Obedience Is Better than Sacrifice

God doesn't need a disingenuous religious service.

God doesn't want a surface-level religious practice.

Going to church, donating something to church, listening to worship music or or tithing, whatever it happens to be, it doesn't matter if you don't know God.

The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church.

May the Spirit use it to help you see, savor,

And sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

You can head to First Samuel chapter 15.

1 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

We'll be covering chapter 15 this morning.

Now we left off last time, the end of chapter 14.

A few things happened.

We had Israel score a great victory over the Philistines, but just barely.

If you remember, it's because Jonathan took the initiative.

He and his armor bearer, with their faith in God, went out and attacked that Philistine garrison.

It threw the Philistines into a panic, and Israel won the day.

Saul actually almost spoiled the whole thing with his foolish vow.

Remember, he said that if anyone ate any food until the Philistines were completely destroyed, then they would be killed.

Jonathan did not hear this vow, and he had some honey to maintain his energy during the battle.

When Saul found this out, he was prepared to kill Jonathan, except for the fact that all the people stood in the way and said, No, Jonathan is a war hero today.

Jonathan's led us in battle, you're not gonna kill him.

And so Saul backed off on that and did not kill Jonathan.

Now, if you remember, I pointed out that chapter 14 ends in a really interesting way.

It ended summing up the reign of Saul, summing up his accomplishments and

Kind of giving a summary of everything that he had done.

I said that's that's weird to see, because we normally see that in the Bible at the end of a king's reign.

The standard formula in the Old Testament is to have this chapter summing up the reign of the king after his death, once his reign is over.

And the question was: why do we see that happening for Saul right now when he continues to reign until the end of 1 Samuel?

Well, he mentioned that.

The author is indeed signaling this is the end of Saul's reign.

He may be in the throne after this, but his kingdom is taken from him.

So the author is is uh signaling for us here.

And you ask why is that the case?

That's what chapter 15 is about.

Chapter 14 ends by saying, and this was the end of Saul's reign.

Chapter 15 is the explanation as to why this happens, why the kingdom is taken from him.

Chapter 15 also serves as a transition in the story from one main character to another.

This is one of the things I like to point out as we're going through this Old Testament narrative is that in fact these are stories and they're to be read like stories.

Just like a movie has a plot and characters and a message, so too Old Testament narrative.

100% historical, it all really happened.

100% inspired by the Holy Spirit.

And yet a story nonetheless.

So when we read it like that, we get the most out of it.

And again, like other stories, we have main characters.

So if you remember, we started with Hannah.

She was our main character.

And then we moved on to Samuel and Eli.

And then in chapter nine, Saul was introduced to us.

And Saul's been the main guy on stage until today.

And we're gonna see this transition from Saul to David.

That's exciting because we all want to hear about David.

So that's one of the ways this chapter functions as well.

And then lastly, what we're going to get here is also just one of the best and timeless, most timeless teachings of the Old Testament.

And that is this idea uh referenced by Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, referenced by Jesus himself, this idea that God is after a

genuine sincere obedience to himself, not some kind of surface religious action.

So we'll see that this morning as well.

Chapter 15, we'll break it into four parts.

We've got God's commission to Saul, what he asks Saul to do, verses one through three, Saul's compromise, not following through with that, verses four through nine, Samuel's

condemnation of Saul, 10 through 23.

And then twenty-four through the end of the chapter is Saul's consequence, what happens as a result.

So let me pray and we'll get into the text.

Heavenly Father, I pray that you would bless this time, bless this message.

Thank you for giving us the scriptures.

Thank you for giving us language by which to understand the scriptures and minds that can understand these things.

And creating the fabric of reality such that all these things accord and we can understand and learn.

I pray that your Holy Spirit be working in us to absorb and live by the teaching that we see.

In your scripture this morning.

So give us all grace, we pray, in various ways.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Our story begins with Samuel addressing Saul.

Um, kind of contextless.

We're not sure why Samuel came to visit Saul.

Last time we saw Samuel was chapter 13, when Samuel had departed from Gilgal.

Then we had 14, but now he's back on the stage in 15 and is giving Saul some orders from the Lord.

And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel.

Now therefore listen to the words of the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came out of Egypt.

Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have.

And the sentence continues there, and I encourage you to read the rest of that sentence as it gives the extent.

to which Israel is going to defeat Amalek.

You notice them refrain from reading that out loud.

That's just because of the younger ears in the congregation this morning.

And a topic like this is very sensitive and it was really requires more of a one-on-one detailed explanation for your children, more than can be given in a sermon.

And of course, being young, young people, this would be the only detail this sermon probably that they would retain.

And that's not the point of the passage.

Therefore it's not my point either.

I do, however, want to pause here before we move on and quickly address God's commandment to destroy Amalek.

Um skipping over that, you know, that's kind of a that's kind of an elephant in the room.

What's what's going on there?

We'll talk a little bit about God's judgment here on a on a broader level, because these are hard topics.

Um and this is by no means gonna answer questions, but this is just gonna help you have a framework or a starting point from which to think about passages like these.

Which may be very confusing in scripture.

So, why does God command Saul to do this?

And how do we think of these sorts of commandments today, for instance?

Well, we have to keep this in mind above all else.

This is God's particular judgment for Amalek, and it's been a long time coming.

This is not Israel getting even or fighting especially aggressively against a pesky opponent.

Rather, this is a very particular judgment of God.

And this is how he knew that.

In Exodus, when the children of Israel were leaving Egypt, Amalek came around, flanked to the back, and attacked specifically the women and children.

That's what God is recalling in verse 2.

He says he noted that.

But furthermore, in Exodus 17, this is that famous battle where Moses had to hold up his hands in order to defeat the enemy.

That was against Amalek.

And this is what God says at the end of Exodus 17, at the end of that battle.

God said, Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.

Again, God says in Deuteronomy 25, 10: When the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you in the land that your the Lord your God has given you for

inheritance to possess.

You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.

You shall not forget.

So, like I said, this judgment is from God, and it's been a long time coming, 400 years.

And we know the Lord, right?

We know what He did with Nineveh.

He would, if if these people had repented, this would have turned out differently.

But it's it's just very clear this is not a human-initiated campaign against Amalek.

This is not one nation taking vengeance against another.

This is a

From the top down, judgment from God Himself.

So just as God destroyed the entire earth with water, that was God's judgment.

Just as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone was God's judgment, so also the destruction of Amalek using Israel was God's judgment.

And we need that reminder now and then that God is the judge.

We we love to focus on his grace, his grace is amazing.

But he is allowed to judge.

He has rightful authority to judge and to kill and to destroy.

He can actually do that.

And I think we can get a little hypocritical sometimes we think about this because we have this idea of just war and we think of World War II and fighting Nazis and these sort of

things.

We say, well, that, you know, that's okay.

but then sometimes we can turn and judge God when when he has these sorts of things, when God decides to.

Who dies and who doesn't.

We sometimes judge him and we go a little bit easy on ourselves.

And of course, that is completely opposite.

God has authority and knowledge.

And he says, vengeance is mine, right?

Vengeance is the Lord's.

But it's only the Lord's.

This is not the way of God's people.

This is one of those things, many things, that God can do righteously and we cannot.

Kind of like receive worship.

Something else we can't do.

But Jesus makes abundantly clear this is not the way of God's people.

When the king himself, the king of heaven, comes down to ransom his people, he does not slaughter his enemies.

He is slaughtered for the sake of saving his enemies.

And then he commands us to go and live likewise.

In fact, Jesus addresses this specifically.

He makes clear the sword has no part in advancing his kingdom.

John 18 36, Jesus says, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

But my kingdom is not from this world.

Pretty clearly, Jesus states that.

So, yes, God is the judge.

Yes, he's allowed to judge.

Yes, he has used fire to judge Sodom and Gomorrah, water.

To judge the world, Israel in this case to judge the Amalekites, and he continues to judge today, but no, he does not use his people, he does not use the citizens of his kingdom to

do that judging.

The Amalek destruction was a particular judgment at a particular time, and not at all something uh normative uh or a pattern to be mimicked modern day.

And then the last thing to mention about this, and this truly is.

The most important.

It's that God's judgment is not Him sitting far off, gleefully doling out destruction on a helpless world.

His ultimate judgment, his harshest punishment, his final condemnation comes down not upon the world, but upon himself in Jesus Christ.

Jesus, which is to say, God as man, takes.

The full punishment of God the Father on the cross for the sake of rightly condemned sinners.

And we need to remember that.

Whenever we see judgment happen in the Old Testament, the flood or fire and brimstone, we need to remember that the this is all leading towards, and the climax of all this is the

cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, when God ultimately takes the full cup of his own judgment.

When our mind thinks God's judgment, we shouldn't be immediately going to fire coming down on Son and Gomorrah.

When we think God's judgment, we say, ah, that is what he is willing to take for the sake of condemned sinners.

This is what defines God.

So there then is some of the context around this commission that Samuel has given to Saul.

This is why Amalek is being so thoroughly destroyed.

Now let's see how Saul responds to this with compromise.

So Saul summoned the people and the number of them in Telaiim, two hundred thousand men on foot, and ten thousand men of Judah.

And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley.

Then Saul said to the Kenites, Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them.

For you showed kindness to all the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt.

So the Kenites departed from among Amalek.

And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havelia as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt.

And he took Agog, the king of the Amalekites, alive.

and devoted to destruction the people with the edge of the sword.

But Saul and the people spared Agog and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good and would not utterly destroy it.

All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction.

The key takeaway there is that Saul didn't do what God said fully.

He partially completed this,

But with a few tweaks, he spared Agog the king, who's like the one guy you'd want to make sure you did kill, and he spared the best of the spoil.

Now comes Samuel's condemnation for this.

Verse 10.

The word of the Lord came to Samuel.

I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from the from following me and has not performed my commandments.

And Samuel was angry and cried out to the Lord all night.

And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning.

And it was told Samuel, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.

And Samuel came to Saul and said to him, and Saul said to him, Blessed be the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord.

Samuel said,

What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears and the lowing of oxen that I hear?

I'm just gonna pause there and let you kind of soak in this scene and enjoy uh the story because it's it's so good and there's so many different things happening here.

There's emotion and there's humor and there's tragic irony here as well.

Firstly, just think about Samuel.

He cries out to the Lord all night when he realizes he has to do this.

Close with Saul.

We're going to see that at end of the chapter as well.

And consider Samuel's point of view.

As a child, he was given a prophecy of condemnation against his father figure, Eli, the priest who had raised him.

Now he has to give a prophecy of condemnation to his protege, the man who he's raised up to be king.

So this is hurting Samuel to do this to Saul.

But then there's kind of this humorous aspect, and we just can't help but when we see the ridiculous of how Saul conducts himself.

He's high off this victory.

And what has he done in verse 12?

Makes a monument to himself.

It's pretty clear who he thinks was responsible for the winning of that battle, even though it wasn't him, it was the Lord.

And the Lord did it through Jonathan.

Yet he makes this monument to himself.

And then, kind of like a guilty child, kind of like he knows he didn't do something right, he comes out and says to Samuel, The Lord bless you.

I did everything God told me to.

It's kind of suspicious.

It's like if you were to

Get home from a date with your spouse, the children run up and say, Mom and mom, dad, none of the lamps in the house are broken.

It's like, I wasn't even wondering about the lamps.

Why'd you bring up the lamps?

That's kind of the way Saul approaches Samuel here.

And then this this part must be intentionally humorous.

Samuel's snarky comeback to Saul here.

Saul says, I did everything God told me.

Samuel goes, Really?

Then why am I hearing so many animals around?

Because you're supposed to slaughter them all.

So the story continues here.

Let's see how Saul responds.

15.

Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted

to destruction.

Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop!

I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.

He said to him, Speak.

So can't you just

Picture this scene as it happens.

Saul's kind of starting to sweat.

He's talking quickly.

He's making excuses.

And Samuel cuts off and she says, Stop.

That's it.

It's over.

Let me tell you what God has said about this.

Notice Saul's characteristic response.

We've seen him do this before in chapter 13.

He's blaming everyone around him.

They brought the animals, the people spared the sheep.

But a good reason.

We're going to sacrifice it to God.

It's the people, the people, the people, always the people with Saul.

He has to stop fearing the people and start fearing the Lord, God.

We've seen this weakness in Saul from his very introduction in chapter nine.

It started small, but it's grown and grown.

And nine, verse five, he abandoned his mission to get the donkeys because he was concerned about.

What his father was thinking.

In chapter 10, verse 22, he hides from the crowds.

He's fearing the crowds, hiding from them at his coronation when he's supposed to be anointed.

In chapter 11, verse 7, when he's rallying the Israelites to battle, he falsely utilizes Samuel's reputation in order to gain the support that he needs.

Samuel wasn't even in that chapter or a part of that story.

But Saul is afraid that his own name might not be enough.

And he says, Come follow me and

Samuel, and then the famous one, chapter 13, verse 8, when he offers the sacrifice to the Lord against the Lord's commandment.

Why?

Because he feared the people leaving him.

He felt he needed that support.

And if there's one sin that we kind of see direct Saul's story through this entire tragedy, it's this fear of man rather than a fear of God.

He's always concerned about what man might say of him rather than what God has said of him.

God has said, You are king of Israel, you're gonna defeat the enemies around you.

God says, Fear me, obey my voice, it will go well.

But Saul can't untwist himself from this worldly man-centered way of thinking.

Time after time we see his mistakes, no repentance, continue the mistakes.

And we realize as we read about Saul, he just doesn't fear the Lord.

He just doesn't, which is to say that he does not know the Lord.

We get another hint of this in verse 15.

Look how he addresses Samuel.

He says, We are going to make sacrifices to the Lord your God.

Doesn't say the Lord my God, doesn't say the Lord of heaven.

He keeps, seems to keep God at arm's length here.

And in Saul's mind, he's.

He's seen the advantage of religiosity.

He's seen blessing through sacrifice.

He's had spiritual experiences.

Holy Spirit came upon him when he was anointed.

But none of that has changed his heart.

He's still a king like the nations.

He fears power, he fears public opinion, he fears failure, but he does not fear the Lord.

Samuel continues in verse 17: Though you are little,

In your own eyes?

Are you not the head of the tribes of Israel?

The Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, Go devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are

consumed.

Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?

Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?

And Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.

I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me.

I've brought Agog, king of the Amalekites, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction.

But the people took the spoil, sheep and oxen, and the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God.

And 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 listen than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.

There it is.

Here we come to the most powerful part of the story, again, one of the most powerful statements I think in the Old Testament.

And this is so important.

Why?

Because it gives us a glimpse into the heart of God.

What does God value?

What does God despise?

Anytime, anytime we see a glimpse in the heart of God, we really want to pay attention.

And this is a great one.

What we see here is that God wants us to listen, which is to say, pay attention, and then to obey, to go and do it.

Trust and obey.

We just sang about that.

Religious practice.

Superficial devotion, and in this case, sacrifices, it means nothing to God if your heart isn't devoted to him as master.

We can't just hear the word of God and then go do whatever we want and then kind of throw him a bone now and then of religious practice.

We can't tithe our devotion to God.

I'll give God 90% of my life, or rather, I'll give God 10% of my life and I'll.

Keep back 90%.

That's not how this works.

You don't tithe devotion to God.

You are all God's or you are all something else's.

God doesn't need our religious service either.

He doesn't need anything.

If he did, he wouldn't have to ask for it.

He could take it himself.

Psalm 50, 12.

If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world in its fullness are mine.

I do I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and perform your vows to the Most High and call upon me in the day of trouble.

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

God has everything.

He needs nothing.

Our religious devotion to him, whatever that happens to be, adds nothing to him.

But Saul doesn't know God.

Saul will thinks sacrifice is this kind of this for that type of relationship with God.

I give you a sacrifice, you give me victory.

I give you this and you give me blessing.

And he Saul thinks, you know, God's not too concerned with the particulars as long as I give him a sacrifice and do my due diligence now and then.

What's God think of that?

Isaiah 111.

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord?

I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and fat of well-fed beasts.

I uh I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats.

God's favor is not bought with religious devotion.

He hates sacrifices offered to him from hearts that are not his.

Again, Joel 6, 19.

What use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba or sweet cane that comes from a distant land?

Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me.

I've seen this pattern here.

God doesn't need a disingenuous religious service.

God doesn't want a surface-level religious practice.

Going to church, donating something to church, listening to worship music or tithing, whatever it happens to be, it doesn't matter if you don't know God, which is to say, if

you don't love and fear Him, listening and obeying Him.

In fact, look how harshly God condemns Saul's false obedience.

Look how he characterizes this half-hearted obedience here.

He says it's like rebellion, like presumption.

Why rebellion?

Rebellion because Saul heard the word of the Lord and he chose to do something else.

He says, I didn't do exactly what you said, God, but I have something even better, and the people really want me to do it.

No.

That's rebellion.

You knew what to do, you didn't do it.

That's rebellion.

It doesn't matter how you try to spin it to God.

Why is it called presumption here?

Because Saul just assumed he could not do what God said and get away with it.

And it would be all right.

Everything would be fine.

No, you never do that.

That's not how we live.

Never presume upon God's grace.

This kind of cheeky presumption here.

Oh, I'm sure God won't mind a little bit of deviance here.

I'm gonna make it up for him with a good deed over there.

This is as dangerous to your soul as witchcraft.

It's as repugnant to God as idolatry.

So this is not what God is after.

And we wonder, okay, well, what does God want?

And it's it's simple really.

Look back at the verse.

To obey is better than sacrifice.

And to listen than the fat of rams.

Or as the prophet Hosea says very similarly in Hosea 6 8, for I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

They'll see this all through the scripture, Old and New Testament.

This was the issue with the Pharisees that Jesus kept going after them about.

What does God want?

Religious devotion?

Or to be served?

No.

He wants

Us.

We ourselves.

He wants heart-transformed, sincere obedience.

Again, a listening of his words and a doing of them.

Not to get something, not because it works for us, not because we want to look good in front of others, we're afraid of the consequences, but simply because we are his.

We recognize him as our master.

And knowing that, we want to do what he says.

Like I said, it's simple, it's difficult to do, but it's simple in concept.

So just consider this for yourself.

Do you know God this way?

Is this what your relationship looks like?

Just kind of think through our own actions here, coming to church this morning, praying, tithing, doing good deeds.

Are we doing these things because we know God and we're listening to Him and obeying Him?

Or are these empty

If well-intended, religious practices to gain God's favor or avoid punishment or to just kind of live the decent life that you're supposed to live.

Or maybe, you know, this one's a bit more frightening in my mind.

Maybe we're deceiving ourselves like Saul did here.

Yes, I'm fulfilling the commandment of the Lord.

And he said that over and over again.

He's arguing with Samuel about, yes, I did what I was supposed to do.

And it's clear he didn't.

Maybe we're deceiving ourselves like that.

When really we're just kind of twisting what God said into something that's more convenient for ourselves.

Maybe our attitude is, I'll obey the Lord when it works with my priorities.

But as soon as it becomes inconvenient, then I kind of do my own thing.

When God says do A, and I want to do B, I'll end up doing B.

This is really dangerous because you can function for a long time.

Obeying the Lord when really he's just never required something of you that you didn't also want for yourself.

But then suddenly, when we realize God wants us to do something we do not want to do, how does our heart respond?

That's when the chips are down.

That's when we see what's in our heart.

How do we respond?

With trust and obedience, hopefully.

If not,

At least with disobedience, followed by a genuine repentance.

But what God is after is quite simple.

It comes down to a heart, a person sincerely devoted to him, listening to him and obeying.

The heart that we haven't seen on display yet, but we will see in David.

This is the heart of David.

And David doesn't get anything, everything perfect, does he?

No, but continually, time after time, you'll say he sticks with the Lord and he repents.

He clings to the Lord.

That's not what Saul's heart clings to.

What does Saul's heart value then?

Who does he obey?

What is Saul clinging to?

Well, we're going to see that now when we look at the consequence to his compromise.

Verse 24.

Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

Now, therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.

Samuel said to Saul,

I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.

As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe and tore it.

And Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

And also the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret.

Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.

So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before the Lord.

Again, to me this is one of the most emotionally charged parts of the Bible.

It's so sad because Saul's just had his victory, and he's he's just self deceived here.

He can't see his own.

Downfall, really.

And he gladly receives Samuel.

And then without warning, everything comes crashing down.

And it's almost heartbreaking to see how Saul is coming unraveled here all at once.

He's begging for another chance.

He's confessing sin.

And yet he's unable to let go of his sin at the exact same time.

He wants to hold on to God's blessing.

He wants to hold on to his relationship with Samuel.

He wants to hold on to his honor in the eyes of the people.

But his heart just isn't in the right place.

And in the midst of this tragic attempt to hold on to it all, it's all torn from him and given to David.

And as we see the drama unfold, we see the real intention of Saul's heart yet again.

Compare verse 24 with verse 30.

24.

Saul says, Return with me to bow before the Lord.

And yet thirty we see his real intention.

Look what he says in thirty.

I have sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and return with me that I may bow before the Lord your God.

You see, he's just shown his cards.

He doesn't want forgiveness from God.

He wants to maintain and hold on to his honor in the eyes of the people.

Still, even here, in the midst of his condemnation, as the kingdom's

Falling around him because he's idolized the people, he still can't let go of how they view him.

And he's so desperate to hold on to this honor.

It's like, it's like he can't even understand what's happening.

Saul says, Samuel says, Your kingdom's gone.

And Saul says, Okay, okay, but at least honor me in front of the eyes of the people before you go.

Saul feared the people.

And because he feared them, he obeyed them.

Remember this, at Saul's coronation, and these are very important passages to line up side by side.

At Saul's coronation, he was told by Samuel he would be blessed if, quote, you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the

Lord.

Now look at the exact opposite.

Saul even admits it.

He says, I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord.

And your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

He was told, fear God, obey his voice.

Instead, he feared the people and obeyed their voice.

This is the way of human beings.

We end up obeying what we truly honor and revere and fear.

That's what we obey.

That's the voice we obey.

And for Saul, this was the people, and it's cost him dearly.

His kingdom.

His relationship with Samuel and his relationship with God.

Verse 32.

Then Samuel said, Bring here to me Agog, the king of the Amalekites.

And Agag came to him cheerfully.

Agod said, Surely the bitterness of death is past.

And Samuel said, As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.

And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before.

The Lord in Gilgal.

Then Israel went to, then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went to his house in Gibeah of Saul.

And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death.

But Samuel grieved over Saul, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

So our story ends then with this emotional tearing asunder.

The kingdom is torn from Saul.

Also, Samuel is torn from Saul.

And they won't meet each other again, at least not while both of them are still alive.

Notice Samuel's grief over this separation.

And we're gonna see this actually bleeds into chapter 16 as well.

This is really hurting Samuel.

They had a connection, he and Saul.

And so there's there's sadness and grief at the end of this chapter.

But there's also anticipation.

Because as the audience were wondering, who is this better man, this neighbor who the kingdom is going to have as their king?

Who is this man after God's own heart?

What's he gonna look like?

Like physically, what's he gonna look like?

And how's he gonna be different than Saul?

How's he going to handle failure?

How's he gonna handle victory?

How's he gonna handle sin?

How's he gonna relate to God?

We've got such a good backlog of how Saul has related to failure, victory, condemnation, sin.

God, now when we finally see David, we're gonna really be able to compare them.

And it's exciting to anticipate the man after God's own heart coming onto the scene.

And so we'll see him introduced next time in chapter 16.

That's where it leaves off here.

But as we close, I don't want us to forget that.

All-important lesson of 15, which is, again, simply and yet difficultly, we need to be God's.

We need to be his.

We need to know him, which is to say, listen, pay attention, and obey.

Go and do.

Cannot be like Saul to live our own lives with our own priorities, obeying whenever we feel like it, all the while just feigning religious devotion.

You don't tithe parts of your life to God.

You tithe parts of your possessions to God.

You don't tithe parts of your life to God.

Your life is given over to God, or it's not.

And the the little middle ground religious devotion doesn't mean anything to him if your heart is not his.

Do not be deceived.

God is not mocked.

For whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

God knows who we're listening to.

God knows who we fear.

He knows if we're really following him or not.

We can't trick God, of course.

God knows if we are his for listening and obeying from the heart, or if we're devoted to something else, simply obeying on a surface level religiosity.

Others may not be able to see it.

God can.

Jesus warns us about serving two masters.

He says, You're either going to love one and hate the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.

And didn't we see that come out with Saul today?

Finally, he couldn't keep up the ruse for long.

We saw that he loved to devote himself to the people and despised the commandment of the Lord.

And so if this stirs up something in you, if you're just concerned about this or unsettled and want to speak with someone about it, please do speak with an elder or a trusted person

in the congregation.

If you're concerned about this, that's good.

The only real condemnation is a refusal to repent.

A refusal to repent.

That's the only true condemnation.

God is open and willing and ever ready to accept our good repentance.

So feel free to have that conversation if the Lord leads and your conscience is pricked and provoked.

Let me pray then as we end chapter 15.

Heavenly Father, we ask you first and foremost for your mercy, because our hearts cannot follow you or honor you as Lord apart from the working of your Holy Spirit.

We pray for that grace of the Holy Spirit that we've been hearing about in Acts, the coming of the presence of God into us, that gift um that seals us for heaven, that allows

us to obey, that gives us fellowship with you.

um Lord, give that to us.

And in greater measure, that we might hear, listen, pay attention to what you would have from us, and to then go and obey it.

You know, that's gonna feel like a lot of self-control.

That's gonna feel like a lot of willing and doing it.

And yet it is you who work in us both to will and to work according to your good pleasure.

We know you're faithful to do that.

And so because we know that, we're gonna pray in faith that you would be doing that in us as a church.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio.

To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10 a.m.

or visit our website at Kingstreechurch.org.

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