Be Killing Sin, or It will be Killing You

Be Killing Sin, or It will be Killing You

The Amalekites were enemies of Israel. They were a wicked and willing obstacle in God’s plan for His people, and because of this and their sin, they were to be destroyed. This is what the prophet Samuel told King Saul in 1 Samuel 15, something that Saul failed to do in its entirety, and it would come back to plague the people years, even centuries, later. Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

The king of the Amalekites was named Agag, not a particularly attractive name, but perhaps traditional. There was a reference to a king Agag of the Amalekites way back in Numbers 24, written in the wilderness. 1 Samuel’s events occur years later. But even back in Numbers 24, Balaam prophecies that Agag and the Amalekites will one day meet their end before Israel.

We do not have much appetite for the eradication of a people, but this is not an interpersonal or human rights matter; it is a divine disposition that the ungodly will not triumph over the people of God, whom God will protect to the uttermost. In the last judgment, we will see the full breadth of this divine determination in the separate destinations of heaven and hell. And, it is written explicitly in the Bible, God’s Word.

King Saul spared the king and some sacrificial animals. Samuel counters with the famous words, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD?” (1 Sam 22:15). Saul was not fully obedient. He was not obedient in the killing of sin, and later, it would threaten to kill the people of God once again. It seems that there must of been other escapees of the required defeat and destruction, other descendants of King Agag, who Samuel killed himself when Saul would not. They would be called Agagites.

The Book of Esther covers events in the Persian Empire, dated in the 6th century, B.C. Some of the Jews from the captivity had returned to Jerusalem, but some had stayed, and Mordicai and his cousin Esther found themselves in the capital, Susa. The king’s second-in-command was named Haman. He was a man of almost comical self-promotion and arrogance. And, he was an Agagite: Esth. 3:1 “After these events King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and established his authority over all the princes who were with him.”

Now the book of Esther is a fascinating story. You could read it easily in an hour, and you should. It is the amazing story of the preservation of God’s people, a fragment of God’s people, far from home and away from the Promised Land, surrounded by pagan people. Yet God was able to do so, and He did.

The enemy of the people of God in the Book of Esther seems to be a descendant of the Amalekite people, and a descendant particularly of the king’s family, the Agagites, that were to be destroyed by Saul 500 years earlier. He failed in his assignment, and since he did not “kill sin”, back then, it would still be alive to kill God’s people 500 years later. Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

The phrase that I keep repeating, and the title of this article, is not mine. It is found In John Owen’s work, “The Mortification of Sin in Believers.” Owen, the Puritan, is both thorough and helpful. But if you never read the book, you can gain a lot from just the little quote from the book: “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”

Owen also is not producing original thoughts. As a good preacher, he relies on the Scriptures, and he finds there verses like this: Gal. 5:16 “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Our actions in this regard are to be repeated, so often as sin begins to emerge from the dirty soil of our hearts. The ultimate destruction of sin is at the hand of Christ. But the instruction comes to us, and we must be careful to obey: “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.”