ARROGANT REBELLION

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Early in the morning, Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honor and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.”

When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.”

But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”

Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”

“Stop!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”

“Tell me,” Saul replied.

Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And He sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”

“But I did obey the Lord,” Saul said. ”I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”

But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.”

Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions.”

1 Samuel 15:12-24a

This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

How many times does a person commit a sin and then try and cover it up with a lie…in essence  another sin?

Perhaps it’s a question we really don’t want to know the answer to.

Why the question?

Because we see the behavior at the center of today’s scripture passage from our continuing study of 1 Samuel, chapter 15…a rebellious, disobedient behavior that doesn’t sit well with the God who actually grieved over allowing Saul to rule and reign in the first place.

As we move to the scriptures, we read where Samuel gets up “early in the morning” and goes “to meet Saul” but as he travels there, he is informed that the king was in another location, first to Carmel where he “set up a monument in his own honor” and then to Gilgal, the place Samuel had anointed him as king.

Here, we find Saul digging an even deeper hole in his relationship with the Lord For not only had he shown a willingness to violate God’s demands but now he sought to glorify and honor himself. Unfortunately, the latter happens way too often in our society today.

Thankfully, we have the Word of the Lord that can serve as a deterrent when we take it to heart as we should. For heading back to the scriptures, we find Samuel finally tracking Saul down and amazingly, Israel’s king behaves as if all is well and he has done nothing wrong. In fact, Saul acts like he has carried out all of the Lord’s instructions perfectly when in reality, he simply contrived a story to try and cover up the sinful behavior of he and his men.

Before that, a lie as Saul states that he had “carried out the Lord’s instructions” to which Samuel replies:

“What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”

You see, Samuel, God’s messenger and faithful servant, was well aware that the Lord told Saul to completely destroy everything when he conquered the Amalekites, not sparing a single person or animal. And yet, Saul decided to spare the life of Agag, the Amalekite king, while allowing his men to keep all the best of the sheep and cattle from the plunder.

And so Samuel called out Israel’s king, challenging his assertion that he had obeyed God fully but as we see, Saul was ready for him, showing that he had already thought out the progression of deceit he would follow well before it happened. For we find him saying this to Samuel:

“The soldiers brought them (the sheep and cattle) from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”

Through his own words, we see where Saul was only compounding the sins already committed. For not only was he lying about fully keeping the Lord’s commands but he now used God as a part of his excuse, trying to convince Samuel that the best of the sheep and cattle were only taken in order to present sacrifices to the Lord.

Obviously, the problem was that God never ordered Saul to do this. If He had wanted the best sheep and cattle to be set aside for offerings, He would have told Israel’s king to do so but He didn’t.

Well, the scriptures show us that Samuel gets fed up with Saul’s falsehoods and demands that he stop before sharing what Lord had told him the night before about the consequences that were coming. We should note here that Samuel is not speaking on his own behalf but for the Lord and had Saul just done this, putting God ahead of himself, he would have found himself in a much better place…in the favor of the Lord instead of His judgment.

And so here’s what Samuel says, speaking on behalf of God:

“Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And He sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”

Through these words, we find Samuel speaking volumes of wisdom, not only to Saul but to us as well. Here are the key takeaways we should remember:

1. God and God alone brings us to greatness.

Samuel tells Saul, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel.”

Indeed, Saul was from the smallest of the Israelite tribes and the least of the clans within that tribe. If one were going to predict where the king of Israel would come from, no one would have thought it would be from the tribe of Benjamin let alone Saul’s clan and family within it…no one except God, that is.

We know it was the Lord who selected Saul and placed him in an important position of leadership over His people… a position where Saul was expected to represent his God honorably. Unfortunately, Saul did everything but that, disregarding just how much he had been blessed while getting consumed by his power and accomplishments, so much so that he saw himself as more significant than the One who had actually made him a success.

As we go through each day that the Lord blesses us with, let us ever remain grounded in humility, realizing that everything we have achieved or are achieving came from the providence of a God who is willing to take sinners like you and me…and elevate us to do great things in His name. Because of this, He and He alone deserves the credit and glory.

2. Once God brings us greatness, He sends us forth to do His work.

Once Saul was “anointed…king over Israel”, God “sent (him) on a mission”. In this instance, Israel’s king was supposed to “completely destroy (the) wicked people…Amalekites”, making “war on them until” they were wiped out. As mentioned prior, we know didn’t carry out God’s plan as ordered. Instead, he modified the calling to suit the desires of himself and his army…such was the degree of Saul’s arrogance and disrespectfulness towards the Lord.

Well, just as God sent Saul on a mission back in Old Testament times, He does the same to all of us today who He has called into service. Because of this truth, we need to be always seeking His will for our lives and then be obedient to doing what He tells us to do.

When it comes right down to it, the Lord chooses us to do great things and then calls us into action…action that He will always make clear to us…action that demands our obedient response.

3. God demands and expects our obedience centered on complete compliance with His commands.

Once Samuel reminds Saul that God had selected him and elevated him to greatness, expecting Him to obediently carry out the mission He set forth, he asks Saul:

“Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”

Indeed, why?

It’s a question God would ask each of us as well.

Why would we ever decide to turn from Him and His will for our lives?

Why would we refuse to give Him all the credit and glory when we accomplish His purposes?

Why do we sin and then lie to try and cover it up as if it’s a good idea?

Why would we ever willingly decide to do evil instead of good in plain sight of the Lord?

Why? Why? Why? Why?

Well, going back to the scriptures for today, did Saul get a wake-up call from the words of the Lord shared by Samuel?

Unfortunately, the answer is no for we find him decide to continue his dishonesty to try and justify his blatant sinfulness. Here’s what he says in reply to Samuel:

“But I did obey the Lord…I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”

Here, we clearly see that Saul just didn’t get it, convinced that he could keep going and twist what happened until Samuel bought his story but as we see, he (Samuel) wasn’t about to give up either until Saul gave up his ruse and came clean. For here’s his reply to Israel’s king:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.”

Again, here we see Samuel speaking great words of wisdom, providing Saul…and us…some additional points to ponder:

1. The Lord delights the most in our obedience.

Earlier in this chapter, we learned how willful disobedience grieves God and certainly Saul had done that. But note how Samuel takes this a step further and personalizes it so to apply to Saul’s lie saying:

“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?”

Essentially, Samuel then answers his own question, telling Saul that the Lord doesn’t delight in those things more than being obedient:

“…to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

The bottom line here is that no one should ever expect to balance out their transgressions by doing good things for God. We can’t simply cancel out the sin of carrying out our own desires instead of doing what the Lord wants us to do, unless we sincerely repent.

The Lord expects our utmost compliance with His commands and expectations, carrying out His purposes just the way He wants…without any deviation.

2. Rebellion and arrogance are evil in the eyes of God.

As we have seen throughout our study of the Old Testament to date, the Lord despises divination for in doing it, the diviner is seeking guidance from spiritual sources outside of Him…all despite Him making it crystal clear that He would have no others gods before Him.

In essence, a diviner, in denying trust in the one true God, was equivalent to a rebeller…one who chose his own way over God’s and this is why we find Samuel drawing the comparison between the two in his words to Saul.

We also find Samuel touching on something else Saul had displayed, the subject of arrogance which was compared to idolatry. We have seen how this sin of idolatry had begun to run rampant during the Old Testament period of the Judges as the Israelites chose to worship the Canaanite gods over the one true God, the God who had demanded that there would be no gods or idols worshipped ahead of Him.

Such was the case with Saul, but in his case he chose to erect a monument in his own honor therefore essentially making himself an object of worship above God. This self-idolizing behavior is what made him evil in God’s sight.

3. Willful disobedience, rebellion, and arrogance unto God will result in rejection.

We see in the scriptures where Saul’s actions were reprehensible and inexcusable in God’s eyes and so he lost the privilege to lead the Lord’s nation. The Lord removed his authority and privilege to rule over His people and although this didn’t happen instantly, God’s promise did happen over time as He paved the way for David, a man after His own heart, to be the next king.

Here’s what Samuel said, sealing the Lord’s verdict and penalty:

“Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king.”

The message here is clear.

God will not tolerate any person rejecting Him...period. He is God and only He is to be praised and worshipped…lifted up high and honored above anyone and anything…singularly respected and obeyed.

Nothing short of this is acceptable and if test His resolve by choosing to reject Him and His Word, then we can expect to fall from glory ourselves…from the only glory that matters and that’s His glory.

Well, before I close this message, we need to return to our passage for it’s there that we finally see Saul speak some words of truth, saying to Samuel:

“I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions.”

It sure would have been a lot easier if Saul had just confessed and repented earlier but even better yet, it would have been far more favorable if he had just decided to be an obedient leader in the first place, one who honored God and God alone by strictly obeying His Word, will, and way. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and Saul ended up paying a heavy price for going down the path of sinful, arrogant rebellion and pride.

Friends, we all have a choice to make ourselves. As Christ believers, we are God’s children…created in His own image and called by Him to be fully obedience in our service to Him.

So how will we respond?

Will we be like Saul and choose to do what we desire instead of what He wants, even though the Bible shows us that this is a path that leads to sinful destruction and God’s rejection?

Or will we learn from the mistakes of Saul and fully apply ourselves to obey everything that God asks us to do, fully heeding His commands and word?

The choice is ultimately up to us.

Righteousness or evil?

Obedience or sin?

Favor or rejection?

So what’s it going to be?

God is watching and to see how you answer through your actions.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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