Living Word – November 2012
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 Āgag king of Ama-lek; I have utterly destroyed the A-male-kītes. “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 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.”
The bible teaches us through this text the importance of obedience. Saul wanted to justify having left animals alive with the pretext that they were to present an offering to the Lord. One of the reasons why the people of Israel would present a sacrifice to the Lord was to worship him. Saul used this as an excuse but Samuel made it clear to him that obedience to the Lord was more important. A son that is not obedient will not please his father no matter how much flattery he uses. His father will reject it and see it as hypocrisy.
Our God is all powerful, He is the creator of the universe and we are here because he made it so. He demands complete obedience from us even if we don’t understand or even if we think it doesn’t make any sense. He delights in our obedience and we must understand that this is not negotiable. There is a blessing in obedience, In Dt. 28:1 1 “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.” We have to understand that we must be obedient and must comply with everything that He has commanded us to do. It isn’t about doing our own will but about doing his and it doesn’t matter how much we praise and worship or how much offering we give or we say to him that He is our Lord, if we don’t obey him we are wasting our time and nothing we do will be accepted.
Saul was disobedient and ended up being rejected because of it 1Sa 15:26. We must remember the example that we received from Jesus Christ who obeyed his father in everything even when it cost him his life. If we have doubt, fear, restlessness, laziness or some other hindrance that keeps us from doing what He is asking from us, we must bring it before him through our prayers and ask him to give us the strength to do his will. God Bless You!