Wednesday, June 1, 2011

I Samuel 15:22-23 NASB

"Has the LORD as much 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 is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry."

Saul had been sent on a mission of the total destruction of the Amelekites, an enemy that God had targeted ever since they waylaid Israel as they were coming up from Egypt.  He followed God's orders to the "almost all", sparing King Agag, some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction.  When Samuel came on the scene, Saul claimed complete obedience, but Samuel asked, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" (15:14).  Saul's first defense was to blame someone else:  "The people spared the best..." (15:15a).  When Samuel wouldn't back off, Saul, still blaming the people, gave a second defense, which was to try to cloak his actions with spiritual overtones:  "the people spared the best of the seep and oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God," (15:15b, 21a).  Unconvinced, Samuel drove home the truth of the matter by asking, :Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the LORD?" (15:19).  In desperation, Saul jumped to his third defense, which was to claim fulfillment of God's mission on the basis of weight:  "I did obey the voice of the LORD, and went on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amelekites.  But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God at Gilgal," (15:20-21).  The intriguing thing about the word translated "mission", in verses 18 and 20, where Samuel said to Saul, "The LORD sent you on a mission", and where Saul claims, "I...went on the mission on which the LORD sent me," is that the word "mission" literally means "way".  Here again is Saul's deepest problem:  he is set on his own way while at the same time trying to claim God's way. This is a dangerous road many people take.  In their desperation to look good, they blame others for their attitudes and actions and try to justify themselves with acts of righteousness over against acts of sin, believing that the one outweighs the other.  The problem with it is, if this way is in us, it will always bring us up short of full submission and obedience to the full will of God in our lives, and will end up substituting religion for relationship. It doesn't matter how much we might try to make of it, there's no delight in it.  Samuel reveals what Saul has missed when he asks, "Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices (religion) as in obeying the voice of the LORD (relationship)?"  God is all about delight!  Why settle for anything less than this?   

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