When you think about it, being a Christian is a simple thing at one level, but it’s a multifaceted thing at another. And it’s so easy to get confused about what matters. At one level all you need is faith in Jesus Christ. At another level you need to be in a Church, you need to read your Bible. You need to obey certain laws, etc. And some people put a lot of weight on one aspect over another. But here in this passage today we discover that there’s only one thing that really matters in being a follower of God. That’s that we remain faithful to him and do what he tells us to. All the other things, the religious observance, the Bible reading, the witnessing to our neighbours, it’s all secondary to this one thing, putting God first. At the end of the passage we read: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams." All the religious observance in the world won’t count if we ignore the word of God.
Now, as I said last week, on the surface, the life of Saul is marked by his battles against the surrounding warlords. In fact the writer summarises his life that way at the end of ch14: "47When Saul had taken the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side -- against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines; wherever he turned he routed them. 48He did valiantly, and struck down the Amalekites, and rescued Israel out of the hands of those who plundered them." But there’s a lot more to the story than that. While Saul was a great military leader he failed at a number of points, most importantly in the way he related to God. He seemed to be still stuck in a near pagan view of God. He saw the Lord as a talisman to be reached for whenever he was in trouble. He saw religion as a way of rousing his troops. But he never seems to grasp the concept of a living God who watches over his actions and who cares whether or not he listens to him. Mind you, he’s never the out and out rebel against God. He always maintains an outward vestige of piety at least. He mostly does what God tells him. And when he doesn’t, he always has a ready excuse at hand, like the schoolboy who hasn’t done his homework.
Now of course, that means he isn’t much different to most people today. Most people are able to give an excuse for their disobedience. Most people are generally good people, on the surface at least. And like Saul, few people today have any concept at all of a God who relates to his people on a personal basis. But that’s mostly through ignorance. Saul didn’t have that excuse. He was part of the people of God. He’d had Samuel teaching him how to govern them and how to worship the Lord. But still he didn’t seem to understand.
We’ve skipped over ch14, but there we find Saul making a foolish decision in the hope that it’ll inspire his army. He makes a vow that his army will fast all day until they’ve defeated the Philistines. So none of his men are able to eat anything to sustain them during a hard day of battle. Now on the surface it sounds like a very devout thing to do. Show that you’re serious about worshipping God, show that you truly believe that it’s God who brings you victory. But in reality it’s just a political ploy and a foolish one at that. The result is that by the end of the day they’re exhausted because they’ve been battling away in the heat of the day without any nourishment.
But it gets worse. You see, Saul has made this oath while Jonathan has been off making a fool of the Philistines and in fact initiating what turns out to be a major victory. So he doesn’t know anything about it. And in the middle of the day he comes across a beehive with honey dripping out of it. So what does he do? Well, what would anyone do? He dips his staff in the honey and has a good mouthful. And immediately his eyes brighten. And we see the folly of Saul’s vow. If his men hadn’t been bound by his oath to God they would have all been refreshed and able to continue the pursuit with a new burst of energy.
But that isn’t the real problem. The real problem is the vow that Saul’s made. You see, Saul has vowed that if any of his men eats that day they’ll be put to death. But this is Saul’s own son. He’s the one who’s brought about this victory in the first place. So Saul’s men object. They’ll have nothing to do with Jonathan being put to death, even if Saul did make an oath to that effect.
Now Saul is king over Israel, God’s own people. He’s made a solemn oath to God. So what should he do? Should he honour his oath and put his son to death, or should he give in to his troops to avoid their displeasure? I’m sure his heart goes out to his eldest son. But what about his obedience to God?
Well, he gives in to his troops. He shows that as far as being king is concerned he’s still a fairly weak character. And as far as his obedience to God is concerned, well, that’s obviously a secondary consideration. In fact this seems to be characteristic of Saul’s decision making throughout his life, as we’re about to see.
The result of this decision, and of his foolish taking of an oath in the first place, is that his victory over the Philistines is only a partial one. He’s been unfaithful to his oath so God refuses to be with him in his pursuit of the Philistines, so they escape back to their own land, to prepare for another battle, another day. And the chapter ends with the comment that "There was hard fighting against the Philistines all the days of Saul."
So Samuel comes to Saul with a message from God. He says: "2Thus says the LORD of hosts, ’I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. 3Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." God’s wrath against them is such that his judgement will be total. Everything is to be destroyed. We don’t like it, but here it is. This is genocide at its worst. I guess this is one of those passages that make us uncomfortable with the Old Testament, isn’t it? And it’s not the only place where such brutality is not only sanctioned but commanded.
So how do we deal with something like this that goes so much against our understanding of civilised behaviour and the ethics of war? Well, we could make a couple of observations at least. First of all in the context of the time, no-one would have even raised an eyebrow at this instruction. It was common practice to utterly destroy an enemy and take their land. It’s what the Assyrians did when they finally overcame the Northern tribes of Israel. It’s what the Babylonians did when they captured Jerusalem. But more importantly, God doesn’t command this out of some capricious desire to see people suffer. No, this is a punishment for a people who stand out as the archetypal opponents of his sovereign purposes. God may wait for judgement, but his judgment does come in the end. Again we may not like to talk about God’s judgement, but it’s something that we need to keep in our mind. Even in our civilised world, God’s judgement awaits those who oppose his rule.
By the way, I want you to notice how sometimes God’s anger is displayed in a way that’s intended to help us, as in the thunderstorm we read about last week, that was meant to remind the Israelites where their prosperity came from and sometimes it’s meant to punish and even destroy.
And so Saul sets out to fight the Amalekites. He first lets the Kenites go, because they’re not the objects of God’ s wrath, just the Amalekites. And then begins a great military victory. He conquers their whole territory, putting everyone to the sword, except the king, Agag. He’s taken alive, either out of respect for a fellow king, or else so Saul can gloat over him later. And along with Agag, they also bring back the best of the livestock. They kill off the weak or diseased or skinny animals, but the good ones they bring back to Israel with them.
And this is the last straw as far as God is concerned. Saul has been sent out specifically to execute God’s wrath on the Amalekites and he’s failed to do as God commanded. He says to Samuel, "I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my commands."
And in fact the situation is about to get even worse, Samuel is told that Saul has gone to Mt Carmel where he’s set up a monument for himself, presumably next to the altar of the Lord, and then he’s gone down to Gilgal. When Samuel gets to him at Gilgal, Saul smiles blithely at him and says, "Well, it’s all done, we’ve wiped out the Amalekites as the Lord asked." And you can almost here the chill in the air as Samuel replies "What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears, and the lowing of cattle that I hear?" He hasn’t done as the Lord commanded at all. But Saul has an answer for everything. He blames his soldiers. "They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the cattle," and he tries to make it into an act of piety, "to sacrifice to the LORD your God;" Notice that it’s now "the Lord YOUR God". And we did most of what we were told: "The rest we have utterly destroyed."
Well Samuel is having nothing of that. He doesn’t want to even hear Saul’s excuses. God has spoken to him and so he tells Saul what the Lord has said. He points out that he stands in a position of great privilege that carries with it an equal degree of responsibility. He’s king only because God has anointed him as king. So when God commands there should be no question about obeying. But because he’s disobeyed, the kingdom is to be taken from him. And it’s no use offering that weak excuse about bringing the animals back to sacrifice to the Lord. That’s to misunderstand the whole point of sacrifices. He says: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. 23For rebellion is no less a sin than divination, and stubbornness is like iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king." And that’s that. Saul’s reign will continue for some years yet, but from this moment on, God has abandoned Saul as his chosen king. He has a new king in mind, a king after his own heart.
Now I was thinking about this during the week. If you were here a few weeks ago, when we looked at the anointing of Saul as king in 1 Sam 10, you may remember how we read that as Saul was leaving Samuel, with the oil of anointing still damp on his head, God changed Saul’s heart, by the filling of his Spirit. So if Saul was filled with God’s Spirit, why did he disappoint God so much? Why did he make such bad decisions? And then at the end of this passage we read that God is not a mortal, that he should change his mind. Yet here it seems that God has in fact changed his mind.
Well, let’s think about the way Saul behaves for a moment. You’d have to say that Saul comes across as someone who is hard hearted when it comes to listening to God. Over and over again he seems to be more worried about keeping his troops happy than pleasing God. He seems content to tailor the truth to his own ends in a way that wouldn’t be out of place in a modern day propaganda organisation. He never actually abandons or directly disobeys God. Rather he tends to obey to the point where he’s comfortable, or in a way that’s convenient for him. He continues to be very religious, but never seems to worry about how God really wants him to act. So the presence of God’s Spirit within him, empowering him to leadership isn’t enough is it? He also needs to engage his will to obey. Instead he continually makes deliberate choices to do what’s best for him even if it isn’t exactly what God had in mind.
In the mean time, God is watching and grieving. When God speaks to Samuel and says "I regret that I made Saul king" he means he grieves over him. He’s saddened by Saul’s failure. There’s something of a paradox here. God has changed his mind about Saul, because he must remain consistent with his nature. He can’t just go on ignoring Saul’s unfaithfulness. When he says later that he can’t change his mind, he’s talking about the way he expects faithfulness from his people. And that’s what Saul has failed to show. Samuel reflects God’s grief in the way he spends the night in prayer. Presumably praying that there might be some way that Saul’s kingship can be retrieved. But it’s not to be. God has given him all the leeway he can. Now is the time for a new king to be found. God’s judgement will fall in the end on Saul just as it fell on the Amalekites, not for exactly the same reason, but for a similar one. Saul has disobeyed the living God over and over again. He’s king. So as such, the sins he commits are magnified because they affect how the whole nation will fare. Israel needs a king who will lead them in the worship of the true and living God and who by his obedience will bring the victory that they’ve been trying for, for the past 3 or 4 hundred years. That will come to a certain extent with David and to its full extent with Jesus Christ who will embody the sort of obedience that Saul fails to deliver.
But that’s a story for another week. For now, let’s just meditate on the fact that having the Spirit of God within us isn’t all that matters. We also need to respond to the Spirit’s prompting with obedience. We need to listen to God’s voice and respond as he would have us respond. "Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams." Let’s pray that our faithfulness to God would never waver.
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