By Jack Wyman

Do you hear that?

What is that sound? Animals!

The bleating of sheep and goats. The lowing of cattle. What is this he hears?

This could have been done. It should have been done. Why wasn't it done?

There was no caveat, or condition, or middle ground. There was no room permitted for compromise, accommodation, or splitting the difference. Sometimes, under certain circumstances, there can be give and take. That was not the case here.

King Saul, Israel’s reigning monarch—the nation’s conscience and moral leader—had been told by the prophet Samuel to destroy all of the nation of Amalek. No one was to be spared. Samuel reminded Saul that he had anointed him to be king at God’s instruction.The King James Version gives this latest command a special divine gravitas, not that any is ever needed.

“. . . now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts. . .” (I Samuel 15: 1-2). God made you King, Saul. Now He has this message for you. So, hearken up!

“Utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not. . .” (I Samuel 15:3). Nothing. No one. Utterly means “completely and without qualification.” No exceptions.

Saul did not do that. He and his troops took the best of the animals. They grabbed everything they wanted and thought valuable and then destroyed what was left. Saul also spared the life of the Amalekite king.

God’s command to totally destroy a nation—men, women, and children—gives rise again to age-old questions and mysteries surrounding “the God of the Old Testament.” Pondering the will and ways—the motives and purposes—of God was not within the purview of Saul. God is sovereign. This was His command. It was crystal clear.

God hasn’t changed, evolved or revised. Nor has He grown complacent, or become “contemporary and relevant.” Man’s ideas of God—whether He’s changed or even stopped existing—neither impress nor persuade the Almighty. God created man in His divine image. Ever since, man has attempted to re-create God in man’s image.

When God speaks, His children must still listen. What God commands, His children must still obey. The bleating and mooing? This was the sound of disobedience.

God shook His head in sadness. He told Samuel he regretted ever making Saul King. “He has refused to obey My command.” Samuel poured out his broken heart all night in tears (1 Samuel 15:11).

When the old prophet found Saul the next morning, the king was upbeat and cheerful. “I have carried out the Lord’s command!” he said with a smile. When Samuel asked him about the bleating and lowing he heard, Saul was ready with his answer.

Actually, he explained, his men had kept the very best of the animals because they intended to offer them a a sacrifice to God. Samuel reminded the king of God’s clear command, the king’s responsibilities as ruler of Israel; of the burdens that leadership brings, of God’s choice to make Saul king.

The prophet didn’t mince words or curry favor. Saul had knowingly and deliberately disobeyed God. “Why did you do this evil”, he demanded of Saul, “in the sight of the Lord?” (1 Samuel 15:19).

Saul persisted in making excuses and evading responsibility. He bobbed and weaved like a politician caught red-handed in graft. He even blamed the people for taking the plunder.

He reminded Samuel that, after all, the people planned on making a burnt offering to God. By refusing to own up, by denying he’d done anything wrong, and by blaming those he was supposed to lead, Saul confirmed God’s remorse. 

Self-justification and rationalization, though very much human, are the twin banes of unconfessed sin. They are the steps toward spiritual waywardness and even apostacy. Rebellion is no better than witchcraft, Samuel told Saul, and stubborn denial of wrong-doing no different than idolatry.

The prophet told the king God considered him unworthy and had rejected him. Saul then admitted his sin, too late and too conditional. The people made him do it, he sputtered, and he was afraid of them. When Samuel turned to leave, the disgraced king desperately grasped Samuel’s robe and tore it. It was a tragic and ignominious end to a reign begun with such promise.  

“Opportunity knocks but once,” Mark Twain observed. “Temptation leans on the doorbell.” What harm could a few choice animals do? We could use those. To the victor belongs the spoils, after all.

The burnt offering line? Sincere? Who knows?

“To obey,” Samuel admonished Saul, “is better than sacrifice.” (1 Samuel 15:22). The Lord is far more delighted in a willing and pure heart, a life yielded to his purpose, than he is in outward displays of sanctimony. As God told Samuel when it came time to anoint Saul’s successor: “Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

The heart of Christianity is the heart. Monday counts as much as Sunday. We have been called to the spiritual battlefield of good and evil, not to a dress parade.

God desires obedience in you and me more than ritual; a genuine heart turned and tuned to him and his word more than an empty and false religion; a life lived completely loyal to God’s truth more than a half-hearted gesture of symbolism; faith more than form. A consistent life, not a compartmentalized one.

Dr. Bob Jones, founder of Bob Jones University, said it well: “It’s never right to do wrong in order to get the chance to do right.”

The moral of the story.

In the midst of a secular world rife with convincing rationalizations, offering easy and tempting accommodation and surrender to popular views, you and I must remain steadfast and unmovable, faithful and loyal, trusting and obedient.

To order Jack Wyman’s book, “Everything Else: Stories of Life, Faith and Our World”, go to amazon.com, Christian Book Distributors or barnesandnoble.com. It is also available on Kindle and eBooks.

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