The Cost of Disobeying God

 

 In my Bible reading today, I came again to 1 Samuel 15, which is the story of how King Saul, the first king of Israel, acted in disobedience to God and began the process by which the kingdom was taken away from him by God. This is a story of how one who was anointed by God ended up causing God to be grieved by His own choice. This is, for me anyway, a warning tale of how quickly we can lose the favour of God when we choose to disobey Him.

In my last article I laid out how Saul came to be the king of Israel due to the people of Israel rejecting God's kingship over them and desiring a human king like the peoples around them had. The story of Saul's kingship starts back in chapter nine of 1 Samuel, but it doesn't seem to take long to see that Saul's heart is not aligned with God's, and we also see that King Saul is a coward and a weak leader; something that is all too common these days.

The first indication that we have that Saul is afraid is at the time of his public anointing as we read about in 1 Samuel 10. Saul is noted to be a full head taller than anyone else around him, yet he manages to hide himself from the people among their baggage (v.22). At first, one might mistake this as humility, but later on we will see that Saul does not have the fortitude for leadership, so hindsight tells us that this was more likely an act of cowardice. It is this cowardice that will later be the root of his failing that leads to him losing the kingdom.

If we jump to 1 Samuel 15, we see that God uses Samuel to instruct King Saul to go out to strike down the Amalekites for their treatment of the nation of Israel as they were travelling from Egypt during the exodus. This is in reference to what we read in Exodus 17:8-16, where the Amalekites came out against Israel, and Moses went up to a height where he could observe the fighting. When Moses would have his arms raised, the Israelites would beat back the Amalekites, but when Moses' arms became heavy and he put them down, the Amalekites would push back against Israel. We actually get a little more of a glimpse into the actions of the Amalekites' tactics and dishonourable actions that lead up to this battle when we read in Deauteronomy 25:17-19. Here Moses gives a short account of the despicable ways in which the Amalekites attacked the Israelites; "“Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, 18 how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God." What a detestable way to attack a people group. Coming from the rear, which is typically the weakest part of a column, and attacking those who are already likely struggling to keep up with the rest of the people. Well, God took exception to this, and in Exodus 17:14 we see that He swears to deal with Amalek and his people later; "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”

This brings us back to 1 Samuel 15, where it appears that God has decided that it is time to act on His word, and King Saul is the instrument of His wrath. Through Samuel, God instructs Saul very specifically in verse three, telling Saul "Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” All of the people and all of the livestock were to be utterly destroyed. This is how God was going to "blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven".

 This is where Saul's cowardice rears its head again. He is not cowardly in battle. In fact, I think that the Scriptures indicate that Saul was a brave warrior and battled many enemies over the 42 years of his reign. Even in the battle against the Amalekites there is no mention of anything other than decisive strategy and victory. Yet it seems that Saul's weakness was the need of the adoration of those whom he was supposed to be leading.

We see this first in verse 15 and then again in verse 21 as he tries to dodge blame for his failings, instead telling Samuel that it was the people who had kept the good animals, indicating that it had nothing to do with him, even though he was supposed to be their king. He also tried to make excuses for them that the intention was to sacrifice these animals to God in thanks for the victory.

Keep in mind that this was potentially several days later that Samuel confronted Saul, and the animals had not yet been sacrificed, if that had actually been the initial intent. In verses 10 to 12, we read that Samuel was distressed through the night after the battle after hearing from God, and that he left the next day to find and confront Saul. We have no record of how long the travel would have taken, but we do know that Samuel went towards the city of Amalek where the battle had been waged (v.5) and the Amalekites had been chased towards Egypt; so he had to leave the land that the Israelites possessed. In the time between the battle and Samuel's confrontation of Saul, Saul had managed to return to Amalek from the pursuit towards Egypt, destroy the undesirable livestock and any remaining survivors, travel to Carmel, set up a monument to himself (I'm just going to sail right over that), and then travel to Gilgal, where Samuel finally caught up with him. To imagine that this was potentially three to four days is not likely outside the realm of possibility; that may even be a generously short estimate.

And what did Saul say to Samuel in verse 13? "I have carried out the command of the Lord." But Samuel had already been told by God that Saul had failed Him, and Samuel heard the noises of the livestock. This is where Saul defends himself, again blaming the people for taking the livestock, but he also implicates himself in his own guilt when he admits that he captured King Agag instead of having slaughtered everyone as he was instructed to do.

It is the next couple of verses that jumped out at me several years ago and which I want to draw your attention to today.

Samuel's reply to Saul is found in verses 22-23; "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.23 “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Samuel is telling Saul, and us, that God's desire is for us to obey Him. This goes beyond just doing as the Bible tells us to do, but also acting as He instructs or leads us personally. If you have been walking with the Lord for any amount of time, you may have a recollection of a time when you felt like you were supposed to go somewhere, do something or maybe talk to someone, but you didn't understand why you felt that way. It may have even had something to do with a complete stranger, so it made no sense to you. That may very well have been the Holy Spirit instructing you, checking if you would obey Him. Obedience to that still, small voice is what God greatly desires; the fat of oxen and lambs is of no interest to Him.

God instituted the sacrificial system not so that people would worship Him, but as a substitutional system of atonement for the sins that the people would inevitably commit against God. There were also thank offerings that God instructed them to offer, but these were to be done out of a truly thankful heart, not out of a sense of duty. A truly thankful person would desire to give what he had to God and would pursue relationship with Him. This type of thank offering that Saul was claiming was still to come was just a cover up for the disobedience of the people, and if the offering had been forced upon the people, it would not have been done in thankfulness, but rather it would have been done in a begrudging manner. That is a corrupted "sacrifice". You can imagine how offensive that would be to God. God wants our devotion, not our ability to follow guidelines.

But Samuel goes on to what is the more serious charge. He says "rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry". Divination is to foresee the future and to tell the unknown by the use of magic, omens or incantations; this is fortune telling and is otherwise connected to occultism. Iniquity is akin to wickedness, or an innate evil, and idolatry is the attribution of deity and the giving of worship to a created thing. Anybody who practised divination was to be separated from the people of Israel, or cast out. Iniquity in itself is an act that, by definition, is worthy of punishment, and according to Deuteronomy 13, to be caught in idolatry is a death sentence. These are not minor offences to God, yet He attributes to them the same gravity as disobedience. To practice these things are tantamount to denying God and His sovereignty.

Samuel finishes by telling Saul that, due to this failure to obey God's very specific instructions, the throne will be taken from him and his family, and it will be given to another. In verse 28 Samuel tells Saul that "The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor, who is better than you." In the very next chapter we see that he that is better than Saul is none other than David the shepherd, though it would be many years before David would ascend to the throne. And though the life of David was not free from error and sin, Scripture notes that he was a man after God's own heart, and he has been considered the greatest king that Israel ever had, even considering the wisdom and the wealth of Solomon his son, no other king was as loved by God as David was.

Let's not let disobedience to God cause us to forfeit the good things that God wants to grant us. Let's be sure to try to obey God in all that He asks of us, no matter what, and see where He will take us.

Please let me know what you think about this in the comments section below.