Is God concerned about how many people show up at worship services? – 1st Samuel 15, Part 3

King Saul is caught. He disobeyed God. But does he realize what he did? God asked Saul to totally destroy the Amalekites, but instead, Saul took the Amalekite king as a prisoner of war, and Saul allowed his men to keep a bunch of the Amalekite’s livestock. As we learned in the previous post, God revealed this to the prophet Samuel. Samuel heads out to confront Saul, but first the people say that Saul has built a monument to himself! So not only has Saul disobeyed God’s command, Saul has also glorified himself rather than God. It seems like Saul is going down a dark road. But does Saul realize the gravity of his choices?

In verse 13 we read, “When Samuel reached him, Saul said, ‘The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord’s instructions.’”  When Saul says his cheerful, “Hey Samuel!”, it seems like Saul has no idea that Samuel has arrived to confront Saul.  Saul seems to be saying, “Oh hey Samuel…what are you doing here?  By the way, I did everything God told me to do.  Don’t you want to congratulate me like everyone else?  Did you see the memorial in my honor?” 

Samuel ignores all that, and he dives right in to confronting Saul’s disobedience. In verse 14 “Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”  Does Saul see the fire raging in Samuel’s eyes?

Samuel is basically saying, “Saul! It’s obvious you didn’t carry out the Lord’s instructions!  How do you explain all the livestock that you were supposed to slaughter???”

In verse 15, “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.”  

Saul plays it off.  He is saying, “So we kept some of the best animals.  That’s smart.  We destroyed everything else.  What are you all bent out of shape for?  This is not a big deal, Samuel.  We really did destroy everything else.  And actually we are going to have a worship service to God, sacrificing the sheep.”  I wonder if Saul is motioning to his associates, “Can you believe this guy?  He’s bent out of shape because we kept some animals from the enemy.”

“Enough!” Samuel said to Saul, in verse 16. “Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”   

“Tell me,” Saul replied.

Here I can see Saul rolling his eyes at Samuel.  I wonder if he thinks Samuel is old and out-of-touch.  I wonder if Saul thinks, “We earned this.  We fought hard.  What’s wrong with keeping a few livestock?  Geesh.  We were actually going to worship God with the livestock.”

In verse 17 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; wage war against 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?”

Samuel says, “Stop complicating it, Saul.  Stop letting yourself off the hook.  Stop rationalizing your behavior. Stop minimizing.  You did not obey God.  Period.  You didn’t obey God, and that is serious.”  How will Saul respond?  Look at verses 20-21:

“‘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.’”

More rationalizing.  Saul is saying, “Samuel, what do you mean I didn’t obey?  I did!  I fought the battle and destroyed them.”  See the gaslighting Saul does there?  He says “I fully obeyed.” So in his mind, the act of sparing the king and allowing the soldiers to keep cattle is not contrary to being obedient.  Yet at the same time, he knows he’s caught, because he is shifting the blame over to the soldiers, saying they kept the cattle, but it was okay, because the soldiers were going to sacrifice them to God, they were going to have a worship service.

Notice a clue, though, in how Saul refers to God.  “The Lord YOUR God.”  I wonder if Saul is revealing something about his heart.  Is this a Freudian slip, showing that Saul doesn’t see himself as in a relationship with God?  Or maybe he is sarcastically saying to Samuel, “See how good I am to YOUR God, Samuel?  I’m going to sacrifice to your God, so calm down, Samuel.  We’re going to have a worship service.”?  Maybe.  Whatever is going on in Saul’s heart and mind at this point, it is clearly not right.  Samuel knows Saul’s heart is not right.  Look at what Samuel says next in verses 22-23:

“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. 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.’”

There it is.  No denying it.  Clear as day.  Saul is laid out in the open.  Samuel gets to the heart of the matter: God wants obedience more than religious rituals.  God wants our hearts, not our worship services.  God wants the good things of his Spirit to flow from our lives. 

Does God delight in us showing up at church worship services as much as in obeying him throughout our week?  No!  God desires his people to have transformed hearts.  God is not wringing his hands saying, “Why are there so many people not in church on Sunday morning?  I wish they would just start going to church.” 

Instead God wants our hearts, because he knows that when people have hearts that beat for him, they will flourish, they will be in the best possible situation in life.  God desires obedience and our hearts, therefore, because he loves us so much and wants what is best for us. 

Saul did not have a heart after God, and now God declares that Saul is rejected as king. 

As you can imagine, that very serious news gets Saul’s attention. How will he react? We’ll find out in the next post.

Photo by John Price on Unsplash