cries and prayers over the sad ruin of our fallen nature? Did Samuel weep for Saul because the Lord had determined to take from him his earthly kingdom: and shall not my soul weep over the thousands of ungodly sinners, against whom the Lord hath sworn they shall not enter into his heavenly kingdom? Did the events of this short life, as they related to Saul, call forth the affection of the prophet: and shall not the grand concerns of eternity, as they attach themselves to sinners in the present hour, call forth my sympathy and prayer, that the Lord in the midst of judgment may remember mercy? Oh! most gracious Saviour! from whose distinguishing favor it is, that by the grace of God, I am what I am: teach me, Lord, to rejoice with trembling; and in the deepest sense of those awful judgments which I most righteously have deserved, but which thy mercy hath saved me from; give me a suitable frame of mind to come before thee. Like the prophet Ezekiel, I would fall to the dust, crying out; Ah! Lord God! wilt thou destroy all the residue of Israel in this pouring out of thy fury upon Jerusalem!