"To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice"

"Does the LORD delight in brunt 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 (wrong) of idolatry.  Because you have rejected the Word of the LORD, he has ejected you as king."  I Sam. 15:22-23

King Saul was commanded by the LORD to destroy the Amalekites, and to totally destroy everything that belonged to their nation.  This act was to be judgement upon the Amalekites for their terrible actions toward the people of Yahweh as they came up from Egypt (double distress). Yahweh's covenant relationship with his people ensured protection from their enemies.

The first king of Israel was given the task to execute the judgement of Yahweh upon his enemies. The enemies of Yahweh's people were also his enemies too.  The LORD has an irrevocable relationship with his people.

Cults teach the opposite of biblical revelation.  Cults teach that Yahweh's people lost their covenant relationship, and that the covenant promises made exclusively to Israel (Ysrael) belongs to their community.  This is false theology, and arrogant violence to the received documents.

Our point, however, has to do with Saul's attitude toward the command of Yahweh given through the prophet Samuel.  Samuel delivered Yahweh message to Saul through the classical messenger formula, "Thus Saith the LORD."  The messenger formula was used by the Old Testament nabi (prophets) to indicate that their oracles did not originate of themselves.

The 'messenger formula' was authoritative revelation given to a specific person during a specific time in Salvation History.  Saul went to the city-state of Agag, and he set an ambush against the city and routed their defenses.  Victory over the Amalekites was within his grasp.  He had the means to complete the task given to him by Yahweh, but he decided to disobey the divine directive and handle the Amalekites on his own terms.

Saul disobeyed Yahweh's command to devote all to destruction, and instead decided to deal with the Amalekites the way he saw fit.  Saul destroyed all of the Amalekite city-state except the king of the Amalekites, Agag, and the best of their goods.

This act of Saul revealed his character and heart toward Yahweh.  "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 (v.9)."

The LORD repented that he had made Saul king.  This troubled Saul. In fact, the revelation that Yahweh repented at making him king troubled him all night.  But the next day, Saul arose from his discomfort and went out and erected a monument in his own honor!

Saul was only superficially bothered by disobeying the LORD.  Saul loved himself more than Yahweh.  And so it goes.  Do not be fooled by those who have a form of religion, but deny the power thereof.  When pressure is added to arrogance, the arrogant ones will abandon Yahweh's will and go off to establish a monument in their own name.  This was a religious act. It was self-worship on Saul's part.

Saul's self-lie was ingrained within his personality.  In fact, the lie of ego-centrism had ruined his ability to establish a deep relationship with Yahweh and others.  Saul's self-worship was demonstrated in his actions.  He failed to carry out the Will of Yahweh, he lied to himself about himself, and he lied to Samuel.

Those who play the game of self destruction must first set about their own ruin, and then they move out from their dark center to inform and infect others with their vile pathogen.  Such persons are indeed pathogenic.  They infect the lives of others.  Saul's dis-ease was idolatrous self- worship.

Saul lied to Samuel who had the gift of discernment.  Samuel had deep perception into people, things, and circumstances.  He knew that Saul was a liar.  Notice the manner in which Saul greeted Samuel.  Saul said, "The LORD bless you!  I have carried out the LORD'S instructions."

Saul's greeting was to disarm Samuel, much as patients/clients do today with therapists.  The insincere greeting told of what Saul thought of Samuel too.  Saul lied to his face, sincerely, and honestly.  Saul had stepped back from reality.  His mentality was full of lies, phoniness, and subterfuge.  But he did not realize that Samuel was an expert in voice stress analysis.  Samuel knew body language, and how the eyes behave or not behave when one is lying.

The naive king Saul was out of his league with Samuel.  Samuel 'passed over' Saul's greeting and religious behavior.  Samuel asked Saul,  "What is this bleating of the sheep in my ears?  What is this lowing of the cattle that I hear?"

The evidence of Saul's disobedience was seen and heard by Samuel, and yet he presumed to lie to Samuel.  The evidence of disobedience is always obvious to all except those who are willfully blind. Those who are willfully blind believe that no one is privy to the scam and sham of their hypocrisy.

The end of Saul's regime of lies and self-worship is not going to end well for him.  He is corrupt. His challenge will be to realize that he has not lied to man, but to God.  There is no continuum of gray for his appeal.  There is only obedience and dis-obedience.  He will face the Either/Or of his own creation.  He abandoned the completed safety of the Will of God for the feeble shelter of self-worship.  Intoxicated with the wine of self-deceit Saul's conscience cannot know guilt. Moral guilt is forbidden by his cult of the self.

Saul believes that he can 'play' Samuel, but that belief is not based in reality. Lies remove the individual out of the realm of reality.  Lies are a false world view where the narcissistic liar is the sole star.  Everything and everyone are skewed and made to fit into the tawdry world of the liar including God.

Lies never work over the long term, but their short-term damage can be catastrophic.  Saul will come to know that his false worldview will not last.  Yahweh will step in and teach him that in the ancient Hebrew worldview every action carries its own consequences-either good or bad.

Beloved, we too are Saul.  We can be guilty of incomplete obedience to God. This does not have to be the case.  The Saul within each of us desires to glorify the self, and to build monuments to the self.  If the Saul within is not crucified then there can be no true spiritual life.  Are you ready to give up the Saul within and live the life that God has planned for you?

Please remember that we are dealing with an event from an ancient text.  Note the remarkable manner in which the writer has captured the intrinsic nature of human behavior.  The motivation for most, if not all action, are inherently selfish.  The monument to the self that Saul erected to himself bespeaks the nature of human action to juxtapose formal service to Yahweh along side service to self.

Therapists can miss this very provocative element of human nature. I may wish to have unconditional positive regard for all persons in a theoretical model, but that approach may open the door to being crushed by someone bent upon ruining my life.

The Saul-nature is radically opposed to the things of God.  The Saul nature has no desire for God because it cannot.  It is completely immersed in the elemental principles of this age (aeon).  The lie of Saul is based upon the fleeting vapor that we call life.

We are but breath.  We are temporal beings seeking to thrust an eternal principle upon the cosmos. We can use word, and deeds of the folly of power to evoke an image of ourselves that we are everlasting, but that is the greatest lie.  Saul lied to Yahweh and Samuel because he first lied to himself.

He really believed that he could lie to God without consequences.  Every acts carries its own consequences.  This is primary doctrine in ancient Hebrew Theology.  Even some of the suffixes in Hebrew words bespeak this reality.  Hebrew words are not merely words in the western since of mere linguistic units.  Hebrew words unleash events and new realities.

Saul will come to realize his grave sin in the crushing events in what remains of his life.  He will be aggrieved by morbid psychopathology of his own creation.  He tossed down the gauntlet to God and he found out the monument to himself could not help.  He became the prototype of Nietzsche before there was a Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).  The idolatry of the self always culminates in madness.  The idol of the self is always built upon sand.

The word of man cannot satisfy.  The Word of God is food for the hungry soul, and refreshing drink for the parched soul.  Come to God today.  Leave behind the Saul life for a life that is real.
God his sent his Son that we may have eternal life.  Obey God and except the finished work of the Ieosus on the cross today.  Now is the day of salvation.  Share this message with someone today.
Amen.

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