DEVOTIONAL: 1 SAMUEL 15 - TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE

As a kid my mom used to require that my siblings and I eat all the food on our plates. At times she'd serve us food that we didn't like--lima beans and beets. She insisted that if we would just eat these things that we would acquire a taste for them. I recall, around the age of 8 or 9, my mother force-feeding us beets from a can. I'm scarred for life. To this day I will not touch a beet or a lima bean (sorry, mom). But in order to try and fool my mom, we'd eat the tiniest portions of these food when she was looking and then we'd spread the rest of it around our plates to try and make it look like we ate more in hopes that this childish optical illusion would deceive her. On some occasions it worked, but on all occasions we disobeyed our mother, for even if we ate some of the food, we never ate it all as she required. Partial obedience is 100% disobedience.

In 1 Samuel 15 King Saul was commanded by God to utterly destroy the Amalekites. Some time ago they had opposed Israel after the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 17:8-16). God decided that this was the time for judgment to befall the Amalekites. Nothing was to be left. Everything and everyone were to be destroyed. Nothing but 100% obedience would be acceptable to God.

Saul engaged the Amalekites in battle and was victorious but Saul and the Israelites captured alive the Amalekite king and saved the best of the livestock, while destroying everyone and everything else. This partial obedience, which was really disobedience, resulted in God’s rejection of Saul as king.

The word of the Lord comes to prophet Samuel. God tells Samuel that Saul has been disobedient. This enrages Samuel and Samuel cries to God all night long. The next morning Samuel sets out to meet Saul. When they meet Saul tells Samuel that he's been completely obedient to the Lord's commands. But the reader of Scripture already knows this is not true because the Lord has revealed these things to Samuel. One can anticipate the awkward conversations that's about to be had.

Samuel then asks, "What's the meaning of the sheep and ox that I hear?" as if to say, "If you obeyed God completely and destroyed all the Amalekites and all their livestock, then why do I hear sheep and ox out here in the middle of nowhere?" Saul has been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar but he's seemingly not convinced he's done anything wrong at this point. In fact, he has a "very good" reason as to why he and the Israelites did what they did. He explains that the people did destroy everything except for the very best of the livestock which they intend to offer to God. Samuel then silences Saul who is radically unaware of his own false humility.

As the leader of Israel, Saul then blames the Israelites for keeping the spoils of war for themselves when they should have destroyed everything as God commanded. Here’s a snippet of what Samuel then says to Saul.

1 Samuel 15:22-23 …Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. [23] For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.…

You see, the people and Saul had planned to offer the best livestock, the spoils of the battle, to God. This seemed like a good idea, right? They had planned to make it part of their worship celebration for God giving them the victory. But God, through Samuel, was saying that obedience is better than sacrifice. Listening to God is better than offering to Him the fat of rams in sacrifice.

Listen to how Samuel exposes the folly of Saul and the Israelites. Samuel explains and unfolds the depths of rebellion towards God. He says that it’s akin to divination. Divination is seeking information from spirits to gain a favorable outcome in life. Tarot cards, Ouija Boards, palm reading, horoscopes are all ways in which people use occultic practices to try and gain secret knowledge for their benefit. Divination, specifically, has to do with trying to communicate with the dead in order to gain secret knowledge for one's own benefit. So meditate on that for a bit and try to discern what Samuel is telling Saul.

How is rebellion like divination? In rebellion you are listening to your own counsel, not God’s, in order to gain a favorable outcome in your life. You think that your wisdom, like that of the spirits in divination, is the wisdom you should listen to. Let's make the connection and leave no room for ambiguity. In divination you are listening to the wisdom of demonic spirits. In rebellion you are listening to the wisdom of yourself. In either case you are rejecting the word of the Lord. That is how rebellion is like divination.

Samuel then goes on to say that presumption is like idolatry. Those two statements are parallels in that rebellion is parallel to presumption and divination is parallel to idolatry. Presumption is going beyond the confines of what God has said. If God has set parameters to live within and you venture beyond those parameters then you are rebelling against God. That’s why being presumptuous is parallel to rebellion. In idolatry you are serving and obeying another God. That's why idolatry is parallel to divination—you’re obeying and heeding the voice of a spirit.

Later in 1 Samuel 15 we see that the prophet Samuel summoned for the Amalekite king, Agag, to be brought to him. As both prophet and judge, Samuel declared a guilty verdict over Agag. He was a vicious murderer who left many mothers childless. Then Samuel slew Agag and did what Saul failed to do.

Now let's put it all together so we can make the connection. The connection is this: rebellion really is idolatry. Rebellion is listening to yourself or some other authority over God’s established boundaries, guidelines or law. If God is not who you are listening to, then you have an idol. That idol may be outside of you or it may be a self-assertion that you are sovereign over your own life and do not need to listen to God. Rebellion is as the sin of divination. Rebellion is idolatry.

Have you considered the idolatry in and around you this week? Sin is not just an “Oops, I blew it!” Your disobedience, your children’s disobedience and our church’s disobedience to God is idolatry. That is due judgment like the judgment that befell Saul, only worse. Our judgment is that of hell for all eternity. The only hope of being saved from this judgment is to be rescued by the Savior, Jesus Christ. He alone was perfect in obedience to God. He did what we fail to do--that is, to obey God perfectly. In some measure the prophet Samuel points us to Christ who obeys God perfectly for us. Samuel did what Saul failed to do--obey God completely. This reminds us that we fall radically short of our obedience to God. Sometimes we even think our disobedience is a good thing as Saul foolishly thought. Yet that is presumptuous and rebellious and idolatrous. And for our sin we need a Rescuer.

Jesus, who was perfect, was crucified, buried and risen again to save us from being rejected by God. That He has done great things for us should lead us to further obey the voice of God. Each time we rebel against God we are reminded that He atoned for that act of idolatry as well. Should we continue to sin that grace may abound? God forbid. May we go and sin no more today. May we give God glory by our obedience because our sacrifices of praise mean nothing if our deeds are idolatrous.