Obedience is better than sacrifice

This topic is more focus on why God rejects Saul as king when in the first place, He is the one who anointed him to be king. We will observe a confrontation between King Saul and Samuel the prophet. The confrontation speaks to us as we consider our approach to God's instruction. First thing, i want to encourage you to read 1 Samuel 15: 1-35. First part of this chapter talks about God rejects Saul as king.

We clearly see Gods instruction to king Saul to attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Our God seems so unlike to the one who ordered an entire people destroyed. If God is love, gentle and kind, how could he instruct king Saul to totally destroy everything. We have to evaluate 1 Samuel 15 to understand it. To understand God, we have to know the history of the Amalekites. They were the first people to attack the Israelites (Ex. 17:8-16). After initial defeat, they attacked Israel again (Num. 14:39-45).

I believe that God is sovereign, He owes us no explanation as to why He desired for the entire population to be exterminate. However, we can assume they were a vile and godless people because God is compassionate and merciful. According to Jonah 4, Jonah knows that He is gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love. God's desire to forgive and rescue all people from evil. We can assume that the Amalekites rejected the opportunity to repent from their evil and turn to God.

Here are some reasons why God rejected Saul as king:

1. Saul was arrogant. We can see Saul's pride in verse 12 when he directly went to Carmel and built a monument for himself. Aside from that, he spare the life of King Agag to present him as a trophy-a public exhibit.

2. Saul refused to take responsibility for his actions. Saul first excuse for sparing the best sheep and cattle is to sacrifice it for the Lord. Believe it or not, we sometimes use God as our excuse for disobedience too. Aside from that, he also claimed that he was afraid of and gave in to the people (24). Imagine that the king of Israel with God on his side is afraid of the people?? At times we are all tempted to blame someone else when we've blown it.

3. Saul minimize the seriousness of disobedience. In verse 23, Samuel compares rebellion to the sin of divination or witchcraft. Rebellion is a means by which we attempt to set the course of our futures.

I believe that this are the grounds why God had rejected him as king of Israelites.

Now we have to look on how prophet Samuel deal with this issues. According to verse (11), he cried out to the Lord all night. Samuel's heart never grew cold and condemning. God allows Samuel to be emotionally involved but enable him to maintain objectivity so the he could "speak the truth in love" (Eph. 4:15). Maybe a lot of you wondering why he cried out to the Lord? He is not the one who will be punished, right? Now, take a few minutes to reflect if we are also like Samuel. If you know that a fellow Christian is punished because of his mistake, do we take time to pray for that person, or do we feel troubled for him? Think....

Lets look at Gods reaction on Saul's disobedience. In verse (11), "God grieved". Do we know the real meaning of grieve?? Let us stop for a while and evaluate ourself. We hurt God so much everytime we disobey him or sinned against Him.

Here are the lesson I've learned, Saul learned that obedience is better than sacrifice, and Samuel learned that sometimes obedience is the sacrifice. Enjoy Gods love and grace my friend.