David: Partial Obedience is Disobedience
Notes
Transcript
God rejects Saul as king
God rejects Saul as king
In a lot of ways, king Saul wanted it both ways. He wanted to do enough of what God said to keep Him at bay, but he wasn’t fully devoted to God. He proved this by trying to make a show out of things, he wanted to pick and choose when to obey God and when to obey half way.
When it was convenient Saul would do as God said, but when it might cost him something he found ways to justify only doing part of what God said.
The tipping point came in 1 Samuel 15. God sends Saul to judge the Amalekites for how they treated Israel when they were wondering around in the desert before entering the promised land. God said to destroy everything, but what Saul and his men did was only destroy what they didn’t like.
9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
God speaks to Samuel (the prophet and judge of that time) and says that He is not pleased with Saul, because Saul did not obey.
Samuel goes to see Saul and Saul tells him in vs 15 that “I have carried out the Lord’s instructions” but Samuel knows better. While Sual is talking Samuel asks him why he hears sheep and cows in the distance.
Saul tells him that they spared them so they could sacrifice them to God…is that what God said to do? No. Saul does not get it, he only partial obeyed and partial obedience is disobedience
(water and food coloring).
(cup full of water - this represents the things that Saul did to obey God. Food coloring - this represents the things that Saul did to disobeyed God.)
What is really going on here is the men didn’t want to leave behind the choice animals. Maybe they wanted their meat or their fur or maybe they really didn’t understand, maybe Saul didn’t communicate to them that God didn’t want them to bring anything back from the battle. But the point is, God said to do something and they only did some of what God said.
Samuel again asks Saul why he did not obey, and Saul replies:
20 “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.
21 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.”
God said wipe everything out, Saul says I did and I brought these things back with me…well, if Saul had things to bring back with him that means that he did not wipe them out. You can’t have it both ways. God said don’t keep any of this, you don’t get to decided to keep some of it and then pretend that it is an offering....
What do you think, do you think that God would rather us make sacrifices to Him or obey Him? I think one of the issues here is this sort of sacrifice didn’t cost them anything. They did raise these animals, they aren’t shepherds who make a living off of these animals. They are soliders and they just took them.
Now I guess you could say that they could’ve made some money off of them but that would all be gain, the point is these sheep and cattle didn’t cost them anything so sacrificing them isn’t like a shepherd who takes one of their lambs and sacrifices their fur, their meat, their potential earnings over time from the animal - now that is just my guess, but it seems like that may have been part of Saul’s misunderstanding about how God works.
Samuel responds to Saul:
22 But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 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.”
God does require sacrifices, but beyond sacrifices He requires obedience to His Word. What happens sometimes in life is we decided that when it’s easy to obey we will do whatever God says, but when it is hard we come up with reasons why God only wants us to obey some of what He says. (hold up the water and food coloring) This is what it looks like when we pick and choose where we will obey God.
Our partial disobedience ruins our obedience, because obeying means that you do everything that God says, you can’t only obey sometimes and please God, it doesn’t work that way.
Saul admits that he let the men disobey because he didn’t want to stand up to them, he is the king and he was more afraid of his men than he was of God - and so God rejects Saul as king.
So we have a problem, Israel has a king but God has rejected him...
1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”
God has chosen a new king…and next week, we will find out who he is.