Inconsistency

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Saul and the people “utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword,” and “everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly” but “the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, they would not utterly destroy them.” Alas, for Saul! When his murderous heart went out against Ahimelech for his supposed sympathy with David, he was far more thorough in his work. At Nob he smote “both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword” (1 Sam. 22:1919And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword. (1 Samuel 22:19)).
Saul's behavior suggests terrible possibilities for ourselves. It is easy to condemn the gross manifestations of flesh such as drunkenness, fornication and such like, while tolerating other manifestations as vanity, levity and gossip. Who but the Spirit of God would have put variance, emulations and envyings in the same category with fornication, murders and revelings (Gal. 5:19-2219Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (Galatians 5:19‑22))? Yet all these things spring from the same root of incorrigible evil.
When the Lord told Samuel what Saul had done and that he could be no longer king, the prophet was so grieved that “he cried unto the Lord all night.” In Jeremiah 15:11Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. (Jeremiah 15:1), Samuel is divinely quoted as one of Is-rael's conspicuous men of prayer. But prayer was in vain now. Saul had been fully tried and had been found lacking. With every conceivable advantage he had hopelessly failed, and nothing remained but to pass sentence. Sad work for Samuel, who apparently sincerely loved the erring king. When he went in search of him, he heard that he had been to Carmel and had “set him up a place,” presumably a memorial pillar to commemorate his victory, for flesh ever seeks its own glory. Samuel at last found him in Gilgal, the place of circumcision (Joshua 5). If Saul had only known the lesson of Gilgal, self-judgment, how different his history would have been. With pious gush he met the prophet saying, “Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” This was a lie, and Saul knew it well. Asked what was the meaning of the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen, he replied that the people had spared the best of them to sacrifice unto the Lord. In 1 Samuel 15:99But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. (1 Samuel 15:9) the sacred historian says, “Saul and the people, spared.” Like Adam in Eden, rather than confess his own sin, he put the blame elsewhere.