1 Samuel 15. We've spent longer in this chapter than normal. We dealt with the ethical challenge in verses 1 to 9, the whole idea wherein God tells Saul and the children of Israel to go in and utterly destroy the Amalekites. If you do any witnessing or apologetics or evangelism, very often you'll hear people make objections like this.
Why would God sanction or condone or encourage genocide? So we sought to give some rationale to this particular section or offer up some help to combat such things. And then we saw there is a challenge or a theological challenge to the doctrine. of divine impassibility. In verse 11 and 35, we read that the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king.
And in verse 29, it says, also the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man that he should relent. We dealt with the doctrine of divine impassibility two weeks ago. So tonight, we return to the exposition proper. We'll be taking up verses 10 to 35.
But I do want to read beginning in chapter 15 at verse 1. Samuel also said to Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.
Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Tulam, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kenites, go, depart, get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them.
For you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.
So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel saying, Saul went to Carmel. And indeed, he set up a monument for himself. And he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal. And Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, blessed are you of the Lord.
I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Samuel said, what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, they have brought them from the Amalekites. For the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed.
And Samuel said to Saul, be quiet, and I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night. And he said to him, speak on. So Samuel said, when you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you a king over Israel?
Now the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, but I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me and brought back Agag king of Amalek.
I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep, and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. So Samuel said, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.
For
Rebellion Compared to Witchcraft
rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Saul Rejected from the Kingdom
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he also has rejected you from being king. Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord. But Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.
And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. So Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. and also the strength of Israel, will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man that he should relent. Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now, please, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God. So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord.
Then Samuel said, bring Agag, king of the Amalekites, here to me. So Agag came to him cautiously. And Agag said, surely the bitterness of death is past. Samuel said, as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.
And Samuel hacked Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. And Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel." Amen.
Introduction and Chapter Overview
So essentially what we have in this particular chapter are three broad sections. First, the command to destroy the Amalekites in verses 1 to 9, which we have already looked at. Secondly, the rebellion of Saul against the Lord in verses 10 to 23. And then thirdly, the rejection of Saul by the Lord in verses 24 to 35.
So we'll take up the rebellion and the rejection tonight. So remember, after they come back from this particular mission, God's command and God's word was crystal clear to Saul. He wasn't to go in and spare anything. What God commanded is found very clearly stated in verse 3.
Go and attack Amalek, utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. Kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. Then when you notice specifically in verse 9, it says, but Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good." That sort of is an overarching statement concerning all that follows beyond this section. Because what we find is that Saul does not embrace the reality of what he has done.
He continues to think that he has fully obeyed God He puts the blame ultimately upon the people. Later on in the chapter, he says that he feared the people and he did what they had him to do. But the narrator tells us very specifically that Agag and the livestock were spared because of Saul and the people. Saul was the king.
He had the authority. He had the rule over Israel. And whatever he determined would be what took place.
The Rebellion of Saul
So let's look first at this rebellion of Saul against the Lord.
God's Word to Samuel
Notice the response in verses 10 and 11. We saw this last time. The word of the Lord came to Samuel saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king. God is speaking in the manner of man.
Remember, this is an improper predication. If it were properly predicated of God, then it would be that God regretted what he had decreed. It was God who formally decreed that Saul would be the king. This is a figure of speech, an anthropopathism, that is designed to tell us something about the enormity of Saul's sin and the gravity of God's justice and righteousness.
Certainly, Samuel interpreted it this way. He did not believe that this was a proper predication. He did not believe there was emotional fluctuation in God, because Samuel later, in verse 29, tells Saul that God does not lie nor relent. He is not a man that he should relent.
So Samuel understood the particular literary convention that God used in verse 10, or in verse 11, and then Samuel responds accordingly. He has grieved Samuel according to the end of verse 11, and he cried out to the Lord all night. He responded to this in an appropriate manner. He was grieving to the man of God to see the King of Israel engage in such rebellion against the Lord God Most High.
Now
Saul's Self-Assessment at Carmel
that brings us to this confrontation with Saul in verses 12 to 21. They meet in Carmel. This is not Mount Carmel where Elijah threw down with the prophets of Baal, but rather this was a smaller city. Notice that Saul had erected a monument.
Notice in verse 12, it says, indeed he set up a monument for himself. Now, this was common among kings. When you would win a particular military battle, they would set up a monument in terms of their victory. So it probably wasn't an idol to himself.
It probably doesn't have any other sort of significance than the fact he really thought he did a good job. You see that throughout the chapter, don't you? He really thinks that he did a bang-up job in obeying God. Yes, he may have almost decimated the entirety of the Amalekite population.
He did, in fact, get rid of the livestock, or some of the livestock. God had commanded him to do so. But we need to understand that
Partial Obedience Is Disobedience
a partial obedience is not obedience. just about honoring God doesn't get the job done. If you do 99.9% of what God says, you will still be damned for that other tenth of a point. We need to understand that when God commands, it is obedience that is to be perfect, it is to be perpetual, it is to be exact, it is to be entire, as our confession of faith summarizes. This is the beauty and the glory of the Christian gospel.
None of us obey the way that God says. Christ did. He fully executed the law of God. He fully submitted and he fully obeyed every jot and every tittle.
What we have here is a picture of an imperfect obedience that is not obedience at all. So we need to understand that when we try, or when we knowingly give God less than what He demands, we really ought not to pat ourselves on the back and try to take credit for being extra-specially good people. Because that's what Saul seems to maintain throughout. from this monument all the way through, even later when it says that he repented or he confessed his sin, I don't think it was a confession that was real. I think he just wanted to fix the particular predicament that he was in.
Similar again to the things that we sometimes do. We find ourselves in a mess. Instead of genuinely humbling ourselves before the Lord God and casting ourselves upon the mercy of Christ, we just want to fix the immediate situation so it doesn't go as bad as we think it might go. So Saul here is really an excellent picture, not only of a disobedient king, but of a religious hypocrite.
Through and through, this man sets forth that reality, that religious hypocrisy is a reality, and Saul is a poster child for that very thing. Notice, so they meet in Carmel.
Saul's Claim of Obedience
Notice the assessment of Saul in verse 13. This is truly amazing. Samuel went to Saul and Saul said to him, blessed are you of the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.
Now this is truly amazing in light of verse 11. In verse 11 we read, God himself say, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king. And now in two verses later, Saul is congratulating himself for doing what the Lord had commanded. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.
We need to understand here that the deceptiveness of sin is a reality. Again, we may think that we're doing well. We may think that all is in order. We may think that we have all our ducks in a line.
But the Lord God two verses previous to this is saying, I greatly regret that I had set Saul up as king. Saul is just wandering through life thinking that he is pleasing God when indeed he is actually rebelling against God. I hope you see the parallels, okay? I hope you see that when we engage in a partial Christianity, When we engage in a partial conduct that is worthy of the Lord, when we are holding back in a particular area, or we are nurturing a particular sin, or we are not dealing with a particular sin, we might have our act together in 80% of our lives. but if in that twenty percent we have some secret wicked thing that we continue to engage in and we continue to deceive ourselves in thinking that all is well because after all we've got this much in order we deceive ourselves it's better to confess the twenty to vomit it up to God and say please forgive me be merciful to me you know there are men I'm sure you've heard of them pastorates that fall into sexual sin.
They preach the gospel, or they preach the Bible week in and week out. If you look at those particular men, perhaps it looks like 90% of their lives are in good check or good order. But in that 10%, they're nurturing a particular sin. They're looking at porn, or they're engaged in all kinds of wickedness.
Or it could be a sister in the church. 90% she's doing quite well. She's helping people that have had babies. She's helping people that need help. She is visiting people.
She is a good woman in terms of that 90%. But she is a gossipy, slanderous wretch and thinking that all the while she is serving God. We really need to learn from Saul that we have to have a better assessment of the way things genuinely are. Most likely, we are not as good as we are inclined to think.
Most likely, we are not able to say, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Now notice, I'm saying most likely. You may be that particular snowflake in our congregation that in your personal identity is rendering up much better obedience to the Lord than the rest of us. But most likely, for the rest of us, we need to realize that we are probably not as holy as we think that we are.
Saul was fooling himself. Saul actually thought that by sparing ag-ag and sparing these livestock, he nevertheless was obeying God. I mean, I hope that you see how well the author constructs this particular narrative to shine the light on the reality that Saul is not righteous whatsoever. I mean, just in the space of a few verses, we see utter disobedience, we see the regret of God, and then we see Saul happen upon Samuel and say, you know, blessed are you of the Lord, I have performed all that the Lord has said to me.
It's incredible that he does this. Now
Samuel's Indictment
notice the questioning indictment of Samuel. Verse 14, but Samuel said, what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the ox in which I hear? Samuel was no fool. He understood the harem principle.
And by harem, I don't mean a group of women that fan people and feed them grapes. The Hebrew word that is the Old Testament equivalent to the Greek word anathema, something that is devoted to destruction. That's what the Amalekites were, they were devoted to destruction. You cannot miss that in verse 3, destroy Aegon, destroy the Amalekites, man, woman, infant, I mean totality. and then all the animals, you were to destroy them completely.
So if Saul had obeyed the commandment of God, then why would Samuel hear the bleeding of the sheep? Why would he hear the lowing of the oxen? Because if Samuel or Saul had in fact obeyed God, there would be no sheep to bleed. There would be no oxen to loathe.
There would be no livestock to smell. There would be nothing that had the stamp of the Amalekites on them because they would have been destroyed in accordance with the commandment of God. Listen to John Gill concerning this verse. Verse 14, these questions Samuel put to convict him of the falsehood he had delivered.
The bleating and lowing of these creatures proved him a liar and were witnesses of his breach of the divine command. And one would think every bleeding and lowing of these must alarm his conscience unless dreadfully stupefied. he is dreadfully stupefied because the oxen and the sheep are making their noise he still thinks that he's done a bang up job
Saul's Blame-Shifting
notice the response by Saul in verses 15 and 16 so you get the scene Samuel says if you've obeyed everything that God has said whence then the sheep whence then the oxen why is it the case that livestock are still here Saul if you've obeyed God verse 3 says you need to utterly destroy all the animals. Now notice verse 15, Saul said they have brought them from the Amalekites. You see this is typical, isn't it? We want to blame everyone else.
Today at the cascade I was making a similar point in a different context, but the idea being that we want to pass the blame. And I mentioned the Adam and Eve story, and they fell right into my trap. I don't mean that in a malicious way. I said, what did Adam do, or who did Adam blame when he sinned against God?
And they all, to a man and woman, said Eve. I said, he blamed God first, right? The woman whom thou gavest me, she gave me the fruit. What's the implication?
God, if you hadn't have created this woman out of the rib of my side, I would have been a happy camper. I would have been doing just fine. Everything would have been peachy. I wouldn't have eaten this fruit.
But it's the woman whom thou hast given me. So he blames God. He blames Eve. Does Eve answer any more nobly?
It's the serpent. We're all wanting to pass the buck. We all want to pass the blame. We really struggle with Proverbs 28, 13, don't we?
Whoever covers his transgression shall not prosper. But whoever confesses it and forsakes it will find mercy. Brethren, I am absolutely convinced that the reason why that David was a man after God's own heart is because David was a wretch, David knew he was a wretch, and he dealt faithfully and honestly with God. Except, of course, with reference to Bathsheba, but God dealt with him as a result of that.
You see, we are not the holy, pious creatures we think we are. So when we're lying to God or lying to men, this is not the way of prosperity. It is best to deal openly with your sin. I don't mean blog about it.
Today I did X, Y, and Z. I don't mean tweet it. I had a wicked thought. I don't mean put your Facebook status update.
I screamed at my spouse. I'm not suggesting that, but maintain short accounts with God. What Saul does here is textbook sinner conduct. He says, they have brought them from the Amalekites.
Verse 9 is conspicuous. Saul and the people. Spirit and gang. Now it's they did this, you see.
Saul has been found out, and instead of owning it and coming clean to Samuel, what does he do? He's cleaving to his own righteousness. He's cleaving to his own conduct, and if that means throwing them under the bus, he's all too willing to do that. They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen.
You see that? It's not me and the people. I was passive. I was just sitting here obeying God, and these wretched people spared the livestock.
If you do not see yourself or people close to you in the person of Saul, you're not understanding 1 Samuel 15. This is us, isn't it? That's what I love about the Old Testament. When you look into the pages of the Old Testament, guess who's looking back at you?
It's you! That's us. You may not be the king of Israel, you may not have been given the harem command to go and utterly destroy Amalekites, but you want to blame others for your sin. You want to distance yourself from any thought whatsoever that you could ever disobey God.
We like to maintain this idea that we are the most obedient Christians that we've ever met. All the rest of the people we know, they're just sadly lacking. We need to own this stuff, brethren. We need to learn from Saul.
We need to understand that when we see him, we ought, I mean, have you seen your kid do this? You've got children, you've seen them like a Saul, haven't you? It wasn't me, it was him. It wasn't me, I did what you told me, but it was them.
They're always shifting the blade, you see. I think Saul is a textbook representation of hypocritical religion. For the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen. Now notice, here's what hypocrites love to do as well.
They love to do it in the guise of religion. You see, the worst hypocrites are the Pharisaic type, the holier-than-God type. Look at what he says. For the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen. to sacrifice to the Lord your God.
You see, Samuel, you can't be mad at us because we had high, noble ends in view. You can't be upset with me because what I wanted to do was to sacrifice to the Lord. God the Lord told you to destroy those animals. When God the Lord commands you to sacrifice, take them from your own flock.
Let's make it a real sacrifice. Not a lot of sacrifice when you take the Amalekite animals and you cut them up and give them to God, is there? doesn't cost you one iota. You see, sacrifice, by definition, brethren, is to cost you something. You ever met persons that say, well, you know, if I give or if I do, then it's really going to hurt me.
Isn't that what sacrifice means? Isn't that what it meant for the Lord Jesus? When He sacrificed Himself, did He do it in a palace? Did he do it with a beverage in his hand?
Did he do it being fanned or fed grapes? Sacrifice for Christ cost him dearly. So why is it when it comes to us and our sacrifice, we want to make sure we get off as cheaply as we can possibly get off? You see, Saul wants to offer to the Lord.
That's commendable, but he's offering up animals that God said he was supposed to kill. You are not impressing God with your religion when you are disobeying him in the pursuit of it. You see that? I'm really laboring to try and make this as clear as possible, because I think there's a lot of the church in 1 Samuel 15.
Again, maybe not you. You may be the exception to the rule. But I know how my heart works, and I know how much Saul is at least there. So if it fits, take it.
If it doesn't, pray for me, brethren.
Samuel's Rebuke
Now notice the rebuke by Samuel. The Rebuke by Samuel, verse 16. Then Samuel said to Saul, be quiet. I doubt he said it really gently and graciously either.
Be quiet. It was probably more like shut your mouth. Saul, you have sinned against God, and you are standing before the prophet of God trying to assert your obedience to the Lord? I mean, come on.
This narrative is written in such a way, it jumps out at you. Be quiet. I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night. And he said to him, speak on.
Now notice. verses 17 to 19, Samuel said, when you were little, in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? What's the implication? You were anointed the king over Israel.
Therefore, you cannot blame the people. You have the authority in Israel. You were given rule over those people. It's the law of leadership.
When the troops mess up, the manager, the supervisor is responsible for that. You cannot say them and they and the others. You can't do that. It's the same in the family.
When the house is messed up, when the kids are messed up, the father can't say, well, it was all her, or it was all them. The husband is the head of the wife. The husband is the leader in the home. I don't mean he walks around and beats his chest and tells everybody to hand him drinks, but he is responsible for the spiritual climate and the aroma that is in that particular home.
He is the man. He is the leader. That's why after Adam and Eve sin, Who does God address? He does not address Eve.
He addresses Adam. He comes to the head. Adam was the head prior to the fall. Adam is the head post-fall.
Paul tells us that in Ephesians 5. He doesn't say husbands ought to be the head. Husbands are probably better at being the head. Husband is the head.
He may be a bad head, he may be a good head, but a head of the wife he is. And in this particular instance, when he underscores this reality, did not Yahweh anoint you king over Israel, the buck stops with you, Saul. It is your responsibility, it is your duty, and you cannot blame the Israelite people for bringing the livestock back to you. If that were the case, if we were not operating under the auspices of verse 9, where we know that it was Saul and the people...
See, we have a bit of a bird's eye view for this part of the narrative, because the authors already told us it was Saul and the people. So later on, when Saul says, I was afraid of the people, he's lying. He is lying. Saul was the leader.
But if it was the case, just for a moment, that the people said, hey, we brought these bleeding sheep and these lowing oxen because we thought it might be a good idea to sacrifice them to Yahweh, what does the king of Israel do? He says, kill them because God said so. That was Saul's responsibility. Now notice what else.
The mission was clearly defined. There ought not to be any question whatsoever. Verse 18, the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. What part of that don't you understand?
What part of kill everything? The atheists, the God-haters, the rebels, they all understand verse 3. I mean, when you walk around this neighborhood and you witness for Jesus, someday, somehow, somebody's going to say, well, why does God command genocide? Guess what passage they most likely have in view? 1 Samuel 15, 3, where God commands that they go and utterly destroy all of the Amalekites.
So the atheist today understands what verse 3 means. But Saul, the king of Israel, failed to grasp that? Saul, the king of Israel, missed that? Of course he didn't miss it.
He is a rebel against God. That is precisely the issue. He can blame people. He can put it under the guise of piety.
He can say, I wanted to sacrifice these beasts to Yahweh. But when all is said and done, when we cut away all of the smoke, when we get to the bottom of it, it is simply a matter of disobedience to the Lord God Almighty. And Samuel tells him so. Verse 19.
Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why? What's the matter with you, Saul? Why didn't you obey?
You are the king of Israel. You have authority over these persons. You have been given a clear mandate. You have been given a clear mission.
Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil in the sight of the Lord? Now, look at this. This is just amazing. What does Saul continue to say?
But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. Stop, Saul. You ever dealt with somebody and they continually maintain their integrity or their righteousness when you've got them? It's your kid with chocolate streaming down his face and, you know, a chocolate line up his arm.
There's no more cookie, but you say, I know you stole the cookie. Mm-mm. Wasn't me. You know they've done it.
You press them. You push them. You want them to admit it. You know they're guilty.
And what do they do? Wasn't me. Wasn't me. I guess your kids are all perfect.
I know we had this issue in my home a time or two. Saul said to Samuel, verse 20, but I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me and brought back Agag, king of Amalek. But Saul, you weren't supposed to. Partial obedience is disobedience.
Partial truth or half-truth is falsehood. You see, the God with whom we have to do is precise. He is accurate. He is holy.
He is righteous. He is just. He doesn't barter with us. He doesn't say, do the best you can in this particular instance.
Saul was given a clear mandate. He seems to indicate that he understands that mandate. And then he has the wherewithal to actually say, but I brought back Agag, king of Amalek. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
Do you see how insane that is? You didn't utterly destroy the Amalekites. because Agag is standing there breathing. If you had utterly destroyed the Amalekites, there wouldn't be an Agag. What don't you get?
You see, sin renders one not only defensive, not only blame-shifting, but utterly stupid, because Saul is not tracking with the bare facts of the situation. Notice in verse 21, he's going to continue. These poor people, boy, they are getting chucked under the bus that day. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.
That's just an added day. It's the Lord your God. I did it for your God, Samuel. I ate that cookie to benefit you.
I stole that money so I could give it to the poor, as if that justifies wickedness, as if that makes it OK. Well, I only had your best interests in view. That's why I did that disobedient and wretched thing. I mean, this is just a man that is continually rejecting the very prophet of God who's come to him to call him to repentance and to deal with his sin.
It's far better, brethren, to confess and forsake and find mercy than to cover it. Proverbs 28, 13. If there's a verse in the Bible that you should get into your heads, I can't make you because that would be going beyond my particular realm, but I highly suggest that you get Proverbs 28, 13, and you internalize that particular text. Can you get me a glass of water, please?
Thank you.
Samuel's Condemnation of Saul
Now notice the condemnation of Saul, verses 22 and 23. So Samuel said, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heathen the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he also has rejected you from being king.
Obedience Over Sacrifice
Notice, first, the question, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord." This question is posed to search out Saul. The question as posed seems to imply that Saul knew the answer. Throughout the rest of scripture we find this. God has, I don't want to say more of an interest, but the moral law of God, obedience to his commands, trump the ceremonies.
Not that the ceremonies are wrong, not that we ought not to keep them, but you see this. If you study Reformed theology, especially chapter 19 in our confession of the law of God, you start asking questions about the law and the history of Reformed interpretation, you'll know that the law of God, there is a threefold division that theologians have recognized from the early church. Some say it was invented by Thomas Aquinas, but it predates Thomas. Basically, what we have is a threefold division of the law.
The moral law, God's holy moral law, summarized or codified in the Ten Commandments at Sinai. We have the ceremonial law, the laws of sacrifice, the laws that were redemptive in nature to teach Israel something about atonement and blood and all those sorts of things, those ceremonies. And then we have the judicial law. The judicial law spoke to life in the land.
Life in the land was regulated by God in terms of a civil code, that if persons violated that civil code, then they were penalized accordingly. And some have said, well, that threefold division has been imposed upon the scripture. No, this is one perfect example where we see it exegetically rooted. Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
That shows us that there is a priority in the moral law over the ceremonial law. When the prophets of Israel come to indict the nation, it typically isn't because the people of Israel ate pork. It typically isn't because the people of Israel ate jackdaw. It was because they committed adultery, or it was because they committed murder, or it was because they violated some other precept in the Ten Commandments.
You see, this is a text that indicates that that threefold division not only did not originate with Aquinas, Historically, it predates Aquinas, but it's from the text of Scripture itself. There is a threefold division, and here the question posed by Samuel to Saul implies that Saul should have known the answer. Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? What's the obvious answer?
No! What good is it if you bring the sacrifice, you cut the throat, you lay your hands on it, but you just fornicate it? What good is it if you bring the sacrifice, you cut the throat, you lay your hands on it, and you just stole money from somebody? Or you're a shop owner and you cheat people?
You see, God wants you to be faithful. He wants you to be obedient. He wants you to walk humbly before your Lord. Micah 6, 8.
You see, there is a priority here. God wants you to obey the law and then bring your sacrifice. He's not saying no sacrifice. He's just saying that it's terrible to bring a sacrifice to God, especially sacrifices that should have been killed on the battlefield.
You disobeyed God and now you're bringing these sacrifices. He's not pleased with this. Remember Jesus' statement in Matthew chapter 5? If you go to present your gift at the altar and there, you remember that your brother has a problem with you?
What does Jesus say? Just go through worship, knowing that you've got a breach with men. Just go through worship and engage in that act. No!
Go fix it! and then come and offer your gift before the Lord. You see, we need to deal faithfully and righteously and justly before God and before men, and then we engage in sacrifice. So the question is meant to search out Saul.
The Declaration: Obey Rather Than Sacrifice
Notice the declaration. just in case Saul answered, well, yeah, he loves burnt offerings more than obeying the voice of the Lord. I hope Saul wouldn't have answered that, but based on his track record up to this point, he probably would have. Well, yeah, he loves sacrifice. Doesn't matter how we get it, yes, it does.
Notice the declaration, behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams. This was the problem in Malachi, the prophet's day. In Malachi's day, the people of God, post-exile, were going to the rebuilt temple and they were bringing lame sacrifices, they were bringing maimed sacrifices, and in some instances they were bringing stolen sacrifices. God says, I don't want that.
I would rather that somebody board up the temple door. I don't want this going on. I do not want you to bring this perversion to me in the name of sacrifice and present it unto me. You see, obedience is the priority.
It is better to obey than to sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams. Now note the comparison that Samuel gives him. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Isn't it interesting as well? that when we let a little sin in, though I don't think this was a little sin, this was a great deal of rebellion against God, but how does 1 Samuel end?
With Saul actually employing a witch. Right? Doesn't that how it ends? He actually consults a medium.
He finds a witch so that he can talk to Samuel. You see, when you start to disobey God, it doesn't happily get better in the long run. It typically degenerates and devolves. There is no betterment when we engage in a course of disobedience to God.
We don't get better, we get worse, we get degraded. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. You know what the sin or rather the punishment for witchcraft is in the Mosaic Code? It is execution, right?
So we can extrapolate the reality that God sees as a capital offense, rebellion against his law, rebellion against his word. Notice, stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Do you ever think that when you're stubborn, you've degenerated into iniquitous behavior and idolatry? Isn't that what stubbornness really is?
It's asserting yourself as the authority. It's saying, I'm right. It's saying that I'm the measure. I'm the man.
I'm the woman. What is that? That to arrogate for oneself a position that belongs to God Most High. This ought not to surprise us.
What Samuel relates here is really dealing with the essence of sin as sin. Listen to Matthew Henry, that nothing is so provoking to God as disobedience, setting up our wills in competition with His. You say, well, you know, I'm stubborn. I got a stubborn streak in me.
You should repent. I have a stubborn streak in me, too. I should repent. Because what is it?
I think Matthew Henry is absolutely right. Setting up our wills in competition with his. When we are unyielding, unwilling to bend, when we will not give an inch, That is, as it were, to set up our wills in competition with His. Matthew Henry says, this is here called rebellion and stubbornness and is said to be as bad as witchcraft and idolatry.
It is as bad to set up other gods as to live in disobedience to the true God. Those that are governed by their own corrupt inclinations, in opposition to the command of God, do, in effect, consult the teraphim, that's the word here for idolatry, or the diviners. It was disobedience that made us all sinners. And this is the malignity of sin, that it is the transgression of the law and consequently it is enmity to God.
Saul was a king, but if he disobeyed the command of God, his royal dignity and power will not excuse him from the guilt of rebellion and stubbornness. It is not the rebellion of the people against their prince, but of a prince against God that this text speaks of. Terrifying. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Think about this in the church. you probably wouldn't play with a Ouija board, or you probably wouldn't go find a witch. I mean, it's interesting that, you know, in our generation, you have these sort of fortune teller houses where I don't know what goes on. I almost said where. I don't know what goes on in there.
Do you put your hand on something? Do you look at a crystal ball, tea leaves, tarot cards? Whatever it is they do. We wouldn't do that.
I can't imagine a Christian in the church saying, you know, as a pattern, You know, on a monthly basis, I go visit a witch, or I go get my fortune read, or I find out what the ball says concerning my life. I don't think I've ever met a Christian that would admit to that. Maybe they do it, I don't know. They're good at hiding it or something.
But all of us are rebels. All of us rebel against God every time we sin against God. Every time we see the commandments. Every time we see, you shall have no other gods before me.
Do you ever stop and think that every time, every time we sin or every time we do something, it is to make ourselves God over God. Secondly, we shall not make for ourselves idols. You may not bow to a pole or you may not bow to Allah. You might not bow to that statue in the Chinese food place, but you are bowing to yourself often.
Again, if you don't, please pray for the rest of us. But in 2 Corinthians, one of the ramifications of the cross of Christ is that he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them. I think there is that remaining tendency or a bit of remaining corruption wherein we live for ourselves. Third commandment, we may not blaspheme the name of God in terms of the actual words that we use.
We might not say the name of Jesus or we might not say the name of God in a perverse or wicked way to misuse it. But if you've ever noticed that event or that time when David sins against the Lord and Nathan the prophet reproves him, what does Nathan say? By this deed you have given cause to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. Our sin.
We profess to be Christians and then we live like the world. What are persons going to say? What are they going to say? Religion means nothing.
Jesus means nothing. What about the fourth commandment? Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. You know, there's a lot of people who say, well, the Sabbath isn't for us today.
If you think that, let's sit down and go through it. Let's talk through this particular idea. What? Do we have nine of the ten commandments abide?
Nine of the ten are perpetual? Nine of the ten extend? Or is it a code? Is it a complete unit of ten words?
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, brethren. Are we keeping that day? Again, we may not go visit a witch, we may not go have our tea leaves read, or we may not have somebody look at whatever they look at, but what do we do with these other things? What about the fifth commandment?
Yeah, well, you know, I don't live at home anymore. I don't need to submit to my parents. You need to submit to lawful authority. You need to submit to the civil government.
What about murder? You may not cut people's throats, and thankfully, you don't. You know, I don't. But are you mad?
Upset? Impatient? Fool? Rocker?
Those kinds of things are not far from the lips. The seventh commandment, that's huge. What does Jesus say? It's not just a man who actually goes and lays with a woman.
It's not just a woman who actually goes and lays with a man. It's those who entertain those lustful thoughts. You have broken the commandment. Again, we may not go to witches, but we may be rebelling in a much more polished sense, but it is nevertheless the same sort of a sin that's in view.
The eighth word. What about stealing? You may not walk into Walmart and pull Snickers bars down. shove them into your pockets. But I've actually heard people boast how little work they do for the money they're paid.
That's shameful. What does Ecclesiastes tell us? Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. You are employed by someone.
You work hard. If you're an employer, work hard. If you're in the home, work hard. Do what you're supposed to do.
That is important. What about the ninth word, bearing false witness? Again, we may not go down to the witch's house and say, hey, what's my life going to be like in a month or so? But what about lying?
Or what about paring off the edges? Or what about covering up? Or what about saying things to make ourselves look better? What about social media?
No one lies on Facebook. No one lies on Twitter. No one lies on these things. Come on, brethren.
There is a lot of rebellion that is probably going on under the guise of Christian profession. And then, of course, the 10th commandment. In case you are guiltless of 1 through 9, the 10th will find you out. I'm sure I've shared this before.
In the United States military, they have what's called the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Basically, it's 133 laws to get you for anything and everything you could have possibly done. If those 1 to 133 don't get you, 134 is put in there. It's called the general law or the general principle.
If you didn't get found out by 1 to 133, 134, they'll get you. It's just going to happen. There's always a way to get you under 134. Isn't that how the 10th functions?
I don't think God's just trying to get us. I don't mean it like that. But the 10th really does go right to the marrow of our beings. None of us can say, I don't have it.
I never have these. We probably all struggle with this. But you see the point. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.
And there's a lot of professing people today, a lot of professing Christians today, that while they wouldn't visit a witch or get their cards read, they will nevertheless rebel against God. And then the condemnation follows at the end of verse 23. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he also has rejected you from being King. We saw this in 1st Samuel chapter 13.
You may turn there. Just in case Saul wasn't getting this, it's reiterated to him, 1 Samuel 13, 14. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.
It's almost as if as soon as Saul took the throne, he was being told that he was going to be thrown off the throne, and that there would be no lasting dynasty in his name. that God would indeed turn to another. Specifically, we know in the coming chapters, it's going to be the Davidic dynasty, wherein God builds the kingdom. And from David comes the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we're going to end here.
I don't want to try and rush through the rest. This will bring us to a good place. Next week, we'll finish chapter 15, and then I will be gone for two Wednesdays following that. I'm going to find out from Pastor Porter if he'll be able to continue the Bible study those two weeks that I'm gone.
So I will let you know announcements on Sunday and via email. But let's go ahead and close in prayer.
Closing Prayer
Our Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for its clarity in these matters. We thank you for the fact that you do not candy coat or sugar coat things. You tell us that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. And certainly, as we look at our own hearts, most likely, God, we must see that sort of thing in there.
We confess our sin. We ask for cleansing in the blood. Again, we are thankful for the blood of Jesus that washes us, that cleanses us, that purifies us. We thank you for the gospel of free and sovereign grace and for the reality that Christ was obedient.
Christ never rebelled. Christ always did the will of the Father and Christ died as a sacrifice and a substitute in our place and that he rose again the third day. We thank you that we have life in him. And God help us to pursue conduct that is worthy of this gospel.
Do forgive us when we sin, but grant us the spirit, grant us grace, grant us help to pursue obedience and to pursue holiness, because we know that you are pleased with these things in your people. And we ask these things through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.