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1 Samuel
Chapter Fifteen
1 Samuel 15
Chapter Contents
Saul sent to destroy Amalek. (1-9) Saul excuses and
commends himself. (10-23) Saul's imperfect humiliation. (24-31) Agag put to
death, Samuel and Saul part. (32-35)
Commentary on 1 Samuel 15:1-9
(Read 1 Samuel 15:1-9)
The sentence of condemnation against the Amalekites had
gone forth long before, Exodus 17:14; Deuteronomy 25:19, but they had
been spared till they filled up the measure of their sins. We are sure that the
righteous Lord does no injustice to any. The remembering the kindness of the
ancestors of the Kenites, in favour to them, at the time God was punishing the
injuries done by the ancestors of the Amalekites, tended to clear the
righteousness of God in this dispensation. It is dangerous to be found in the
company of God's enemies, and it is our duty and interest to come out from
among them, lest we share in their sins and plagues, Revelation 18:4. As the commandment had been
express, and a test of Saul's obedience, his conduct evidently was the effect
of a proud, rebellious spirit. He destroyed only the refuse, that was good for
little. That which was now destroyed was sacrificed to the justice of God.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 15:10-23
(Read 1 Samuel 15:10-23)
Repentance in God is not a change of mind, as it is in
us, but a change of method. The change was in Saul; "He is turned back
from following me." Hereby he made God his enemy. Samuel spent a whole
night in pleading for Saul. The rejection of sinners is the grief of believers:
God delights not in their death, nor should we. Saul boasts to Samuel of his
obedience. Thus sinners think, by justifying themselves, to escape being judged
of the Lord. The noise the cattle made, like the rust of the silver, James 5:3, witnessed against him. Many boast of
obedience to the command of God; but what means then their indulgence of the
flesh, their love of the world, their angry and unkind spirit, and their
neglect of holy duties, which witness against them? See of what evil
covetousness is the root; and see what is the sinfulness of sin, and notice
that in it which above any thing else makes it evil in the sight of the Lord;
it is disobedience: "Thou didst not obey the voice of the Lord."
Carnal, deceitful hearts, like Saul, think to excuse themselves from God's
commandments by what pleases themselves. It is hard to convince the children of
disobedience. But humble, sincere, and conscientious obedience to the will of
God, is more pleasing and acceptable to him than all burnt-offering and
sacrifices. God is more glorified and self more denied, by obedience than by
sacrifice. It is much easier to bring a bullock or lamb to be burned upon the
altar, than to bring every high thought into obedience to God, and to make our
will subject to his will. Those are unfit and unworthy to rule over men, who
are not willing that God should rule over them.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 15:24-31
(Read 1 Samuel 15:24-31)
There were several signs of hypocrisy in Saul's
repentance. 1. He besought Samuel only, and seemed most anxious to stand right
in his opinion, and to gain his favour. 2. He excuses his fault, even when
confessing it; that is never the way of a true penitent. 3. All his care was to
save his credit, and preserve his interest in the people. Men are fickle and
alter their minds, feeble and cannot effect their purposes; something happens
they could not foresee, by which their measures are broken; but with God it is
not so. The Strength of Israel will not lie.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 15:32-35
(Read 1 Samuel 15:32-35)
Many think the bitterness of death is past when it is not
gone by; they put that evil day far from them, which is very near. Samuel calls
Agag to account for his own sins. He followed the example of his ancestors'
cruelty, justly therefore is all the righteous blood shed by Amalek required.
Saul seems unconcerned at the token of God's displeasure which he lay under,
yet Samuel mourns day and night for him. Jerusalem was carnally secure while
Christ wept over it. Do we desire to do the whole will of God? Turn to him, not
in form and appearance, but with sincerity.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on 1 Samuel》
1 Samuel 15
Verse 1
[1]
Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his
people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of
the LORD.
Hearken —
Thou hast committed error already, now regain God's favour by thy exact
obedience to what he commands.
Verse 2
[2] Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel,
how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
I remember —
Now I will revenge those old injuries of the Amalekites on their children: who
continue in their parents practices.
Came from Egypt —
When he was newly come out of cruel and long bondage, and was now weak, and
weary, and faint, and hungry, Deuteronomy 25:18, and therefore it was
barbarous instead of that pity which even Nature prompted them to afford, to
add affliction to the afflicted; it was also horrid impiety to fight against
God himself and to lift up their hand in a manner against the Lord's throne,
whilst they struck at that people which God had brought forth in so stupendous
a way.
Verse 3
[3] Now
go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them
not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and
ass.
Destroy —
Both persons and goods, kill all that live, and consume all things without
life, for I will have no name nor remnant of that people left, whom long since
I have devoted to utter destruction.
Spare not —
Shew no compassion or favour to any of them. The same thing repeated to prevent
mistake, and oblige Saul to the exact performance hereof.
Slay, … —
Which was not unjust, because God is the supreme Lord of life, and can require
his own when he pleaseth; infants likewise are born in sin, and therefore
liable to God's wrath. Their death also was rather a mercy than a curse, as
being the occasion of preventing their sin and punishment.
Ox, … —
Which being all made for man's benefit, it is not strange if they suffer with
him, for the instruction of mankind.
Verse 6
[6] And
Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites,
lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of
Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the
Amalekites.
Kenites — A
people descending from, or nearly related to Jethro, who anciently dwelt in
rocks near the Amalekites, Numbers 24:21, and afterwards some of them dwelt
in Judah, Judges 1:16, whence it is probable they removed,
(which, dwelling in tents, they could easily do) and retired to their old
habitation, because of the wars and troubles wherewith Judah was annoyed.
Shewed kindness —
Some of your progenitors did so, and for their sakes all of you shall fare the
better. You were not guilty of that sin for which Amalek is now to be
destroyed. When destroying judgments are abroad God takes care to separate the
precious from the vile. It is then especially dangerous to be found in the
company of God's enemies. The Jews have a saying, Wo to a wicked man, and to
his neighbour.
Verse 7
[7] And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that
is over against Egypt.
To Shur —
That is, from one end of their country to the other; he smote all that he met
with: but a great number of them fled away upon the noise of his coming, and
secured themselves in other places, 'till the storm was over.
Verse 8
[8] And
he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the
people with the edge of the sword.
All —
Whom he found. Now they paid dear for the sin of their ancestors. They were
themselves guilty of idolatry and numberless sins, for which they deserved to
be cut off. Yet when God would reckon with them, he fixes upon this as the
ground of his quarrel.
Verse 9
[9] But
Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen,
and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not
utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they
destroyed utterly.
Vile —
Thus they obeyed God only so far as they could without inconvenience to themselves.
Verse 11
[11] It
repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from
following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel;
and he cried unto the LORD all night.
Repenteth —
Repentance implies grief of heart, and change of counsels, and therefore cannot
be in God: but it is ascribed to God when God alters his method of dealing, and
treats a person as if be did indeed repent of the kindness he had shewed him.
All night — To
implore his pardoning mercy for Saul, and for the people.
Is turned back —
Therefore he did once follow God. Otherwise it would have been impossible, he
should turn back from following him.
Verse 12
[12] And
when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying,
Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and
passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.
A place —
That is, a monument or trophy of his victory.
Verse 13
[13] And
Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I
have performed the commandment of the LORD.
They —
That is, the people. Thus, he lays the blame upon the people; whereas they
could not do it without his consent; and he should have used his power to
over-rule them.
Verse 18
[18] And
the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners
the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.
A journey — So
easy was the service, and so certain the success, that it was rather to be
called a journey than a war.
Verse 20
[20] And
Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone
the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and
have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
The king — To
be dealt with as God pleaseth.
Verse 21
[21] But
the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which
should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in
Gilgal.
But the people, … —
Here the conscience of Saul begins to awake, tho' but a little: for he still
lays the blame on the people.
Verse 22
[22] And
Samuel said, Hath 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 hearken than the fat of rams.
Sacrifice —
Because obedience to God is a moral duty, constantly and indispensably
necessary; but sacrifice is but a ceremonial institution, sometimes
unnecessary, as it was in the wilderness: and sometimes sinful, when it is
offered by a polluted hand, or in an irregular manner. Therefore thy gross
disobedience to God's express command, is not to be compensated with sacrifice.
Hearken —
That is, to obey.
Fat —
Then the choicest part of all the sacrifice.
Verse 23
[23] For
rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and
idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also
rejected thee from being king.
Rebellion —
Disobedience to God's command.
Stubbornness —
Contumacy in sin, justifying it, and pleading for it.
Iniquity —
Or, the iniquity of idolatry.
Rejected —
Hath pronounced the sentence of rejection: for that he was not actually deposed
by God before, plainly appears, because not only the people, but even David,
after this, owned him as king. Those are unworthy to rule over men, who are not
willing that God should rule over them.
Verse 24
[24] And
Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment
of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their
voice.
I have sinned — It
does by no means appear, that Saul acts the hypocrite herein, in assigning a
false cause of his disobedience. Rather, he nakedly declares the thing as it
was.
Verse 25
[25] Now
therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may
worship the LORD.
Pardon my sin —
Neither can it be proved that there was any hypocrisy in this. Rather charity
requires us to believe, that he sincerely desired pardon, both from God and
man, as he now knew, he had sinned against both.
Verse 26
[26] And
Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the
word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.
I will not —
This was no lie, though he afterwards returned, because he spoke what he meant;
his words and his intentions agreed together, though afterwards he saw reason
to change his intentions. Compare Genesis 19:2,3. This may relieve many perplexed
consciences, who think themselves obliged to do what they have said they would
do, though they see just cause to change their minds.
Hath rejected thee, … — But he does not say, he "hath rejected thee from salvation."
And who besides hath authority to say so?
Verse 29
[29] And
also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that
he should repent.
Strength of Israel — So
he calls God here, to shew the reason why God neither will nor can lie; because
lying proceeds from the sense of a man's weakness, who cannot many times
accomplish his design without lying and dissimulation; therefore many princes
have used it for this very reason. But God needs no such artifices; he can do
whatsoever he pleaseth by his absolute power.
Repent —
That is, nor change his counsel; which also is an effect of weakness and
imperfection, either of wisdom or power. So that this word is not here used in
the sense it commonly is when applied to God, as in Jeremiah 11:1-23, and elsewhere.
Verse 31
[31] So
Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the LORD.
Turned —
First, that the people might not upon pretence of this sentence of rejection,
withdraw their obedience to their sovereign; whereby they would both have
sinned against God, and have been as sheep without a shepherd. Secondly, that
he might rectify Saul's error, and execute God's judgment upon Agag.
Verse 33
[33] And
Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be
childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in
Gilgal.
As, … —
Whereby it appears, that he was a tyrant, and guilty of many bloody actions.
And this seems to be added for the fuller vindication of God's justice, and to
shew, that although God did at this time revenge a crime committed by this
man's ancestors 400 years ago, yet he did not punish an innocent son for his
father's crimes, but one that persisted in the same evil courses.
Hewed —
This he did by divine instinct, and in pursuance of God's express command,
which being sinfully neglected by Saul, is now executed by Samuel. But these
are no precedents for private persons to take the sword of justice into their
hands. For we must live by the laws of God, and not by extraordinary examples.
Verse 35
[35] And
Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel
mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
To see Saul —
That is, to visit him, in token of respect or friendship: or, to seek counsel
from God for him. Otherwise he did see him chap. 19:24. Though indeed it was not Samuel that came
thither with design to see Saul, but Saul went thither to see Samuel, and that
accidentally.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on 1 Samuel》
15 Chapter 15
Verses 1-35
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to
Israel.
National sins and national punishments
We turn from Saul to the case of those against whom he was sent.
“Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how
he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.” Then God does remember
sin. He not only notices it, but remembers it. A lengthened period had
transpired since the Amalekites had thus manifested their sympathy with the
enemies of Israel, by throwing hindrances in the way of God’s chosen people as
they came out of Egypt to Canaan. And, to all appearance, their sin might have
been regarded as consigned to oblivion. But God had declared that it should not
be forgotten. (Exodus 17:14, Deuteronomy 25:17-19.) Upon
the oblivion of four centuries there broke the awful tones of Almighty Justice:
“I remember that, which Amalek did” From that Infinite Mind there had been no
obliteration of the crime; clear as the day on which it had been committed,
that sin stood out to view. “I remember.” Divine forbearance with generation
after generation had been long, but upon them that forbearance had been lost,
and it is evident they had not profited by it. They still remained the foes of
Israel; their conduct as a nation was marked by excessive cruelty; and it was a
horrible notoriety which their king had obtained for the multitudes of mothers
whom, in his bloodthirstiness, his sword had rendered childless. In the
determination on the part of God now to punish, the utterance of which was
prefaced by those emphatic words, “I remember,” we are distinctly taught the
lesson that the conduct of nations is a point to which the eye of God is
directed, and that it is the matter for which His just penalty will be
reserved. Whole nations come within the reach of His rod. By the individuals
composing a community, and whose personal welfare or woe is necessarily
identified with the condition of the community, there is a great danger that
national sin should be regarded rather as an abstraction than as a reality,
rather as an ideal than a substantial criminality. But it is not thus that God,
in the incident before us, deals with it. He affixes it, as a substantive
charge, upon the community. We have a rule here to which we find no exception.
But nowhere does this rule meet with so fearful an exemplification as in the
case of that very people whose guardian God showed Himself to be in this act of
visiting Amalek’s transgression--that very Israel on whose behalf He was now
standing up to repel insult and to avenge injury. “I remember”--read it in
those seventy years’ exile from the land which had been given for an
inheritance--that long and dreary period, during which Zion’s history was thus
announced in plaintive tones by the prophet, “How doth the city sit solitary,
that was full of people! how is she become as a widow!” etc. “I remember”--read
it in its reiterated and double-telling tones in that second destruction which
succeeded a second opportunity given to the Hebrew people of a sound national
repentance and reformation--that second opportunity which was lost when
formalism was substituted for spiritual religion. Hark to the words of mingled
compassion and judgment which fall from His lips as He stands over against the
city and wasps, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,” etc.
If national sin brings with it national calamity, then the lengthening out Of
our prosperity must depend on the caution which is exercised, lest any sin
should be permitted and indulged, until it shall become distinctive of our
national character. Is there nothing among ourselves over which there floats,
audible to the men who seek the best welfare of their country and deprecate its
woe, the sound of that sentence, “I remember?” Are not its murmurs to be heard
at this moment, amid political excitements and difficulties of administration?
“I remember” the Sabbaths which are systematically broken by those who take
their pleasure on my holy day. “I remember” the intemperance of those who “rise
up early in the morning that they may follow strong drink; that continue until
night, till wine inflame them.” “I remember” the want of truthfulness in the
manner of conducting business, the unjust advantages taken of the buyer, the
false representations made by the seller, although my word has declared that “a
false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight.” “I
remember” the concealed iniquity of men who, with a fancied impunity,
perpetrated the foulest crimes, reckless of every consideration but that of
inconvenient exposure. Our patriotism, to be effective, must be of the right
stamp; and to prove itself of this stamp it must itself consent to learn its
lessons from that chief source of all instruction, the Scriptures--confirmed,
as the sacred teachings are, by the dispensations of Divine Providence There
may be a diversity in the manner in which individuals may have been guilty, in
reference to the sum total of the public guilt. Some may have been the direct
actors, and others may have been partakers in their sins. From all which has
been stated it will follow--
1. That it is a duty constantly incumbent upon us, as members of the
community, to inquire into our personal relation to that public criminality of
which God says, “I remember it,” and to make it the matter of our individual
repentance and humiliation. If personally, and through God’s grace, these
things cannot be described as committed by me, yet do I give any sanction to
them in others? Do I protest against them? Do I exert my influence to lessen
their amount?
2. The sins of nations, which call down wrath, being thus the
accumulation of the sins of individuals, those will do most to prevent public
calamity, to ensure national prosperity, and thus will do most for their
country, who make a stand for God against that which would displease Him; who,
in their own immediate spheres, seek, in dependence upon His grace, to yield to
His authority, and to illustrate His religion; and who “let their light so
shine before men that they may see their good works, and glorify their Father
which is in heaven.” Personal religion is the best patriotism. The fear of God
pervading men’s hearts is the surest provision against national calamity,
because it is the opposite of national sin. Go, then, and exercise your civil
privileges, your social rights, in the fear of the God of nations. Set Him at
your right hand. (J. A. Miller.)
The commission of judgment
The Amalekites are supposed by some to have descended from Amalek
grandson of Esau (Genesis 36:12) But against this view it
may he forcibly objected:
1. That a nation so powerful and so widely diffused, could scarcely
have sprung up in so short a period;
2. That the seat of Esau and his posterity was much more easterly
than the realm of the Amalekites; and
3. That it is not easy to suppose such near relatives of Israel
exposed to such a doom, while Edom and Moab were so scrupulously spared on
account of their relationship. But it is not improbable that a brave and
warlike chief like Esau might, through his family, wield a powerful influence
among the desert tribes, and even supply them with a name. The matter, however,
is not of importance, compared with the consideration of their crime and its
punishment. The assault of the Amalekites was an offence of high aggravation.
It was made when Israel had newly entered on their wanderings (Exodus 17:8-16); and as the first onset
of enemies it was marked by singular audacity, and attended with peculiar
danger to Israel. They were ringleaders They broke the peace, and inaugurated a
hostile dealing with the people. Moreover, their attack was entirely
unprovoked. Besides the manner of attack was treacherous and cruel (Deuteronomy 25:17-19), “he smote the
hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint
and weary.” Hence, in Deuteronomy 25:18, the real point of the
charge against Amalek is this: “he feared not God.”
There was something peculiarly daring and insolent in his conduct.
He seems to have deliberately chosen the earliest period of assaulting them,
undismayed by the terrible doings of the past, and undeterred by the pledged
protection and guidance of the future. It was an eager and determined defiance
of the God of Israel. Such an attitude and bearing must be providentially taken
notice of. The sovereign Lord will set Himself right at once with the nations.
“His counsel shall stand.” The daring sinners have despised His covenant with
Israel; He will meet this by another covenant regarding them. Their destruction
is decided by oath. Such is the whole case against Amalek. It might seem as if
the bare statement of it were enough to vindicate the Divine dealing with them.
But inasmuch as ungodly men have inveighed against this dealing, and have drawn
from it dark colours wherewith to sketch a gloomy caricature of the Most High;
and, particularly, inasmuch as natural feeling even in the good is ever liable
to a relapse into disloyal sympathy with offending fellows, a few further
remarks on the subject may do some useful service.
1. Whatever objection may be raised against the dealings of God in
the case of Amalek applies equally to innumerable similar cases. Take, for example,
the destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake in 1755. Here we find actually
occurring substantially the same woe that was denounced against Amalek. There
is the same sudden, violent, widespread, indiscriminate ruin. The only
differences are these: The destruction affected only a portion of the people;
and the instrument employed was a blind material force, instead of an army of
rational and moral beings. But these affect not the real identity of the two
cases. On the question of justice, or of mercy, they fall into the same
category. He who impeaches the justice of Amalek’s overthrow must be prepared
in consistency to carry his condemnation over the whole breadth of God’s
providential government. To slay a great criminal, fierce, malignant, and
strong, was in one view an act of self-defence, in another, an act of
retribution; and to do it at the command of a holy God was a teat and a
training of the highest spiritual affections of a creature.
2. No individual Amalekite suffered more than he deserved. To this it
will be immediately answered: This is impossible, for children were involved in
the doom of adult sinners. We own the fact, and the difficulty growing out of
it. We are persuaded, moreover, that no reasoning of man shall ever fully
dissipate the mysterious darkness that hangs about the death of infants. But
the mystery and gloom refer mainly to the fact, not to the matter of its
occurrence. It is indeed a sad and awful thing to see young buds torn violently
from the stem of life by the rude hand of war. But, alas! the hand of other
spoilers has made larger havoc. Disease has filled, by millions, more infant
graves than war. Will they who cavil at the commanded slaughter of the sword
explain and vindicate the larger mortality of disease? They call the ills of
infancy natural. It is a gross mistake. They are unnatural, abnormal,
manifestly punitive. And when we say punitive, we approach nearer a solution of
the great problem--instead of, as some affirm, adding to its gloom. For whether
does it present, most difficulty, to view this wide-wasting death of yet
irresponsible beings as the infliction of pure sovereignty, or as the result of
violated law! Is it not clear that when we interpose the idea of a federal
relationship, a principle of representation, by which sin transmits its doom,
as by natural descent it transmits its virus, to each rising generation, we
have advanced a step outwards from the dark nucleus of the difficulty.
3. The visitation of vengeance was a valuable means of moral
influence. To Israel’s heart it was fitted to carry impressive conviction of
God’s immovable determination to carry out, His purposes of love, to be their
bulwark against surrounding heathenism, and to preserve them for the glories
and the happiness of the future. To Israel’s conscience it was fraught with
most powerful stimulus--awfully reminding them of the lofty supremacy,
unswerving veracity, and unsparing righteousness of their God. And so this
dreadful sentence of extermination is most useful. The Lord has need of it. It
is one of a series of judgments that lift their terrible tops in sight of
hostile heathenism, and stand as sentinels of God around the sacred people.
Human life is a sacred thing. But He surely knows this full well who has so
carefully hedged it about, who marks even a sparrow’s fall, and who has in
gratuitous tenderness left yet to this abode of rebels its music and its
flowers. And the honour of that mighty Lord, the safety of His people, the
accomplishment of His grand remedial designs, are immeasurably more sacred. (P.
Richardson, B. A.)
It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king.
Saul rejected
The story is graphic and pathetic. This is Saul’s victory and also
his defeat. Our defeats are often wrapped up in our victories. Some of our most
dismal failures are hidden from us by the glare of a partial and disastrous
success. Saul succeeded and failed. He conquered Agag, but disobeyed God. And
so the glory of his victory is lost in the darkness of his defeat. A man may
conquer the greatest of earth’s kings, but his life is a consummate failure if
he disobeys the King of kings. And so, instead of praising Saul’s victory let
us meditate on Saul’s sin. His sin was the sin of disobedience, the sin by
which our first parents fell. In Saul’s defence of his sin we possess a study
of conscience unsurpassed in the literature of the world. Samuel on hearing of
Saul’s disobedience goes to meet him. Saul is the first to speak. “Blessed be
thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” Was he honest
in saying this? he may have been. Other men have lied as outrageously and still
believed themselves to be speaking the truth. The heart is deceitful above all
things and is oftentimes unconscious of its own deceitfulness. To be sure he
has preserved the life of Agag, but then imprisonment is a heavier punishment
to a proud king than death itself. The people have been destroyed. This is the
one thing essential. No danger can come from a king in chains. Saul has
whittled down tire Divine commands a little, but only a little; and who is so
foolish as to think that God will notice the swerving of a heir’s breadth from
what He commands? And reasoning thus we sometimes pare off the edges of God’s
commandments, blissfully unconscious that we are doing anything positively
wrong. To be sure, we are not keeping God’s commandment to the letter, but He
does not expect us to keep it so. It is enough if we kill the Amalekites. There
is no need of killing Agag. We take delight in slaying the Amalekites, but we
are opposed to killing Agag. And later on we discover to our sorrow that Agag
is the chief of the Amalekites and that ruin lurks in the survival of anything
which God commands us to destroy Saving Agag costs many a child of God his
crown. “I have performed the commandment of the Lord,” so Saul says, and while
he speaks his sentences are punctuated by the lowing of oxen and the bleating
of sheep. A man’s conscience may be so drugged that it will not cry out against
him, but some outside voice is sure to break forth in condemnation. God never
leaves Himself without a witness. And if the animals are dumb, then the
inanimate earth will speak. Abel’s blood will cry even from the ground. Saul
had said nothing about the sheep, and so the sheep supplied what Saul had
forgotten to mention. In their innocence they bleated out Seal’s guilt. The
universe is so constructed that a guilty man cannot hide his sin. You assert
your innocence, and yet my senses take knowledge of the evidences of your
guilt. You say you do not drink too much; what meaneth, then, this reddening of
the eyes and trembling of the hand? You say your heart is clean; what meaneth
then this rottenness that trickles now and then into your talk? You say you are
an honest man; what meaneth then this style of living which runs beyond the
limits of your income? You say you are a Christian; what mean these scores of
duties unperformed, bleating evidences of your unfaithfulness? “And Saul said,
They have brought them from the Amalekites.” Mark that word “they.” We might
have expected it. When a man is driven into a corner, the most convenient
trapdoor through which he can make his escape is that little word “they.”
Conscience, when stirred, endeavours to shift responsibility. “They did it.” So
says every man not brave enough to face the consequences of his own misdeeds.
Why do you not, O preacher, preach spiritual and Scriptural sermons? Do not
begin your answer with, “Well, my people!” And why, O Christian man and woman,
do you not inaugurate that reform which your town needs? Please do not say
anything about the people. Let each man bear his own responsibility without
flinching. But even those of us who are most ready to make a scapegoat of the
people do not wish to be too hard on them. We would be merciful and
considerate. We can see reasons why the people act as they do. “The people
spared the best of the sheep.” Only the best There was good reason for that. Why
destroy the best of the sheep? Why cause unnecessary destruction? Extravagance
certainly is not pleasing to God. We have used the same argument many a time We
believe in saving the best of the sheep. We are so afraid of being reckless
that we drop into disobedience. We would rather disobey God than kill one extra
sheep. We are as afraid of killing good sheep as Judas was of wasting precious
ointment and for the same reason. Many of God’s commands sound reckless, and so
we curb His Divine impetuosity by our prudence. We do not hesitate to kill the
best sheep for our own banquets, but when it comes to killing them for God that
is quite another matter. But the people in this case bad not preserved the
sheep for selfish uses. They had kept them with lofty and beautiful intentions.
“The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the
Lord thy God.” To put these sheep to religious uses is certainly better than to
slay them indiscriminately in the fury of war. God said to slay both ox and
sheep, but it matters not to Him how they are slain. So Saul reasoned and so do
we reason. There is a streak of the Jesuit in us all. If the end is good, we
will not be too punctilious about the means. God cares for results. Methods are
of comparative unimportance. The church must meet its expenses. It matters
little how we raise the money, providing we raise it. It makes no difference
how we get people to church, providing we get them. The Bible must be defended.
It matters little what arguments are used, providing the blessed Book is saved.
The sheep are to be slain. It matters little how or where they are slain,
whether on the altar or on the side of one of God’s hills. It must be
acknowledged that God in His word lays tremendous emphasis on the How, but if
we are only zealous to increase His glory we feel confident He will not
scrutinise too closely our spirit and methods. This is Saul’s apology. It gives
us a full length portrait of the man. While he speaks we feel we are looking on
a soul going to pieces, a moral character in the process of disintegration, a
king degenerating into a slave. Every sentence which he speaks tarnishes the
gold in his crown and falls like a blow upon his sceptre, which first shivers
and tinnily breaks. It is the sacrifice of the will which is pleasing to God.
Obedience is the queen of the virtues. Disobedience is the mother of sins. It
is the vine, and other sins are only branches. Because of disobedience Saul
lost his crown, and so shall we, if like him disobedient, lose the inheritance
which is ours. (Charles E. Jefferson.)
Saul rejected
On the top of the Hartz Mountains in Switzerland the figures of
travellers, in certain states of the atmosphere, take on a gigantic size to the
eye of an observer below, and every movement they make is exaggerated. In the
career of King Saul, as it is presented to us in Scripture, we see the figure
of a man raised to a dizzy height, his actions prelected, as it were, upon the
clouds, so that all mankind may learn from them the desired lesson that Jehovah
reigns, and that it is an evil end bitter thing to sin against him. Note--
I. Saul’s
elevation. If ever man was king by Divine right, it was Saul. Never were
greatness and royalty more suddenly thrust upon one than in this ease. The
priest and prophet, Samuel, gave him his title of king.
II. Saul’s
disobedience. This was seen plainly on two occasions: the first, when he
sacrificed at Gilgal, contrary to an express command; the second, when he
refused to smite Amalek utterly, and offer all the spoil to Jehovah. But these
occasions simply brought to the surface an underlying state of disobedience
which only waited its tempting inducements to appear. But before this last
outward disobedience there had been a slowly increasing departure from the living
God in the heart of the king, so that, when the wicked and justly punished
Amalekites were put under the ban he was not equal to the occasion and he
yielded to the temptation of the hour. The devoting of the whole nation to
destruction was no arbitrary act of barbarism that assumed to be under Divine
appointment, but a literal and genuine visitation from heaven upon those who
richly deserved it. The phrase “utterly destroy” is in the original “put under
the ban.” This ban was an old custom, originating before the time of Moses, but
formulated and regulated by him, as were so many other social customs amidst
which Israel grew up. In its simplest form it was the devotion to God of any
object, living or dead.
III. The ground of
Saul’s rejection. It is stated in the briefest language. Because thou hast
rejected the word of the Lord, He hath rejected thee from being king. The
rejection was already an accomplished fact in the Divine purpose, although its
execution was for a time delayed. In this complete rejection we are instructed
in God’s ways by seeing that it proceeded on no technical and superficial
grounds, as if the Almighty was an austere man, reaping where He had not sowed,
and eager to secure a reason for condemning His servant. Even under the old dispensation,
how spiritual was God’s claim; how identical with that which rests on us today.
The sacrifices of God have always been a broken spirit and a contrite heart.
Outward acts have never been accepted in place of an inward submission and
penitence.
IV. The false
repentance of Saul. It had much of the appearance of a godly sorrow that leads
to peace. It surely was sorrow. It showed an aroused and alarmed conscience.
Saul comprehended himself; saw the conflict within between his better and worse
nature. Again and again he awoke to his sin and folly with bitter tears in
after days, but never reached the point where he could say, in the wonderful
words of his successor, “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned.”
V. The mystery of
sin and punishment. Who can understand his errors, or those of any man in
ancient or modern times, delineated in the Bible or in our own literature? Who
can find the key to a sinful life, and unlook all its mysteries and
incongruities? What is sin but an irrational, abnormal, strange thing, making
everyone’s life at points an enigma, and best described as a mystery in its
origin, development, and results in eternity? Who shall attempt to fathom the
connection between wrong-doing and punishment, and foresee the consequences of
single transgression? Who is to say what a sin is in its real nature, and what
its results ought to be in a holy government? We cannot tell when our
characters have become so consistent in evil that God passes judgment on us,
and tears from our hands all that He gave us, and for which we are called to
live. God has left the consequences of sin in the unseen future, like the
shadows of mountains when the sun is behind us. This may be because He wishes
us to be more afraid of sin than of its results. This man, whose downfall was
the result of his own misdeeds, was, in the hands of Providence, a scourge for
Israel, sent to them, as we read, in God’s anger. The career of a sinner can be
understood only when we see to what uses it is put in the world’s discipline.
If we are obedient to God He will turn our lives into a blessing upon men. If
we rebel, He still can use us turning our actions into scourges. To each of us
is offered a kingdom, invisible but real, as old as eternity. (Monday Club
Sermons.)
Saul’s disobedience and rejection
The intoxication of power is upon him, impelling him directly in
the teeth of the Divine warning. He is occupying dangerous ground. Our passage
shows the turning point in Saul’s history.
I. Let us observe
the occasion which brought about the crisis. God had given him a commission to
ban the Amalekites, the ancient enemies of Israel. The crisis in Saul’s life
had come. He fails to meet it, in the spirit of a true man of God. His soul
finds temptation in a moment when power and success and human adulation have
intoxicated him; he yields to the snare, and falls to rise no more. At the
turning point of his life he is weighed in the balances and found wanting. The
whole sad transaction and all its terrible consequences are summed up in one
word--disobedience to positive Divine command. It breaks upon us at once. It is
complete and fully manifested in a single transaction. But definite steps led
up to it. It can be accounted for. It should have been avoided.
II. As the
disobedience was complete and inexcusable, so the punishment was prompt,
definite, and final. “God hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.”
Successive steps led to its accomplishment. God caused Samuel to withdraw from
him. He took his good Spirit away, and allowed an evil spirit to come upon him.
He was left to his own rash, self-willed, and self-pleasing nature. He was
allowed to work out his own destruction and the ruin of his dynasty, while God
quietly but diligently prepared a better man to take his place on the throne of
Israel. A great and solemn principle emerges here--the basis-principle upon
which all right and enduring relations to God must rest,--to wit, obedience.
There can be no happy relations between a sovereign Creator and dependent
creatures upon any other scheme, even though that sovereign Creator be properly
viewed as a tender Father. The whole question needs to be restated with
firmness. The sentimentality of a spurious faith, which claims heaven and yet
the right to please self, is a travesty upon the word of God and upon every
serious utterance of human consciousness. And yet this sentimentality is
seeking to interpret the preaching of salvation by the cross in the interest of
selfish indulgence, and is going far to justify the sneer of the enemy, “that
morals are divorced from religion;” for what are any Christian morals worth
that do not mean obedience to the living God? Let Saul’s sad fall by reason of
disobedience warn us at thin point. In conclusion we may draw out a few brief
lessons.
1. The danger of a
halfway surrender to God, a consecration which has its reservations. Such a
course is an insult to God. It is the very worst spirit of bargain making. It
marks off a section of our individuality, into which God has no right to come
with His demands. Saul was willing to serve God in being a king if he would
have his way when the spoil was at hand. He was quite willing to fellowship
Samuel and have his endorsement if he could sacrifice when he pleased. But this
spirit brought him to a bad end.
2. See how disobedience
demoralises the spirit and sets it upon unworthy shifts His character drooped
lower and lower as he sought his way out from the consequences of disobedience
by unworthy shifts. When we have sinned it is better to be open and ingenuous
with God and man, and while sorrowing for the sin, meekly receive the
consequences in the full purpose of immediate amendment.
3. The folly of
those in authority, as parents, pastors or teachers, yielding to the tastes and
entreaties of the young, the wayward, or the undisciplined for the privilege of
doing that which is wrong either in itself or in its tendency. Saul pleaded
that he yielded to the wishes of the people when he saved the best of the
spoil. So with many now in the place of solemn and responsible authority. But
this is simple weakness where we have the right to expect strength. This
weakness does not lesson the guilt before God. (W. G. Craig, D. D.)
The commission given to Saul
The command given to Saul was unmistakable and imperative. And
this was to be in fulfilment of the legacy of judgment and vengeance left to
the people by Moses long before. In Moses’ words you have hints of the real
character and life of the Amalekites that are to be associated with Samuel’s
words, in which he calls them “the sinners, the Amalekites.” Here you have
their character of bloodthirsty, treacherous marauders. The days of old needed
the destruction of such as the Amalekites; and if Israel had to do the work it
was needful that they should be utterly destroyed. It was better for the world
to be without such sinners, and it was required, for Israel’s sake, that Saul
and his people should have no gain from the conquest. God often does thus with
the ill-gotten wealth of wicked nations. Where are all the riches of the mighty
monarchies of old? Where is the bloodstained wealth of the ruined Roman Empire?
Who can tell? God swept, it, away, for a curse--the curse of conquest and
oppression--was upon at Consider, Saul’s violation of the law of obedience.
Saul gave himself to spoilation; the attempted shelter under fear of the people
belied itself; his repeated words “that they had brought the spoil to sacrifice
to the Lord thy God” were an attempt to justify sin by profession of
good intention, and to degrade religious service of God into formal acts of
ceremonial observance. The answer to all his excuses and explanations was
simple and as imperative as the commands he had neglected, “Because thou hast
rejected the Word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.”
There are many lessons taught us in these things, among which, let us note the
following, for they touch solemn matters in the life of each of us.
I. It is evident
that a professedly good or creditable intention will not justify a bad act. It
is true that, the real character of any act is in the intention of the doer;
but you cannot judge acts as though they were isolated, and to be taken each on
its own merits. The intention that is behind one act may itself be a depraved
spiritual act or represent a spiritual state that; God hates.
II. Nor can God be
honoured in one way at the cost of dishonouring Him in another. Obedience to
one command that is built out of the ruins and breach of another, must be
displeasing to God. If we do, we shall add to non-performance of some duties
the vitiating of those we do observe.
III. So, also, are
we to learn that offerings to God are abomination if they do not express
obedient love. For they may represent “pride, vain-glory, or hypocrisy” they
may be a service of self that is all the more real for being hidden under the
veil of Divine honour, or they may be a following of custom, or a sensuous
dependence upon superstitious services for acceptance with the Lord. God’s
supreme demand is loving obedience: the submission of the heart, the sacrifice
of the will the offering up of self, the fasting from the self-willed
indulgence of our own thoughts and intents. (R. G. B. Ryley.)
Saul rejected
What are the lessons with which the narrative is charged?
I. The danger of
mistaking partial for complete obedience. “Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have
performed the commandment of the Lord.”
1. God requires
literal obedience.
2. God’s language
never exceeds Gods meaning.
3. Conscience is
seen most clearly in minute obedience.
II. The possibility
of giving a religious reason for an act of disobedience.
I. The people
spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy
God”
1. One duty must
not be performed on the ruins of another. It was a duty to sacrifice, but
sacrifice must not be offered upon disobedience.
2. God’s
commandment must not be changed by men’s afterthought. Lucky ideas, sudden
inspirations, and the like, mean ruin, unless well tested.
III. The danger of
being seduced into disobedience by social clamour. “I have sinned: for I have
transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the
people, and obeyed their voice.” The people who tempt are not the people who
can save.
2. Where God has
spoken distinctly there should be no human consultation
IV. The certain
withdrawment of the best influences of life as the result of disobedience. “And
Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death.” Parents,
ministers, friends, gone! There are some incidental points of application:--
1. Sin discovers itself:
“What meaneth this this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of
the cattle which I hear?”
2. Sin will be
punished. Four hundred years elapsed before the sword fell upon Amalek (Deuteronomy
25:17; Deuteronomy
25:19). Time has no
effect upon moral distinctions, or moral judgments. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Saul’s continued disobedience
A course of action more certainly calculated to insult the majesty
of Heaven cannot be conceived than that which Saul adopted. It is true the
command was partially obeyed, but the only case in which obedience was rendered
was that in which there was no temptation to gratify selfish feeling. Where,
however, anything could be turned to his own personal advantage, there the
command of God was recklessly trifled with. Look attentively at Saul in this
matter. When Jonathan had done nothing to deserve death, there was no mercy for
him in his father’s heart; and it required the downright and peremptory
prohibition of all Saul’s army to save the innocent son alive. But, when a duty
was rendered imperative by that God who is not bound to give, in any case, His
reasons for action, Saul was deputed to put Agag to death, when to have done
this would have been but an act of simple obedience, he ventured to disobey,
and spared the man whom God had marked for destruction. It was, in Saul’s view,
a matter of pride to have his triumph graced by the presence of a conquered
king, to make Agag feel that he owed his life to his own clemency, and that he
held its prolongation on the tenure of his conqueror’s will. He found a greater
gratification in ell this than in simple obedience to God. Samuel goes, after a
night spent in grief and in prayer, to be the bearer of the tidings of God’s
displeasure. But what strange scene is this which breaks upon us as the
messenger of the Lord reaches Gilgal? Much as we know of Saul, and accustomed
as we have become to the proofs of his moral obtuseness, we are hardly prepared
for the downright self-complacency, for the cool effrontery of the words which
he addressed to Samuel, “Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the
commandment, of the Lord.”
I. We are reminded
that a great amount of direct sin may be committed and nevertheless disguised,
under a loud profession of obedience to God. There is, in some individuals, a
forwardness in certain forms of duty which cost no self-denial at all; a
forwardness, also, in the announcement of what has been done which is, in
itself, to practised eyes a ground for suspicion that all is not right behind
the scenes We sometimes notice individuals overdoing the thing that is
courteous and polite--“glaringly civil”--towards those who come on the errand
of Christian fidelity, and whose business is with souls in prospect of the
great account. There is so much joy expressed at seeing them, there is so much
interest taken in their presence, there is such a sudden burst of cordiality,
as that upon the very amazement excited there follows the suspicion that
something is going on which there is an effort to conceal. Let us aim after
such a walk and conversation as that we can be natural in our demeanour, and
not artificial and forced, such a life as will bear inspection behind the
scenes, and as will not compel those who watch for souls to ask, as they look
around, what meaneth this or that? what meaneth this unholy gratification? what
meaneth this unsubdued temper?
II. The answer of Saul
teaches that the men who, to gratify their own purposes, will lead others wrong
and countenance them in evil-doing, will be the very first to expose them when
they want to excuse themselves. And Saul said, “They--not I--for the people
spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy
God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.” Ah! study well that sentence,
“They” did it. Would that its impressiveness might be felt by the thousands who
are too ready to be led by the advice, by the example, of those who ought to
have but one rule for their own conduct and for their Influence over others
too, and that rule God’s word--God’s will. There are some who will lead you
into evil for the sake of getting countenance to themselves in their own want
of religion. How many have had to mourn at last, when they have found their
advisers converted into their accusers, when they have seen their companions in
guilt stand as the witnesses for their condemnation.
III. There are other
erroneous principles in this answer of Saul.
1. He evidently
implied that a formal act of obedience might be taken as a set-off against an
act of direct disobedience. He implied that, putting one thing over against the
other, God would be satisfied in the long run. If he intended to offer
sacrifice at all, it was upon the principle of compromise and composition. He
would have given God a part of the spoil, that he might have kept a much larger
portion for himself. He would have offered a fraction, that the extensive remainder
might not have rendered his conscience uneasy. In those sacrifices which you
offer to God no equivalent is found for the want of obedience. Obedience, as a
principle, has a value far above sacrifice, as an action; it is “better than
sacrifice”--better, as the principle must be superior to the form in which it
is embodied--better, as the affection which sends a gift is more valuable than
the gift itself. How, then, with justice, can the one be substituted for the
other? The offering and the sacrifice have a value as embodiments of the
principle of obedience and love--then only are they acceptable; but as
substitutes for principle they have no acceptableness.
2. Another error
in Saul’s answer to which Samuel addressed himself was this, that, admitting he
was in fault, there was no great harm in his sin after all. The king of Israel
did not, indeed, use these words, but doubtless the prophet gathered that this
was his real sentiment. “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and
stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” Here we see a class of sins
mentioned whose heinousness was undoubted. Witchcraft God had forbidden to be
tolerated on any account. Iniquity is here undoubtedly put for flagrant
violation of God’s law; such, for instance, as the idolatry mentioned
immediately after. The probability is that the king of Israel plumed and prided
himself upon his public acts in reference to these very points. You have acted
as though you thought witchcraft was a great crime, and so it is; but then
rebellion such as that which you have manifested is as bad. Your rebellion,
what has that, been but putting God out of His proper place of authority, and
consulting your will and your inclination instead of listening to His voice.
The actual amount of our guilt must not be adjusted by the external form of the
transgression in which it issues--by its classification according to outward
appearance Saul congratulated himself on being thought far superior to the
consulter of those who had familiar spirits, and would have been shocked at the
idea of being regarded as an idolater; but God thought him just as bad as
though he were the one or the other. It is well for us to recollect that in
spirit we may be bearing the very same kind of guilt before the eye of
Omniscience which we are condemning in the declared conduct of others. (J.
A. Miller.)
Saul’s dethronement
Saul has thrown away his last chance, and Samuel mourns for him in
the bitterness of his soul. Rationalistic writers, who would fain remove the
miraculous out of Scripture, and explain the currents of its history by the
play of human passions, have maintained, in strange inconsistency with the
facts before them, that it was Samuel who compassed Baal’s misfortunes. They
argue that, displeased with the king for supplanting him in the rule and the
affections of the people, he had secretly wrought his fall. How utterly
inconsistent such a view is with the facts of Baal’s history, especially how
utterly inconsistent it is with the true relation of Samuel to Saul, as disclosed
in the history, need hardly be stated. So we read that Samuel, when be bad
heard of Saul’s transgression, “cried unto the Lord all night.” and again in
the last verse of the chapter, that “Samuel mourned for Saul.” The prophet’s
tears and entreaties could not avert the doom that was inevitable. Saul had
sinned away his last, chance, and he was finally rejected. Saul, after setting
up a monument, commemorative of his victory, at Carmel, had gone down to
Gilgal. Samuel having learned of his movements, proceeded thither to meet him.
An interview followed. “Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the
commandment of the Lord.” The refutation of Saul’s falsehood is not far to
seek. It comes from the sheep and the oxen, the very spoils which he has spared.
The veil of his false piety is in a moment rent off, and his true position
before God revealed. The fearful nature of that position flashes upon him; Saul
must face the sad reality. The act of disobedience which had caused his
rejection betrayed his whole character as carnal and estranged from God. We are
struck here with the cowardice of his self-vindication. “They have brought them
from the Amalekites;” “the people spared the best of the sheep and of the
oxen.” He himself has had no share in the sin--the transgression is the act of
the army! In their obedience, however, be will claim a part, “The rest we have
utterly destroyed.” We blame our circumstances, we blame others, we blame God;
how slow we are to blame ourselves! The first symptom of a right state of mind
is when the sinner, in self-condemnation and sorrow, acknowledges his guilt as
his own. Saul, so brave in the battlefield, so generous when his better nature
was called into play, roils his guilt on others. The people did it; he himself
was innocent. What moral cowardice! But his reply is not more cowardly and mean
than it is false. They did it, he declares, “to sacrifice unto the Lord thy
God.” Who can for a moment believe that Saul spoke what was true? The assumed
motive of sacrifice was a hollow falsehood, an afterthought, as flimsy as it
was false. Further, one is struck with the profane daring of Saul’s reply. The
spoils were spared, he says to sacrifice, unto the Lord; it is as if the
mention of such a motive would so gratify the Lord am to lead Him to compound
with him for his transgression. Let us mark finally the spirit of estrangement
from God which breathes in Saul’s reply The people spared the spoils,” he says,
“to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God” It is not “the, Lord my God,” for, alas!
Seal’s guilt has estranged him from God. A great barrier has arisen between him
and the Lord. God is no longer his, but Samuel’s God. How cad the fall! (Henry
W. Bell, M. A.)
Christian culture
I. No excuse,
however plausible, can ever justify disobedience to a Divine command.
II. God held Saul
responsible for this disobedience, and personally punished him for it, though
be plead that it was the act of the people.
III. Sacrifice
“instead of obedience” is a loathing to God.
IV. God uses
strange means, sometimes, to betray guilt. (Homiletic Review.)
The self-righteous
Solomon, in his Proverbs, writes: “Most men will proclaim everyone
his own goodness; but a faithful man who can find?” and also, “There is a
generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their
filthiness.” Solomon discovered the self-righteous in his day. Cloaks of
superior piety covered hearts full of impiety. Our Saviour likewise witnessed
much of outward cleanliness, but inward wickedness. Semblances of piety
only--shells without the kernel. In all ages and among all nations this class
is found One of the most vivid illustrations of a self-righteous man is that
presented in Saul’s character. Note in what his self-righteousness consisted:
1. In partially
heeding the Lord’s commands Partial service and fondness for spoils exhibit his
true character. Society today is tinctured with like partial service and
fondness for spoils.
2. In endeavours
to appear good. The ready salutation was common in the East; his assertion of
fidelity unasked was egotistic. Moreover it was false.
3. In excusing
self and condemning others. “They did it.” He shirks responsibility, he would
be seen of men as the true captain, when in fact he was the real hypocrite.
4. In commanding
sacrifice in justification of disobedience. He claims that the spoils were for
religious purposes. What vain justification! As well may the dealer in ardent
spirits argue that he does his damning work that he may build a church. Good
deeds cannot stone for disobedience without repentance. If we become enamoured
of our goodness, our piety is vain, and exclusion from Christ’s kingdom is
certain. It was the hidden rock that sent the City of Columbus, with her
precious freight, into the mighty deep. The hidden defect in the car wheel
brings wreck and ruin to the train. The hidden flaw in the column or arch tells
the story of disaster and death. The hidden defect of self-righteousness will
bring upon us irreparable ruin. Clothe yourselves with Christ’s righteousness.
(W. E. Fetcham.)
Partial obedience a sin
This fragment of ancient history teaches--
I. That partial
obedience to the commands of God is not satisfactory to Him.
II. That the
performance of one duty cannot atone for the neglect of another.
III. That there is
in sin a sad tendency to self-multiplication. History abounds in examples of
this self-propagating power of evil. Men get entangled in wickedness, and then,
with a view to free themselves, they plunge deeper into the labyrinth.
“I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning
were as tedious as go o’er.”
--Shakespeare.
The beginning of evil is like the escape of water from a great
canal or capacious reservoir; it is like the falling of a spark upon
combustibles. No one can tell when or where its ravages wilt end. Will they
ever totally end? Beware of such beginnings!
IV. That obedience
to popular demands is not synonymous with obedience to God. (W. Jones.)
Showy profession
as the most florid people do not always enjoy the firmest state of
health, so the most showy professors are not always the holiest and most
substantial believerses (A. Toplady.)
And it grieved Samuel, and
he cried unto the Lord all night.
Samuel’s grief over Saul
It is the distinguishing mark of God’s children that they sigh and
cry for the offences and affronts committed against their God. One prophet
wished that his head were waters, add his eyes a fountain of tears, that he
might weep day and night (Jeremiah 9:1) Another
declared, his tears ran like rivers, because men kept not God’s laws (Psalms 119:136). Another
said, he had continual sorrow in his heart for his unconverted brethren (Romans 9:2). And when God
would point out the grand mark by which his own were to be known, he says, “Go
through the midst of the city, the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the
foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be
done in the midst thereof” (Ezekiel 9:4). When
wickedness is going on in the streets, or in the secret chambers, do you shut
your door about you, and cry unto the Lord all night? or do you look on with
something like interest, and smile when you ought to sigh, and laugh when you
ought to weep? A school, mistress was once telling me of something that a girl had
done wrong; and while she was describing the fault in a very lively manner,
several of the children smiled, and scarcely suppressed a laugh. She
immediately turned to them with a solemnity and concern which I can never
forget, and said, “Now, girls, you have made her sin your own, those who could
laugh at it could do it.” The girls looked alarmed, and I hope they would not
again so thoughtlessly make a mock at sin. (Helen Plumptre.)
Grief over a fallen brother
Bishop Thirlby was appointed by Queen Mary, and went as her
ambassador to Rome to swear anew England’s allegiance to the Pope. But when he
performed the ceremony of degradation over Archbishop Cranmer, he wept with
keenest sorrow as he did it. (H. O. Mackay.)
Verses
14-23
Verse 14
What meaneth then this
bleating of the sheep in mine ears.
Hypocrisy
1.I
learn, first, from the subject that God will expose hypocrisy. A hypocrite is
one who pretends to be what he is not, or to do what he does not. Saul was only
a type of a class. There are a great many churches that have two or three
ecclesiastical Uriah Heeps. When the fox begins to pray, look out for your
chickens. A man of that kind is of immense damage to the Church of Christ. A
ship may outride a hundred storms and yet a handful of worms in the planks may
sink it to the bottom. The Church of God is not so much in danger of the
cyclones of trouble and persecution that come upon it as of the vermin of
hypocrisy that infest it. Wolves are of no danger to the fold of God unless
they look like sheep Oh! we cannot deceive God with a church certificate. If
you have the grace of God, profess it. Profess no more than you have. But I
want the world to know that where there is one hypocrite in the church, there
are five hundred outside of it, for the reason that the field is larger. There
are men in all circles that will bow before you, and who are obsequious in your
presence, and talk flatteringly, but who, all the while they are in your
conversation, are digging for bait and angling for imperfections. In your
presence they imply that they are everything friendly, but after awhile you
find that they have the fierceness of a catamount, the slyness of a snake, and
the spite of a devil. God will expose such. The gun they load will burst in
their own hands; the lies they tell will break their own teeth; and at the very
moment they think they have been successful in deceiving you and deceiving the
world, the sheep will bleat and the oxen will bellow.
2. I
learn, further, from this subject how natural it is to try to put off your sins
upon other people. Human nature is the same in all the ages Adam confronted
with his sin, said: “The woman tempted me, and I did eat;” and the woman charged
it upon the serpent; and, if the serpent could have spoken, it would have
charged it upon the devil. I suppose that Adam was just as much to blame as Eve
was. You cannot throw off the responsibility of any sin upon the shoulders of
other people. Here is a young man who says; “I know I am doing wrong, but I
have not had any chance. I had a father who despised God, and a mother who was
a disciple of godless fashion. I am not to blame for my sins--it is my bringing
up.” Here is a business man. He says: “I know I don’t do exactly right in
trade, but all the dry goods men do it, and all the hardware men do this, and I
am not responsible.” God will hold you responsible for what you do, and them
responsible for what they do. “If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself;
but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.”
3. I
learn, further, from this subject what God meant by extermination. There may be
more sins in our soul than there were Amalekites. We must kill them. Woe unto
us if we spare Agag. Here is a Christian who says: “I will drive out all the
Amalekites of sin from my heart.” Here is jealousy, down goes that Amalekite.
Here is backbiting, down goes that Amalekite. And what slaughter he makes among
his sins, striking right and left. What is that out yonder lifting up his head?
It is Agag--it is worldliness. It is as old sin he cannot bear to strike down.
It is a darling transgression he cannot afford to sacrifice. I appeal for
entire consecration. Christ will not stay in the same house with Agag. You must
give up Agag or give up Christ. Jesus says: “All of that heart or none.”
4. I
learn, further, from this subject that it is vain to try to defraud God. Here
Saul thought he had cheated God out of those sheep and oxen; but he lost his
crown--he lost his empire. You cannot cheat God. The Lord God came into the
counting house, and said: “I have allowed you to have all this property for
ten, fifteen, or twenty years, and you have not done justice to My poor
children. When the beggar called upon you, you hounded him off your steps. When
My suffering children appealed to you or help, you had no mercy. I only asked
for so much, or so much; but you did not give it to Me, and now I will take it
all.” God asks of us one-seventh of our time in the way of Sabbath. Do you
suppose we can get an hour of that time successfully away from its true object?
No, no. As you go into the world, exhibit an open-hearted Christian frankness.
Do not be hypocritical in anything; you are never safe if you are. In the most
inopportune moment the sheep will bleat and the oxen bellow. Have no mercy on
Agag. Down with your sins--down with your pride--down with your worldliness. I
know you cannot achieve this work by your own arm; but Almighty grace is
sufficient (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Sell deception
Let our subject be the
danger of self deception and half-heartedness in the religious life. We shall
not have to do with people wholly irreligious and immoral, with those we
commonly term sinners; but with a kind of semi-religious, or professedly
religious people--people always hovering about the kingdom of God, but who
never truly and heartily enters into it; one part of whose life seems alway to
contradict and undo another.
I. The
master evil--want of whole-hearted surrender and obedience to the will and
commandment of God. This it was which ran through, vitiated, and spoiled the
whole life and course of the unhappy king, Saul. No more ill-fated, unhappy,
unprofitable enigma to himself, to God, and to the world, than a man who has
never more than half a mind or heart to anything. Such a man can serve neither
world well and truly, for he dare not give himself up wholly to the present,
and be cannot give himself up to the world to come, the kingdom of God. He
knows and believes both too much and too little. This description applies to
many professing Christians. They have too little gospel in them to make them
blessed in the Lord; and enough perhaps to make them ashamed and miserable in
the day of visitation--the still small voice only heard at intervals, but the
bleating of sheep and the lowing of oxen generally gross and loud enough to
close their ears to the music of heaven and eternity.
II. Herein
is displayed lamentable weakness of faith and purpose. There was a fatal
weakness of soul and character about Saul, which showed itself at every great
crisis, and at length brought his days to an end in calamity, disgrace,
despair. He was not a man to be kept true to his avowed faith and principles,
was too easily turned aside; he put his hand to the plough, and yet looked
back; he reminds us of those in the gospels who said, “Lord, I will follow
Thee, but.”
III. The
deceiving love of self, self interest, covetous desires, vain ambitions, bender
us insensible to the sovereign claims of God and truth. It is so easy, while
professing to give ourselves to God and His holy service, to seek and serve
ourselves meanwhile, and keep in view low earthly ends--even to fight against
prevalent forms of error and evil more for the sake of our own advancement and advantage
than from pure loyalty to the cause of truth and righteousness. We may win the
spoils of the enemy, and in so doing spare Agag the king, take the master-evil
home into our own hearts and households, seek our own reputation and interest
and not the glory of God.
IV. We
have here also a melancholy example of sparing sins and evils that should be
slain, sheltering and harbouring them under false pretences, by unworthy pleas
and excuses. The mark of a true man and Christian to allow no known sin, least of
all favourite, profitable, accustomed, pleasant sins.
V. How
short and easy the stage between this evil partiality, this indulged
insincerity at given points, and a blinding hypocrisy throughout the man.
VI. It is
a vain thing to throw the blame on others, to allege public opinion and custom
in self-justification and defence, when we are disobeying the plainly expressed
will and commandments of God. We cut ourselves off, in this way, from all true
kingship, not in Israel only, as Saul; but is a greater, holier, ever during
kingdom, the kingdom of God. (Watson Smith.)
The rigour of Divine law
In approaching the
fundamental principles suggested by the narrative, we ought to note two useful
incidental points:--
1. That
man cannot evade Divine retribution (1 Samuel
15:2).
2. That
kindness to the good ensures Divine compensation (1 Samuel
15:6).
Kindness is self- rewarding. Beneficence bears an immortal fruitage. Passing
from these introductory points we are brought into full contact with the
lessons of the incident. We may learn:--
I. The
transcendent importance of rendering literal obedience to Divine requirements.
The argument turns on the word literal. Learn that Divine language never
exceeds Divine meaning. There is significance in every word; you cannot
amputate a single syllable, without doing violence to the Divine idea.
II. The
fearful possibility of resting satisfied wits partial obedience. Are you
satisfied because your life is right in the main? God will not be satisfied. He
examines the minutest fibres of life. Verily the best of men need be clothed in
Christ’s righteousness, or they will be consumed in the fire of Divine trial.
III. The
utter impossibility of rendering disobedience well-pleasing to God. A religious
reason is adduced in justification of disobedience. God said, Exterminate, but
the people said, Sacrifice. God, however, rejected the offering which was
presented at the expense of obedience. Learn then:--
1. That
Divine requirements are absolute.
2. That
God will not allow one duty to be performed on the ruin of another. Let no man
forsake God’s temple in order that he may visit the sick. Let it stand as a
vital clause in your life-creed, that God will not accept one duty at the
expense of another!
IV. The
danger of being seduced into disobedience by social clamour. Lessons suggested
by Saul’s circumstances:--
1. That
there is a higher law than the verdict of society. Popular opinion is fickle:
moral law is immutable.
2. That
there is a crisis in which social force can yield us no assistance. Saul was
placed in that fearful crisis. He had obeyed the people, but now the people
could be of no service to him! The people could violate Divine law, but could
not avert Divine judgment! (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Verse
20
Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way
which the Lord sent me.
Saul’s obedience
We invite your attention to some features of Saul’s character, as
drawn out by the way in which he obeyed the Divine command.
1. First, let us notice the zeal and alacrity with which Saul
proceeded to carry out the Divine will. Unlike Moses, who complained of his
want of eloquence when bidden to go to Pharaoh in Jehovah’s name, and plead for
the deliverance of his oppressed countrymen--unlike Jonah, who positively
refused to bear the dread message with which he was charged to the inhabitants
of the great city of Nineveh, and fled to Tarshish, to escape an unwelcome
tax--Saul displayed a commendable zeal in executing the command that was laid
upon him. It is obvious that he undertook the work willingly, and executed it
zealously. No victory could be more complete. The King was a prisoner. The
people were slain. In the King’s estimation the Divine command was fully
carried out. Saul does not seem to have had the slightest misgiving as to the
correctness of his own interpretation of the Divine command. He felt that be
bad done a great work, and that on this occasion no one could breathe a word
against him. Poor deluded, self-conceited King of Israel! We are often told
that history repeats itself, and it is certain that the history of Saul, King
of Israel, has been often reproduced in the history of the Church of Christ.
Jehu did a work for God, and he did it with alacrity. He destroyed the
worshippers of Baal--nay, more than this, for it is said that he “destroyed
Baal out of Israel.” And yet the future of that man was a sad one. We read that
he “took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his
heart; for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin”
(2 Kings 10:1-36). The Pharisees in the
time of our Lord had a zeal for God. They reverenced the law of Moses, and paid
to it a certain obedience (Matthew 23:1-39). And yet upon no body of
men did our Divine Master so pour forth the torrent of His indignation as upon
those arrogant, self-righteous, self-satisfied Pharisees. And is there not a
voice of warning for us in these instances of antiquity Men of wealth may
dedicate that wealth to God. They may build a church, or a hospital, or a
school. And yet that building so externally lovely may be hideous--hideous, I
say, to that God “that seeth in secret.” Self, and self alone, may have been
its foundation stone It may be but a monument of human selfishness and
ambition. Another man may take an interest in the missionary cause and devote
his wealth to the spreading abroad of the knowledge of God. This indeed is a
good object, and worthy of our best energies But, oh! if men engage in the work
from any but the highest motive--the desire of saving precious souls for whom
Christ has died--if being men of narrow views they seize it as an opportunity
for advancing their own religions party; if above all they allow their
so-called religious zeal to deaden their instincts of common justice and even
humanity; if they would fain silence all but those as narrow-minded as
themselves--surely they have not caught fully the spirit of our Divine Master.
2. We have seen that Saul’s obedience was marred by a spirit of
boastful self-confidence. And his history is instructive, because the spirit of
Saul still lives in the religious professor of the present day. Tell the
respectable man as he leaves the church porch that he is a sinner, that there
is iniquity in his “holy things”--sin in his prayers, sin in his praises--tell
him, in the touching language of the good Bishop Beveridge, that his very
repentance needs to be repented of, and that his tears need washing in the
blood of Christ, and he indignantly repudiates the charge, and says, “Yea, I
have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent
me.” Self-confidence is the mark of the natural man. Self-distrust is the mark
of the genuine disciple of Christ. (C. B. Brigstocke.)
Verse 22
Behold, to obey is better
than sacrifice.
Obedience and sacrifice
Saul’s misconduct supplied
the occasion for the announcement of an absolute and eternal truth.
I. That sacrifice
is only circumstantially necessary, but obedience is essentially so.
1. Sacrifice is either an atonement for offence, and then, however
excellent the remedy, it cannot for its own sake be as acceptable to the
Creator as the healthful action which renders the remedy unnecessary.
2. It is the suffering occasioned by transgression, and then it
cannot be so pleasant to a parent as the obedience which prevents the
suffering. Hence as sacrifice is a remedy for moral disease, it is good, but as
obedience is the pulsation of unimpaired health, it is better.
II. Sacrifice is a
relative good--obedience is personal and therefore better. The idea may be thus
expressed:--Sacrifice is required because of the relation of God to other
beings than the offerer, but obedience is demanded by the relation of the
individual to God.
III. Sacrifice is
temporary, obedience eternal. When God’s will shall be done on earth as it is
in heaven, sacrifice shall be no more needed on earth than in heaven.
IV. Sacrifice is
good as a means; therefore, to obey, being the end, is better.
1. Such sacrifices only were accepted of old, as God had commanded.
Thus they were only valuable as they were related to obedience, and for its
sake.
2. The great sacrifice is valuable as an atonement for man’s
disobedience.
“Being made perfect He
became the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him.” (William
Knox.)
Of the duty which God
requireth of man
This text is a reproof given
to one that wore a crown, teaching him, that though he was Israel’s sovereign,
he was God’s subject. In the words we may notice the duty which God requires of
men, which is obedience. What they are to obey is the voice of the Lord,
whereby He manifests His will: it is His revealed will, whatever way He is
pleased to notify it to them. Hence the obedience in the text is called
hearkening. The excellency and eminency of this duty. God delights in it. All
other things must yield to it, but it to none.
1. The duty which man owes unto God. That is obedience. We are in a
state of subjection to God. He is our Superior, and His will we are to obey in
all things. He is our King, and we must obey Him as His subjects. He is our
Father, and we must show Him all respect, reverence, and affection as His
dutiful children. He is our Lord and Master and we must yield Him the most
cheerful and unlimited service, as is our reasonable duty. He is our supreme
Lawgiver, and we must receive the law at His mouth, every law and precept,
every ordinance that is stamped with His authority, whatever is subscribed with
a “Thus saith the Lord,” readily obeying it.
2. Of whom the Lord requires this duty. No man can be free from this
duty more than he can be a God to himself.
3. The rule of that obedience. It is the will of God. His will is our
supreme law. Not the secret will of God; for that which God never revealed to
man, cannot be his rule; but the revealed will of God (Deuteronomy 29:29).
4. The properties of this obedience which God requires of man.
5. On what accounts do we owe this obedience to God. On these
principally,
Obedience and sacrifice
compared
That obedience is due to
God from all His intelligent creatures, I suppose none will deny. It is the
original unchangeable law of creation, which every after discovery served not
to undermine, but to support and confirm. It was the religion of man in the
primitive state of innocence; and it shall be the religion of heaven, when we
shall see our Maker as He is. The very excellence of truth itself lies in its
influence on holiness, and the very purpose of every sacred institution is to
form our minds to a habit of obedience, and subjection to the will of God. In the
meantime, it is of the utmost moment, that, we have clear and just conceptions
of the nature and principles of obedience.
I. I am to open a
little, and make a few remarks upon the history which gave occasion to the
words of the prophet.
1. How easily are people misled into disobedience by their present
interest, or carnal inclinational how ready are these to mix themselves in all
our actions, and to turn what was intended as an instance of obedience, into an
act of impiety and transgression!
2. You may observe how natural it is for people, when challenged for
any fault, to lay the blame of it upon others, even when there is little
prospect of hiding their own guilt.
3. We may see it is an unusual thing for men to imagine they have
been obedient to God even in that very action, by which they have in a
remarkable manner shown their disobedience. True obedience is always humble,
and sensible of the imperfections attending it. Ostentatious obedience, if it
were for no other reason, is an abomination in the sight, of God. How often
does it happen that the excuses for sin are the aggravations of it? It is very
remarkable, though melancholy to reflect upon, that those excuses for sin which
carry in them the most daring profanity, are commonly most stupifying to the
conscience. Such is the state of all those who fortify themselves in an evil
practice, by embracing loose principles, who, having first given way to
unbridled inclination in the breach of God’s laws, steel themselves against
conviction and repentance, by a denial of His truth.
5. How great is the folly of men who hope to atone for their
disobedience by any compensation, but particularly by religious rites!
II. I proceed to
show in what respects it is that obedience is opposed and preferred to
sacrifice, or justly called better. It is not uncommon to hear this passage
produced in order to prove the value of moral above positive precepts. Moral
precepts, I suppose you know, are precepts of perpetual and unchangeable
obligation, and positive, such as either have not, or do not seem to have, any
intrinsic excellence in themselves, but depend upon the immediate and express
institution of God. Now, though no doubt, if it is done with proper care, and
upon legitimate principles, a distinction may be stated between these different
kinds of duties; yet it is plain, that this cannot be the spirit of the passage
before us.
1. Obedience is preferred to sacrifices, as they were uncommanded,
free, and voluntary. If we attend to the sacrifices under the law, we shall
find them of different kinds; particularly, we shall find them distinguished in
this respect, that some of them were expressly and positively ordained, and
others were left to the goodwill or spontaneous inclination of the offerer. The
observation of the Sabbath, of circumcision, of the passover, the daily burnt
offering, the annual sacrifice on the great day of expiation, the trespass
offering, and many others, were so indispensably necessary, that no opposition
was to be presumed or imagined between them and the moral law. Nay, the whole
circumstances of these rites were precisely specified, and those who varied
anything in the manner of their observation were to he cut off from their
people. (Exodus 12:19; Exodus 31:14). I must further observe, that even with respect to voluntary or
free-will offerings, though they were left at liberty whether they would offer
such at all or not; yet if they did offer, the manner in which it behoved to be
conducted, was appointed precisely. Now, nothing can be more plain, than that
the sacrifices which Saul and his people had in view to offer, or at least
pretended to have had in view, were voluntary or free-will offerings. When you
remember this you will see with how great lustier and force the prophet opposes
sacrifices of this kind to obeying the voice of the Lord: “Hath the Lord as
great delight in burnt offerings, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?” As if
he had said, “Can you imagine that God will be as well pleased with gifts of
your own devising, as with a strict and punctual execution of the orders which
Himself had given; especially when the very sacrifices you would offer to Him,
are purchased by the breach of His express command?”
2. Obedience is opposed to sacrifices, as they are false and
hypocritical. Even in those sacrifices that were most expressly appointed, and
of the most indispensable obligation, there might be an essential defect, from
the inward disposition not corresponding to the outward action. Reason, as well
as scripture, teacheth us, that in all acts of worship the sincerity of the
heart makes the chief ingredient.
3. Obedience is opposed to sacrifices, as they are dead and formal. I
am not at this time to mention all the ends which an infinitely wise God
intended to serve by the appointment of sacrifices: but everyone must be
sensible, that they could be of no avail without taking in the principle from
which they were bought, and the temper and disposition of the offerer. There
was no doubt very much of outward form in the Mosaic economy; and the ritual
practices bore so great bulk in it, that, by way of comparison with the
spirituality of the gospel, it is called the law of a carnal commandment. But
it would be mistaking it very much to suppose that God was fully satisfied with
or desired that His people should rest in the outward form. This is plain from
many passages of scripture (Psalms 5:7; Psalms 26:6; Psalms 51:16-17). In opposition to this, however clear a dictate both of reason
and scripture, it seems to have been the disease of ancient times, to imagine
that the sacrifices were somehow necessary or useful to their Maker in
themselves; and that He was pleased with the possession of the gift,
independent of the disposition of the giverse This led both Jews and Gentiles
to suppose that the more numerous and costly the victims the greater would be
their influence (Micah 6:6). This conduct, so dishonourable to God and so inconsistent with
the holiness and purity of His nature, had no sufficient excuse either among
Jews or Heathens. But surely it is still more criminal among Christians. The
gospel, as a dispensation of clearer light and greater purity is called the
ministration of the Spirit. God is a spirit; and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth.
4. In the last place, obedience is opposed to sacrifices, as they are
misplaced and unseasonable. In the ancient dispensation, time and place were as
much ascertained as any circumstance that belonged to the temple service; and
nothing could be more contrary to the spirit of that economy, than taking any
liberty with the order which God Himself had established. The same general rule
is to be observed at all times. We must attend to the intimations of
Providence, and, as far as they can be clearly discerned, discharge those
duties to which we are immediately called. Everything is beautiful in its place
and season, and is then not only most acceptable to God, but most useful to men
It is so far from being any disparagement of sacrifices, that it is their very
excellence, to be confined to their time and place. And the maxim in the text
will apply with equal propriety to every duty of the moral law the most
excellent of them may be misapplied True religion and undefiled before God and
the Father, is, to visit the fatherless and the widow; and yet, if the time of
Divine worship be unnecessarily chosen for that purpose, or if too much time be
consumed in it by those whose presence cannot be useful, it is a rejected
sacrifice.
III. I proceed now
to make some practical improvement of what has been said. From what has been
said you may learn what are the great characters of acceptable obedience; and,
I think, they may be reduced to the three following:--
1. It must be an implicit obedience.
2. A second character of true obedience is, that it be self-denied
and impartial, that it be not, directed or qualified by our present interest.
3. A third character of obedience is, that it be universal, without
any exception. From what hath been said on this subject, you may see, that the
true notion of obedience is inconsistent with the notion of merit, as if we
could lay our Maker under some sort of obligation. You see how Saul justified
himself, and said, “Yea, but I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.” But, in the
judgment of God, there was no consideration had of what bad been done, but a
severe sentence of condemnation upon him for what he had neglected. True
obedience is always considered, in this light, as a debt due to God, for the
performance of which nothing can be claimed, but for the neglect of which a
penalty is incurred. (T. Witherspoon.)
To obey is better than
sacrifice
I. our obedience
must be prompt. We begin a holy life with the question, “What wilt thou have me
to do?” The moment God answers we should run to do His bidding. “Run” is the
word (Psalms 119:32)
II. It must be
exact. When Saul said, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord,” he meant it as
certain loose and careless people count obedience It is not enough, however,
for us to do fairly well When God says “Pay!” He means to the uttermost, farthing;
when He says “Go to Nineveh,” he means Nineveh and nowhere else “Whatsoever He
saith onto you, do it.”
III. It should be
unquestioning. If ever a man was excusable for “wanting to know,” it was Saul
when commanded to exterminate Amalek. Was the requirement just? Was it humane?
Was it politic? But that was God’s affair God must be permitted to justify
Himself. There was no uncertainty as to the Voice
IV. Our obedience
should be cheerful. We make too much of duty and obligation, and too little of
the joy and privilege of service Let us come up from the association of
mercenaries and galley slaves to the high level of filial devotion. We are sons
and daughters of God, brethren of Christ. He was once “sent” upon a painful,
toilsome errand; His obedience was prompt, exact, unquestioning, and joyous.”
“In the volume of the book it is written, ‘I rejoice to do Thy will.’“ Let the
mind that was in Christ; Jesus be also in us. (Homiletic Review.)
No true worship or service
without an obedient heart
We are all apt be form a
false estimate of our character, and to approve ourselves in the face of
heaven, and maintain our uprightness in the presence of men when miserably
deficient in our duty when deeply stained with the spots of guilt and
rebellion. Commonly indeed it happens, as in the case before us, that the truth
of the matter is made manifest to our fellow creatures; that even they are not
often, or not long, deceived in farming a judgment of our character: but
however this may be, “shall not God find it out?”
1. If the Creator prescribes a method in which He will be honoured
and served, it is not for the creature to substitute any other method of his
own. Every religious service derives its value from its accordance with the
will of God: all other services will be disowned and rejected. For instance,
the Almighty has ordained, that His blessings shall be obtained by prayer: it
is not for us to say, that He knows our wants already, better than we can
detail them; and that therefore it is useless to pray. The value and efficacy
of sacrifices resulted entirely from the appointment of God; and they could not
possibly be acceptable, unless as offered in obedience to Him. Had Saul offered
thousands of sheep and oxen, not of the spoils of Amalek, but from his own flocks
and herds, in an impenitent and self-confident disposition, the Lord would have
abhorred them all; how much more then, when the animals had been spared in
direct, disobedience to His positive command. But so it was, that the people
were always resting on the outward form, and overlooking the thing signified;
mindful of the service, but regardless of the heart. And for a plain reason:
because the service itself was easy, and satisfied the deluded conscience, and
left the offender in quiet possession of the sinful habits in which he
delighted: and because the submission of the heart was irksome and painful, and
required a discipline, a humiliation, a change of character and of life, which
the offender was little disposed to undergo.
2. Without a sincere and humble spirit of subjection, without a holy
and obedient heart, all our prayers and all our services are nothing in the
sight of God; are founded in hypocrisy; are no better than a mockery of his
name. Submission to the authority and will of God must ever be essential to
true religion under every dispensation; and few persons there are, who doubt
this as a speculative truth. But there is a vast difference between the outward
submission of an unrepentant and ungodly heart, and the inward submission of the
penitent and the pious! It is the subjection of mind, the surrender of the
affections to the will and law of God, which constitutes an acceptable service.
Pardon is graciously promised to all who truly repent, and the word of God
assures us, that it will be extended to none besides: upon what ground then can
the unrepentent sinner presume to ask forgiveness? And how can that man dare to
implore of God the grace to repent, who has no intention and no real desire of
repenting? He is but adding insult to his sin. How can the wilful sinner who
lives, and is yet determined to live, in any course of guilt, really pray for
deliverance from the bondage of sin? Does he expect that a miracle will be
wrought to deliver him against his will? So far from resolving, he does not
even wish to be changed from sin to holiness, from the world to God. In truth,
it is not prayer at all; it is but the semblance and pretence of prayer.
3. Let us look well to the root and to the fruit of our sacrifices:
see that they are all offered in an humble and obedient spirit, that we feel
and desire what we say in the awful presence of a holy God: see that the
submission of our lives is consistent with the submission of our persons before
Him; that whatsoever we do, we do out of respect for His authority, out of love
for His law, and obedience to His command. (J. Slade, M. A.)
Obedience better than
sacrifice
I think that in this verse
there is first a voice to professing Christians, and then, secondly, to
unconverted persons.
I. Who have made a
profession of your faith in Him. Probably, there are some of you who may be
living in the neglect of some known duty. It is no new thing for Christians to
know their duty, and yet to neglect it. If you are failing to keep the least of
one of Christ’s commands to his disciples. I pray you be disobedient no longer.
It may be that some of you, though you are professed Christians, are living in
the prosecution of some evil trade, and your conscience has often said, “Get
out of it.” You are not in the position that a Christian ought to be in; but
then you hope that you will be able to make a little money, and you will retire
and do a world of good with it. Ah! God cares nothing for this rams’ fat of
yours; he asks not for these sacrifices which you intend to make. Possibly,
too, there may be some evil habit in which you are indulging, and which you
excuse by the reflection, “Well, I am always at the prayer meeting; I am
constantly at communion, and I give so much of my substance to the support of
the Lord’s work.” I pray you give up that sin! To obey is better than sacrifice
in the matter of caring for the sick and needy of all classes. We rejoice in
the number of hospitals which adorn our cities. These are the princely trophies
of the power of our holy religion. There are no nobler words in our language
than those inscribed on so many walls--“Supported by voluntary contributions.”
We glory in them. Rome’s monuments, Grecian trophies, Egyptia’s mighty tombs,
and Assyria’s huge monoliths, are dwarfed into petty exhibitions of human pride
and vanity before the sublime majesty of these exhibitions of a God-given love
to our fellow men; but all these homes of mercy and healing become evils to
ourselves though they are blessings to the distressed, if we contribute of our
wealth to their exchequer and neglect personally to visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, to feed the hungry, to care for the sick, and do
not, like the Master, go about doing good Give as God has given to you; but
remember God acts as well as gives. “Go thou and do likewise.” Sacrifice, but
also obey.
II. But my main
business is with the unconverted.
1. God has given to you in the gospel dispensation a command. It is a
command in the obeying of which there is eternal life, and the neglect of which
will be and must be your everlasting ruin. That command is this: “Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
2. Now, this first point being clear, that God has given a command,
the second remark is that the most of men, instead of obeying God, want to
bring Him sacrifice. They suppose that their own way of salvation is much
better than any that the Almighty can have devised, and therefore they offer
their fat of rams. This takes different forms, but it is always the same
principle. One man says, “Well now, I will give up my pleasures; you shall not
discover me in low company; I will give up all the things that my heart calls
good, and will not that save us? “No, it will not. When you have made all this
sacrifice, all I shall or can say of it is, “To obey is better than sacrifice.”
“Well, but suppose I begin to attend a place of worship?” Remember therefore
that all that you can do in the way of outward religion is nothing but the
sacrifice of the fat of rams; and “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to
hearken than the fat of rams.” “Yes,” says another, “but suppose I punish
myself a good deal for all that I have done? I will abstain from this, I will
deny myself that, I will mortify myself in this passion, I will give up that
evil.” Friend, if thou hast any evil give it up; but when thou hast done so do
not rely upon that, for this oughtest thou to have done, and not to have left
the other undone. God’s command is “Believe!”
3. “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of
rams.” And now I have to show that it is so. It is better in itself. It shows
that you are more humble. It is really a more holy thing. It is a holier and a
better thing to do one’s duty than to make duties for one’s self and then set
about them. But not obeying and not hearkening to the gospel, sinner, you must
perish. There is the way of salvation, and thou mush trust Christ or perish;
and there is nothing hard in it that thou shouldst perish if thou dost not. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
Obedience
The fact we want to
emphasise is the supremacy of obedience. There is nothing said against
sacrifice for it is a service of Divine ordination from the earliest times.
They are the expressions of the highest conditions of being. Best men live to
sacrifice, and what is more they live by sacrifice. Sacrifices were designed to
subordinate the material to the moral and to show that the gold and silver and
the cattle upon a thousand hills are God’s. They further indicate the fact that
even a material service may have spiritual ends. But notwithstanding all that
can be said for sacrifice, there is “a more excellent way.” There is a higher
law of life There are other and more commendable ways by which we can attest
our loyalty and prove our love, and that is by obedience. Was he not acting
within his right in disposing of the spoils, and prisoners of war? Did not
other kings exercise this prerogative, and were not the Israelites to be like
other nations in having a king? Why then should King Saul be unlike other
kings? Why abate his privileges or place restrictions upon his actions? Why
deprive him of his prerogatives? How like this is to man who goes forth in the
pride of intellect and the boast of lordship saying in effect, “Am I not king?
Are not this earth and these heavens all inferior to me? Is it not mine to
subdue the earth and control and subordinate to my uses and for my comfort the
forces of Nature?” “Yes, man. I admit thy supremacy. I loyally bow to thy
kingship. I pay dues to thy lordship. I am at thy service as I am for thy use,
but I will not be forced into a blind and unconditional servitude. You must
honour me and obey my laws or I refuse to acknowledge thy authority.” The
commonest facts of life give evidence that man conquers by obedience and rules
by submission. He cannot force Nature to do what he may list. The utmost he can
do is to direct and utilise her forces. He must first learn obedience, and by
obedience he commands those potent elements with which earth, air, fire and
water are invested. If the mariner would take his ship across the sea he must
observe the law of winds and currents. No arrangement of Nature can be changed.
No law can be abrogated. Man investigates, discovers, blends, controls, adapts,
subordinates and utilises, not by an imperious authority but by obedience.
Things are as they are, and he must submit to them. This is true of human life.
The case of a successful Scotchman is apt to our argument. Having risen to a
splendid position, he was asked the secret of his rapid advancement; he gave
the reply: “by bowing,” or by civility, by obedience. Fancied dignity is the
sure road to degradation whereas humility leads by an unerring law to
exaltation. The principle of the text applies with equal force to spiritual
life. It is alone by obedience to the eternal law of moral right and spiritual
life that a man can be saved. Obedience to God is the prime position of man.
“To obey is better than sacrifice.”
1. It is an exhibition of nobler qualities. A fanatic or even a
hypocrite may sacrifice but it is only the true man who obeys. Robbers and
murderers have presented oblations to the gods and even to the professed
servants of the One only God, but vain all such acts in the absence of
obedience to the Divine moral code.
2. Obedience is a higher service than sacrifice. A better set of
forces are put in motion by obedience. Sacrifices are external, obedience is
internal. Sacrifices are part of a carnal ordinance, obedience is of the
essence of spirituality. The one looks earthward, the other heavenward.
Sacrifices may be an accommodation to a party and jealousy for the honour, of a
sect, obedience is loyalty to truth. Sacrifices may have an ear for the praise
of man, obedience for the glory of God.
3. Obedience is more akin to the conditions of heaven. Sacrifices can
play no part in the services of the celestial temple, while obedience is the
secret of heaven’s harmony and peace. The true heart is more capacious than the
largest band The body is at best but a poor instrument with which to actualise
thought and holy purpose. What, we must do is to bring every thought into line
with God’s will. We must obey Him by first giving Him our heart. (M.
Brokenshire.)
The principle of obedience
I. It is a false
obedience when obedience is refused the moment the law of God stands alone. In
Soul’s onslaught upon Amalek, there was, up to a certain point, a perfect
agreement between duty and inclination, God’s service and self-interest There
was no zeal test of obedience until Amalek had been smitten to the last man, and
that man the King. The people of Israel were eager to indulge their ancient
enmity against Amalek, but were not willing to exterminate the flocks and
herds. Herein lies Soul’s condemnation He forsook the path of duty the moment
it went forward alone, and other things--inclination, custom,
self-interest--did not point the same way There are times when religion goes
further than we are inclined to go, requires more than we are disposed to
render; parts company with our inclinations, and tastes, and purposes, and
habits. The test of obedience is then. We must not suppose that we are serving
God when we attend religious services, perform religious duties, keep the
Divine law only so long and so far as inclination, interest, custom point the
same way.
II. It is a false
obedience which is regarded as justifying or excusing disobedience in certain
matters and in occasional instances. Many claim for themselves what has been
justly termed a dispensing power. On the ground of their general good conduct,
general attention to religious duties, general obedience to the Divine law,
they hold themselves excused, or warranted in occasional departures.
III. It is a false
obedience when disobedience to God in any form and under any circumstances is
regarded as a trifling thing. It seemed a light matter to Saul to act as he did
But we can easily see that his slight disobedience involved great principles.
1. It assailed and dishonoured the character of God. To spare Agag
was to charge God with partiality, was to give to His decree as iniquitous
character.
2. It degraded the whole transaction. When Israel and Saul went forth
to battle they were invested with the awful dignity of executing a Divine
judgment. But Saul’s conduct would have made it simply a vulgar marauding
expedition.
3. It involved a degradation of religion God is regarded as One who
might overlook the disobedience if only He is made a sharer in the spoil. (Homiletic
Magazine.)
Obedience better than
sacrifice
I. The prophet’s
assertion, “To obey is better than sacrifice.” The sense in which be here uses
the word “better” is obvious. He means to say that it, is more pleasing and
agreeable to the will of God. The word sacrifice, in the text, may be
understood as comprising the whole of the Jewish Ritual, or that prescribed
form of ceremonial observances, consisting of offerings, purifications, and
solemnities of different kinds, to which they wore required strictly add
circumstantially to adhere. Let us next enquire into the meaning of the term
obedience, as it is here used. Obedience in general signifies compliance with
the revealed will of God. But this compliance may be two fold, either outward
or inward From this explanation, then, of the terms employed, we may now see
the meaning of the prophet’s assertion, when he declared that “to obey is
better than sacrifice.” He meant to assert that “an inward and habitual
disposition of heart to fear and obey God is far more pleasing in His sight
than the most correct and scrupulous attention to the positive institutions of
religion, where this disposition is wanting.” That such is the meaning of this
passage appears more certain from the several assertions to the same effect
which are scattered throughout the Scriptures. What does the Lord declare by
His prophet Hosea? “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of
God more than burnt offering.” Attend also to the following passage from the
prophet Micah: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten
thousands of rivers of oil?”
II. What, then, may
we conclude were the prophet’s reasons for this assertion?
1. That obedience of which he speaks, that inward submission of the
heart to God, that habitual disposition of the soul to fear and serve Him, is
the one grand requisite in religion. That man has most religion who has most
piety; who in his soul most constantly realises the presence, most humbly bows
to the will, most sincerely desires the favour, and most devoutly longs for the
glory of God. And hence it is that the fear of God, as comprehending all these
constituent parts of true piety, is so frequently used in Scripture for the
whole of religion.
2. Another reason was this: The end of sacrifice itself was but to
promote and secure obedience. It is true that the greater part of these
institutions were of a typical nature, and had a typical meaning. This was
their immediate design; but their ultimate object in all this design was to
lead men to holiness and to teach them to worship God in spirit and in truth.
And now let us apply it to our own case, and see how far we are concerned in
the conclusions to which this discussion has led. In the first place, then, let
us remember that true religion under every dispensation is the same. The
internal and spiritual part of religion is the same now as it has always been.
There is as great a propensity among many who are called Christians, unduly to
appreciate and exalt the external and ceremonial part of religion, to the
neglect and injury of the internal and spiritual part of it as there ever was
among the people of Israel. I will produce some few instances in proof and
illustration of this remark. Some, like Saul of old, act as if they thought
that an attention to the positive institutions of religion would excuse, or
even justify the disobedient and unhumbled state of their heart. Again, there
are others who act like those Pharisees of old, whom our Lord condemned for
their hypocrisy and iniquity; who “paid tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, but
omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.” They are
mere formalists in religion. Further, there are still other persons, who regard
and use the positive institutions of religion with a superstitious regard. They
think that the very attendance on them communicates a portion of sanctity to
the soul, and secures an interest in the blessings and privileges of the
Gospel. These are some of the ways in which persons unduly appreciate and exalt
the external and ceremonial part of religion, to the prejudice of real
spiritual Christianity. I would wish you to go from the performance of these
outward duties with your affections more weaned from the world, and more set on
things above; with your faith strengthened, your hops increased, your love
inflamed, your desires after spiritual things enlarged, and more ardent. (E.
Cooper.)
The supremacy of obedience
The supremacy of obedience
in religion. Nothing can justify its absence, can make up for failures in it.
1. The moral element in religion, to which obedience belongs, is in
the Scriptures exalted high above the ceremonial of which sacrifice is a part.
2. Obedience is of the essence and spirit of religion, whereas
sacrifice is one of its forms. Our religious forms and services draw their
meaning and value from the spirit of obedience in which they are rendered.
3. Obedience is itself an end in religion whereas sacrifice is simply
the means to that end. To train His people in obedience, to set, up and
enthrone this great principle in their natures, God instituted the whole round
of sacrifice and service in the old dispensation.
4. Obedience is continuous and eternal, whereas sacrifice is
intermittent, and may cease.
Apply this principle to
two cases:
1. To those who are willing to serve God, but only in their own way.
Religious service is a matter of personal assertion. It is far easier to
indulge our own impulses and fulfil our own energy of will in methods of our
own, than to work where and as God has appointed, in daily self-denial.
2. To those who imagine that they can cover moral failures by
religious gifts and services, who act as though the faults of daily life could
be covered by large gifts to religion, and diligent attention to its forms. God
will never accept sacrifice in the place of obedience. The sacrifice of the
cross draws its value and merit from the perfect obedience, the complete
submission of the Incarnate Son. (Homiletic Magazine.)
Obedience
One of the strongest
proofs of a sound religion is to be thankful for any heights which it is
possible to scale; but to be much more thankful for the continuous valley in
which human duty is best discharged. In all true religions, especially in those
like the one in which you and I believe, there are at times inducements to
spiritual rapture and spiritual depression. Sometimes these aspects are the
main ones, but, as Samuel says to the old king, “To obey is better than
sacrifice; and hearkening to God than the fat of rams.” All through Christ’s
life, however deep any man’s devotion, He said it was not those who in an
enthusiastic ecstatic passionate manner, say, “Lord, Lord, but those who do the
will of the Father in heaven,” who were acceptable. He did not mean by this to
rebuke only the hypocrite, but those whose religion consisted of rapture,
enthusiasm, and ecstatics. There is in a religion corresponding to these
homely, commonplace affairs a principle higher than prayer; deeper than
feeling; more admirable than rapture--the ordinary unvarying principle of
obeying. Unfortunately, a great deal of religion means far more importance to
confessions of religion than it does to the great downright common sense of
honest, unchanging, unchangeable religion. Too much of our religion has been
experimental; too much rapture, and too much depression. Read the 119th Psalm,
that great lyric of obedience, one of the greatest things that man ever wrote.
Never were the two songs of faith and obedience so sweetly mixed together. “Thy
word is a lamp unto my feet.” “Teach me Thy statutes.” “Order my footsteps.”
There is as much of poetry and the practical in that one psalm as in all other
compositions. It came from the true soul of a great man. This obedience, or as
we call it, duty, is independent of all feeling. Am I secure tomorrow of the
emotion which I feel today? All things conspire with me and against me. There
are times when the soul is barren, days when the old familiar passages of the
poets will not stir you, days of the ordinary and commonplace, days when the
common things of life seem to sink below the common, and seem offensive in
their minuteness, when there seems very little in life, when good is felt to be
very far off. At these times is there nothing for me to do? Yes! for here comes
the great solemn cry--“obey!” Never mind whether it is plain ground or not. “To
obey is better than sacrifice.” If obedience springs from habit, it may not be
lovable, but it is useful, and it is always good. Unconscious obedience is
good, the perfectness of a man’s habit shows the depth of his original
teaching, though there are times when habit sets itself up at the expense of
thought, still it is like capital, and not to be despised. Habit is more than
effort, the ease with which a man does a thing without thinking shows well how
he learnt his lesson. It is comparatively independent of thought; it may exist
upon a vow; it may exist for years upon a promise. The soldier who is once
enlisted is not constantly thinking of the foundations of his obedience; the
dress he wears, the sign upon the banner, the name borne by him will even
assist him. To do the will of God and keep His commandments--it is the height
of true religion, it is the basis of true religion. The greatest enthusiasts do
not throw it aside; the biggest rationalists, with all their ribaldries, are in
favour of it; the Romish Church, with all its pomps, believes in the commandments.
We do not say that a man cannot be obedient, and at the same time rapturous; we
do not say it is not possible to have both sacrifice and obedience; we do not
say that a man cannot have rapture and prayer, and keep the commandments--but
“obedience is better than sacrifice.” The obedient man is most unlikely to
trust in himself. He who learns obedience will seldom trust in it. The most
obedient man is the one who says, “I am as unprofitable servant.” When men get
wise they will rind that obedience is not only safety, but that it has a beauty
of its own. Its ready presence under all circumstances, its infusion into all
things, its continuance, when faith is gone, hope is low, prayer is impossible,
trust is broken, when God seems for a time out of sight, when immortality is a
dream, when friends are faithless, when the heart is sad, is not that noble
which is not driven by things like these? Is not that the grace of graces which
stays under these circumstances? Those who know where true beauty lies love flowers.
Not your big exotics of foreign bloom which have to be put in glass houses--but
the green grass of old England that knows no time, that the frost cannot kill,
which bears the leaf and still is there, flowering by the wayside; which
resists all pressure, defies all storms, always in season, never in bloom. That
is obedience; and if you do not see its beauty you will get wiser perhaps as
you get older, and learn, at last, its constant, unchanging, unvarying, homely,
humble, and yet truly beauteous aspect that renders it the greatest of graces,
and the noblest of duties; better than sacrifice, deeper than prayer, loftier
than rapture, always in season. Underlying the emotion which belongs to all
creeds, possible to all peoples, obedience will never do any harm, if it does
no good. If it will not save men, it will not kill them. But it will do good.
“Obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
Better to do the will of God than to be courteous, ecstatic, devotional, or
enthusiastic. (G. Dawson, M. A.)
Willfulness of Saul
In these words are
contained a lesson which Saul had never learnt. He served God and appeared
zealous in His cause, so far as the way of doing this suited his own pleasure
and purposes; “all that was vile and refuse” of the goods of the Amalekites,
“that he destroyed utterly;” but whenever self had to be denied, and God’s will
made the rule of action instead of his own, then he rebelled. Even in the
apparently religious act of worshipping God, after the severe rebuke which
Samuel inflicted on him, his words are, “Honour me now, I pray thee, before the
elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may
worship the Lord thy God,” his own honour seems to have been that which
prompted him to worship and not sorrow for his sin. In fact, Saul never really
worshipped God at all, he worshipped self, and he never learnt this great and
important truth, that obedience to God is the only thing pleasing in His eyes,
and that whatever a man may do from motives of selfishness, yea, though he
fight God’s battles and advance His religion, it is all displeasing in His
sight, “who seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looketh on the heart.” The subject, then, which is brought before
us by the text is this, that simple obedience to God’s commands is the only
thing which is really pleasing in His sight. You must observe that Saul was not
an open rebel. And part of the command he certainly had performed; in fact he
had performed it just so far as it required no self-denial. And so may Saul
stand to us as a type of those who profess to be Christians, and act in a
measure as Christians, and who nevertheless follow their own ways, just as
though they were under no Christian vows at all. Let us look at one or two
examples of great and holy men in Scripture, and see how the example of
obedience was set by them. Remember Abraham, and how he was proved and found
faithful. Moses was ordered by God to go and appear in His name before Pharaoh,
and though it was a dangerous mission, and he felt himself unfitted for the
work, yet he obeyed. The holy Apostles also were simply called by Christ, and
commanded to follow Him, and they obeyed. But why should I quote other
examples, when we have that of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom we read that He
“became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” You may observe also
that Abraham and Moses, whom I have quoted as two eminent examples of
obedience, are two of those whom the Apostle has mentioned in his catalogue of
men of faith. In fact, faith and obedience are necessary parts of each other;
there can be no obedience without faith, and faith without obedience is dead
And it is easy to see that Saul was a man without faith. The duty of obedience
is put in a very high place by the text, when it tells us that obedience is
better than sacrifice. You will observe that Saul made God’s service the excuse
for breaking His commands: to make offerings to God was no more than it was his
duty to do, but then it was not to be done at the expense of a still higher
duty: no sacrifice, however costly, could possibly make amends for breaking
God’s law in one single point. And has not this been so from the beginning?
When Adam end Eve were placed in the garden of Eden they were not placed there
without a law: the command given them was simple indeed, but still it was a
command, by keeping of which only they could stand; had Adam offered never so
many sacrifices, had called never so much on the name of the Lord, yet if he
eat of the forbidden tree he was guilty. In speaking of obedience to God’s laws
I have not, of course, so much in view the great moral laws. No one would fancy
that he might murder or steal; but obedience to God is something much more than
this. It is not an occasional act of obedience which we are called upon to do,
it is a constant battle against ourselves, and against the evil nature within
us, and a constant striving to root out all desires and thoughts which are
contrary to the will of God. Perhaps I am presenting here the sterner face of
religion; nevertheless, though it be not so pleasant to think of what we owe to
God, as to speak of what He has done for us, yet it is for our good to keep in
mind the vows and obligations which are upon us, and to remember that our
Christian profession does mean something, and that to be a soldier of Christ is
not merely a matter of words, but something very real and substantive indeed. (H.
Goodwin, M. A.)
Obedience better than
sacrifice
Great and glorious is
sacrifice; final and abiding its effects. On that sacrifice all access to God
depends. By faith in that sacrifice does every sinner in every age approach
God. What can we conceive greater, better, more honoured, more glorious? God
has given it us to trust to: He has given it us also to imitate. Let sacrifice
be our rule of life: sacrifice for God and for man; sacrifice for love: to
spend and to be spent, as He spent and was spent, who was our Sacrifice. Let
our whole life be a sacrifice; rendered up to Him with whose precious blood we
ere bought. Too much we cannot think of, trust to, realise in our hearts and
lives, that his sacrifice. And yet when we have meditated on it all we can,
when we have cast ourselves in humble trust on its efficacy, when we have
magnified it in our esteem, and striven to live it out in our lives--even then
there is one thing better, one thing greater, one thing more glorious--one
thing before which even the lustre of the Redeemer’s sacrifice pales: before
which all other sacrifice is worthless and not to be mentioned. And that more
glorious thing is--obedience. The Lord’s sacrifice was but part of His
obedience. “Being found in fashion as a man,” from whom obedience was due, “He
become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Listen to his own
prophetic words: “Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not: then said I, lo I
come, to do thy will, O God.” That is, “sacrifice and offering do not fulfil,
do not exhaust Thy holy will: it is not suffering, it is not expenditure of blood,
but it is the calm and willing submission to Thee, the ruling life after thy
way, the direction of thought, word, and deed, body, soul, and spirit,
affection and energies, in the line of thy blessed will--this it is which
includes sacrifice--this which, more than that sacrifice, because of wider
extent, and fuller capacity, pleases and glorifies Thee.” And this the Redeemer
came to do, and amply fulfilled. It is to obedience that Bethlehem owes all its
carols, Genesareth all its miracles, Calvary all its glories, Olivet all its
triumph. His miracles, His teachings, His lovings: none of these reaches over
the length and breadth and depth and height of His glorification of the Father:
but His obedience does: in this one word all is compromised: His death, as its
noblest example. His obedience was greater than His death, for it included it:
more glorious than his death, for it gave it all its virtue for propitiation,
and all its power to save sinners. His death is past and gone by. “He dieth no
more.” But His obedience abides foreverse “And when all things shall have been
put under Him, then shall the Son Himself also be mede subject to Him who puts
all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” Truly, then, His obedience
is His one character, His glory of glories. Let us come down now from the
propitiation of the Redeemer as part of His perfect obedience, to our own
little circle of duties, appointed for us as His were for Him. “To obey is
better than sacrifice,” is in some little danger of being forgotten among us,
or at all events not remembered as it should be. And I will tell you in what
particular way. Religion, among us, has taken a certain fixed place and
standing: has been worked, so to speak, into the fabric of society. Its words
and phrases, and certain conventional duties corresponding to them, have gained
the freedom of the world’s citizenship, and are no longer the peculiar badge
which they once were. Certain points of religious morality are made much of,
and properly, by all who would be thought religious, even in the ordinary
respectable sense of the word. We live, there can be no doubt of it, in days of
great religious stir; in days of great sacrifice, and likewise of great
opportunity of appearance of sacrifice at very little cost: in days when, only
to give you one instance of that which I mean, a rich man, sitting in his
library, may without ever putting forth a hand to actual charitable work pour
by a few strokes of his pen his thousands along the various channels of public
and private beneficence. And there is some danger, there is much danger, lest
we should mistake all this sacrifice at so cheap a rate, all this doing good
made easy, for the patient faith, the lowly obedience, the blessed and blessing
beneficence of the Christian life. Is there not, then, here, while sacrifice is
enjoined, truth in doctrine rigorously maintained, party opinion and party
limits inflexibly observed, and yet the very plainest rules of Christian
conduct and Christian self-denial publicly violated--is there not and must
there not be a forgetting of obedience in comparison of sacrifice? When those
who would not for any earthly consideration overstep some prescribed line of
observance, are for pleasure and the display of person almost daily
overstepping the sobriety of the Christian life and the fair limits of
Christian example, surely we may say that we are losing obedience in our care
for sacrifice. All the sacrifice for which we are called on, should be part,
of, should spring out of, our personal life with God Our profession should
revolve round our practice, not our practice round our profession. Our
obedience should not be confined to things convenient and times convenient, but
being the fruit of love shed abroad in our hearts, should extend over all things
and all times. (H. Alford, B. D.)
Obedience better than
sacrifice
I. That in which
God delights.
1. Obedience. Obedience to God becomes the best educator of man’s
moral faculties. And obedience will prompt and rightly estimate material
sacrifice.
2. In such material sacrifice as is the pure and simple
correspondence of an obedient heart. Material bulk is not necessarily moral
wealth. Material things are hardly wealth at all in this relation. Truth has no
mechanical measurement. Love is worthier than the fat of rams.
3. All true sacrifice, then, is moral in ire essence and beginning.
The spirit of obedience will prompt the acceptable deed.
II. Saul’s fatal
disregard of God’s command. Note several particulars:--He did not seriously
realise the circumstances of the case. He forgot who Amalek was, and what he
had done in the past to Israel. The prophecy of Balaam (Numbers 24:20) had doubtless never really impressed him. The success of the sword
had made him forget the word.
1. A man in such a state of wilful inattention is most liable to
disobey. From scant attention will spring moral obliqueness He has hardly
reflected what obedience demands. He is filled more with the spirit of selfish
conceit than as anxious endeavour to do God’s will.
2. Disobedience is loss of God’s favour. “Ill-gotten gains breed
weary pains, and one wrong act a life-long fact. The wrong step of a king will
ruin bring.”
III. Samuel’s
impassioned rebuke. This rebuke was thus aflame for several reasons,
1. Because specific direction had been given, and reasons for the
attack.
2. Because from the first Samuel himself had ever desired to listen
unto God; but Saul was not seriously attentive.
3. Because of the flagrant disobedience of Saul.
4. Because of Saul’s untruthfulness.
5. Because of his feeble attempt to evade both the questioning of
Samuel and the inevitable issue which he knew must ensue. Obedience is honour;
disobedience disgrace. And obedience is the devotion of the heart, without
which material sacrifices, however costly, are worthless. (Homiletic
Magazine.)
The commands of God to be
obeyed
Consider some of the
lessons of instruction which we may derive from the narrative.
1. Learn, first, that whenever God’s commands are plain we are not to
question or alter them so as to suit our inclinations, but implicitly to obey
them. Have we no Sauls among God’s professing people at this day--persons who
perform some duties, and neglect others equally imperative upon them? Is our
obedience thus partial? Are there some sins in which we live continually, some
duties which we constantly neglect? Think not that the discharge of one duty
will be any excuse for the neglect of another; nay, rather be assured that this
itself proves your heart not to be right with God.
2. Learn from this subject that if we would have our sins forgiven,
we must be deeply sensible of the evil of them, and confess them heartily unto
God. Such was far from being the case with Saul. Hear him represent his own
cause, and you can scarcely find anything wrong, even in those transactions in
which you are sure there must be great blame.
3. Learn, again, from the narrative to be solicitous for the honour
that cometh from God, and not for that of men. We see that Saul, when convicted
by Samuel of having so imperfectly executed the commission God had given him,
is far more anxious that he should pay him respect before the elders and the
people than that be should pray, to God for him that his sin might be pardoned.
And such is the case with formalists in general: they are anxiously sensitive
to the opinion of their fellow creatures; comparatively careless about the
estimation in which they may be held by the great Ruler of heaven and earth.
4. Learn lastly, from this account, that, though Almighty God bear
with much long-suffering the conduct of sinners, He will at length execute
righteous judgment; and that be forgets neither the injuries nor the benefits
done to his people. The Amalekites had unjustly opposed Israel on their
departure out of Egypt: their descendants imitated the conduct of their
fathers, and now God determined their destruction. “It is a righteous thing
with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are
troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with
his mighty angels.” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10) (J. Grantham.)
The true spirit of worship
Obedience to the will of
God is the essence of all worship. Divine worship is not left to the unaided
reason of man. It is an institution and appointment of God.
1. Worship is unacceptable when the form is used for the spirit. How
much of this spiritless worship pollutes our sanctuaries! How much of empty
form is in our professed devotion! Is it a prayer? “It is all title page
without contents.” Is it praise? Is it only music without the heart? A soulless
instrument would be as expressive.
2. Worship is unacceptable when the right form is accompanied with a
wrong life. Saul intended to perform a great religious service to the Lord with
the gains of his successful warfare. If the worshipper is living in wilful
transgression of God’s Word, his exercises of devotion are no service of God.
3. The disobedience of the heart is the only acceptable worship. “To
obey is better than sacrifice.” The heart must act in accordance with the
Divine will. The motive must be right. “God,” says an old divine, “weighs not
the affections of His people to Him by their actions, so much as their actions
by their affections.” When Abraham offered up his son it was the submission of
his soul to the word from heaven that pleased God. Every part of Divine worship
must be in accordance with the will of God. He has revealed His word as our
directory. The test of worship is the Scripture. Whatever rites are
inconsistent with that word are to be repudiated. The voice of the Lord hath
spoken, and it sanctions no sacrifice now since Christ became our propitiation.
The voice of the Lord has spoken, and it commands that nothing be added to the
revelation of God. (R. Steel.)
Sacrifice interpreted
We need to have the laws
of God presented to us in severality, but also in their essence and sum. This
old Hebrew judge soars above the confusion and superstition of his age, and
anticipates some of the loftiest disclosures of revelation. Spiritual
discernment--the instinct of the Divine in us--anticipates and interprets
experience. How simple and direct religious duty appears when so presented! But
“flesh and blood” did not reveal this truth to Samuel.
I. Obedience to
God is the truth of sacrifice. The ceremonial law was not to be divorced from
the moral, they were mutually explicative and helpful. This is “reasonable
service.”
1. The principle common to both. This was found in surrender to God.
The sacrifice was an acknowledgment that all that a man has is God’s; and as
representing this “all,” of which it was but a small part, it was a valid and
acceptable offering, analogous to a “peppercorn rent,” or the fanciful services
exacted of crown-landlords, sinecurists, etc., in feudal times.
2. Consequent identifications (verse 23). There is nothing
corresponding to “as” in the Hebrew. It is a simple, bold equation: “For the
sin of witchcraft is rebellion, and idols and teraphim is stubbornness.” A
great gain in such analogies; the outward ritual is shown to be accompanied by
a spiritual attitude, of which it is the outcome; and as such it ceases to be
trifling. The lustful man is a worshipper of “nothing,” i.e., idols, as
the term used in the Hebrew implies; the disobedient is an idolater of self. A
similar gain to science was realised when the “correlation of physical forces”
was discovered, and men spoke of “heat as a mode of motion,” etc.
3. The spiritual expression of this principle is superior to the
ceremonial. Besides being constant and self-evident, it is more immediately
associated with our life. As involving will in its offering, it involves that
which is most essential to our personality. The will has been called “the inner
man.” It more directly and consciously contains in it our self-hood. Yet both
are imperfect. The spiritual worshipper is conscious that his obedience is not
complete; that he himself is incapable of the sacrifice of which he
nevertheless can conceive. So his gaze is drawn to Calvary and concentrated
there. In Christ the ideal of sacrifice, and yet, not more than that which God
requires, is presented. By appropriating that, identifying ourselves with it,
we realise “the obedience of faith.”
II. Obedience to
God is the source of real authority over men. “Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, He hath rejected thee from being king.” All true kingship and
efficient government is rooted in God. The ruler who ignores or defies the
principles of morality signs his own death warrant. The secret of the “unstable
equilibrium” of the governments of the world lies in their failure to recognise
this. The true leaders of men are those who in the first instance obey conscience.
A moral principle is in the end mightier than a parliament. Writers, public
leaders, etc., would do well to lay to heart the fate of Saul. Had he denied
“self,” he would have kept his throne. (St. John A. Frere, M. A.)
Obedience better than
sacrifice.
Saul’s conduct is a type
of human nature in manifesting--
1. A disinclination to render a full and complete obedience to God’s
expressed will.
2. A proneness to render that to God which He does not require, and
withholding that which He demands.
3. In the excuses he makes for his disobedience. The paramount
importance of obedience will appear from the following remarks:--
I. All things are
considered by the Almighty as subordinate to His law.
II. Every
infringement of law entails punishment.
1. Punishment will certainly follow sin, as pain and suffering follow
an infringement of the material laws of the universe.
2. The protracting of the punishment is no proof of its abandonment.
3. The final punishment of the disobedient will be eternal in its
effect. Saul’s posterity lost the throne of Israel forever.
III. In order to
atone for the guilt of men who have infringed the law of God, the greatest
sacrifice has been offered. All the sacrifices under the old dispensation were
to illustrate and honour law. Christ appeared in our nature to put away sin by
the sacrifice of Himself. (T. D. Jones.)
Verse 23
Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.
Rebellion against God all malignant as witchcraft
To rebel against the clearest light and most express declaration
of the will of God: this is an action of the like malignity, even as the sin of
witchcraft. When a crime is said to be “as the sin of witchcraft,” the meaning
is that it is a fault of so heinous and provoking a nature that the obstinate
commission of it is altogether inconsistent with all true principles of
religion, and, in effect, a total renunciation of them. The word “iniquity,” in
the latter part of the text, is iniquity towards God, the forsaking His
worship, the denying Him His true honour, the turning from Him to false gods,
or joining them with Him; and therefore it is expressed by two words together,
iniquity and idolatry. Which two words in this place do not signify two
distinct things, but are of the same import as if it had been said in one, the
iniquity of idolatry, the perverseness or unrighteousness of serving false
gods. This their disobedience in any one known instance of immorality, this
their rebellion, is as the sin of witchcraft; and their stubbornness is as the
iniquity of idolatry. Their refusing to obey the true God, whom they profess to
worship, is like serving a false one. For wherein consists the iniquity of
idolatry, and the wickedness of serving false gods; but in this, that it
derogates from the majesty of the true God, and denies Him that honour which is
His alone peculiar due? Not that there are not degrees of disobedience in
rebelling against God; but that a wilful stubbornness in any particular disobedience
is absolutely inconsistent with the favour of God, and that there may be a
perverseness in persisting habitually in single sins, even like to the
perverseness of a total apostasy. One mortal wound destroys a man, as certainly
as many; and incorrigible obstinacy in the practice of any sin, may be of equal
malignity even as idolatry itself. Equal not perhaps as to the degree of the
particular punishment it shall bring upon him; but equal as to the certainty of
its bringing him in general to condemnation. God requires that men should serve
Him with their whole heart. But the folly of wicked men will distinguish where
there is no distinction; and they will serve God in what manner only, and in
what instances they please. This is that great deceitfulness of sin. The
external, the formal and ceremonial part of religion, they will possibly be
very fond of, but the inward and real virtues of the mind, meekness and purity,
humility and charity, equity, simplicity and true holiness, for these they
would gladly commute, and make amends with any compensation. This is the great
and general corruption; this has in all times and in all places been the first
and the last error in matters of religion. Saul would needs sacrifice unto the
Lord his God, out of those very spoils, which he had presumptuously taken,
against God’s express command. In following ages the whole nation of the Jews
would in like manner be always very diligent, in offering their sacrifices and
oblations, as if that would make amends for the viciousness of their lives. And
yet how often did the scriptures admonish them to the contrary (Psalms 50:13; Ecclesiastes 5:1; Isaiah 1:11; Isaiah 1:16; Hosea 6:6). Even in our Saviour’s time,
after all these repeated admonitions, the Pharisees still continued to value
themselves upon their mere external performances; and yet that very Scribe who
was sent to tempt him, could not but acknowledge to our Lord that He had said
the truth in affirming that for a man to love God with all his heart, and . . .
his neighbour as himself; was more than all whole burnt offerings and
sacrifices (St. Mark 12:33). They would with great
superstition wash the outside of their cups and pots, while the inside of their
own hearts was full of unrighteousness and all uncleanness. In a word, they
would do anything rather than what was right and ought to be done; and
therefore our Saviour declares, that except our righteousness exceeds the
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, we shall in no case enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven. Among the several corrupters of Christianity likewise, what
is it that men have not been willing to undertake, what journeys and
pilgrimages, what hardships and abstinences, what voluntary humilities and
uncommanded austerities, what profuse gifts to monasteries or religious
societies, and unbounded zeal for propagating what they call right opinions,
that is, such as happen to prevail, or be in fashion amongst them; instead of
serving God with simplicity of devotion and loving their neighbours as
themselves? If a man runs in a race, yet if he takes a shorter way to the mark,
sad runs not in that course which is by the rules appointed and marked out, his
labour is in vain; and if a man professes to serve God, yet if he serves Him
not in that method of obedience which God Himself requires, but will go a
nearer way to heaven, either according to his own humour and fancy, or in the
way of any human invention whatsoever, instead of the plain rules of reason and
scripture, he may justly fall short of his reward. But no description of the
perverseness of this sort of sinning can set it forth in so lively a manner as
the giving some historical examples of it. And I shall mention two, which
contain a more exact representation of the nature of this stubbornness than any
explication of it in words could do. The one is the behaviour of Saul, in the other
actions of his life, besides that referred to in the text; the other is the
behaviour of the Jews, in their passage through the wilderness towards the
promised land. When God commanded them to return back into the wilderness, then
on the contrary they would go up into the land which the Lord had promised
them, and would fight for it presumptuously, and were defeated. In these
instances their rebellious disposition was as the sin of witchcraft, and their
stubbornness like to the iniquity of idolatry (S. Clark, D. D.)
Discord and Harmony
Among the moral difficulties of the Old Testament is the apparent
disproportion between particular acts of sin and the temporal punishment with
which God visited them. Even when we have considered the points on which Dr.
Mozley insists in his masterly lectures upon “Ruling Ideas in Early Ages”: when
we have recognised how God accommodated, as it were His will to the possible or
current conceptions of men’s minds, that out of each stage in the education of
our race He might elicit the very best character that it could produce: even
when we have made allowance for the need of teaching rough people by rough
means, and of driving plain truths into the heart of a rude and obdurate age by
strong and sudden judgments:--still it may be strange to us that the most awful
weapons in all the armoury of wrath should be sometimes brought out against
offences which at first seem little more than faults of taste or policy or a
passing temper: faults such as even good men might commit in a moment of
carelessness or irritation, or on what we should call their unlucky days. How
could it be equitable in a life thus rude and wild, a life where only the
broadest distinctions were as yet apparent, and where the subtler lines of
moral definition had not yet been traced, to doom with so terrible a sentence
the hasty word of an angry woman or of a soldier flushed with peril and
victory? Surely a part of the answer to such questions is found when we reflect
how infinitely different may be in different lives the moral significance of
the very same act. It is not only that the real quality of every action depends
upon its motive: there is often a further and a deeper meaning to be read in
the inner history of that character out of which, perhaps, the motive itself
has come. That which on the surface seems too trivial to be heeded, may be the
only outward evidence of a change which has been going on in us for years;
there perhaps alone may be revealed the drift and volume of the stream which
from some far-off spring has been flowing for many a mile beneath the ground:
and the silent, secret course of half a lifetime may be betrayed beyond recall
in that one glimpse. There are trivial acts which may disclose the bygone
stages of our moral history, just as some trick of gesture or pronunciation
lets out the secret of a man’s parentage or nationality, or as some faint and
useless trait connects a species with the ancestry of its evolution. Some such
critical significance in Saul’s neglect of the Divine command seems to be
suggested in the strange comparison by which Samuel illustrates it:
“Rebellion,” he says, “is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is at
iniquity and idolatry.” The likeness is not, on the surface, clear; there seems
no near or necessary connection between disobedience and superstition: but
perhaps their link of kindred may appear if we look more closely into the
meaning and history of the act which had provoked the sentence. We shall, I
think, find it to have been the outcome and revelation of a deep disorder such
as always tends to bewilder or distort the religious impulses of the soul. The
spirit then which came to Saul on that great day of his anointing was the
prophetic spirit of insight into the true drift and order of the world: he was
admitted to the counsels of the Almighty, and recognised the Divinity that
shapes our ends. Thus was be prepared to reign: thus did he see the truth of
history in all its lines stretched out and ordered in the sight of God: thus
did he learn the law whose conscious service was to be his sovereignty. What
might not Saul have been, where might he not have placed his name among the
beloved and blessed of God and men, if only he had enthroned the revelation of
that day for undivided empire in his heart: if only, like another Saul, he
could have looked back to the day of his conversion and declared that he had
not been disobedient unto the heavenly vision: if only like him he had
thenceforward striven “to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christy.” For is not this the secret of all his failure and misery, his
madness and his superstition, is not this the deep significance of hit
sin--that while he saw the Light he would not live by it? he knew the Law and
would not work by it: he heard the Counsel of God and held hit will apart from
it. “He was,” says Dean Stanley, “half-converted, half-aroused; his mind moved
unequally and disproportionately in its new sphere”: until “the zeal of a
partial conversion degenerated into a fanciful and gloomy superstition.” All
through his life there went the maddening elements of discord: day after day
the higher and the lower fought within him for the throne of his irresolute,
distracted heart: day after day he woke to hear two voices clashing and
disputing for his guidance: and now he followed one and now the other: yet when
he chose the better he still looked wistfully at the lower life, and when he
chose the worse he trembled at the thought of God. He could neither say, with
the frank self-degradation of the heathen satirist, “I see the better and
approve it: I pursue the worse”; nor yet with the man after God’s own heart,
“Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and I will walk in Thy truth: O knit my heart unto
Thee, that I may fear Thy Name.” And so he lived in discord, and he reigned by
anarchy: restless and aimless, suspicious and dissatisfied, halting between
light and darkness, and beset in that twilight by weird unhealthy thoughts like
the evil dreams that make it bliss to wake, ever falling away from that which
he saw and owned as God-like There is surely a deep meaning in the submission
with which such a life as his welcomes the influence of music. The moral
discord, the distraction and disorder of his will spread at times over all the
powers of the mind: and the strain and irritation of that restless conflict
broke out in gusts of terror and frenzy. “And it came to pass, when the evil
spirit from God was upon Saul that David took an harp, and played with his
hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from
him.” Even through his misery there came the great and constant prophecy of
music: above the discord of his soul he heard those merciful echoes of a higher
harmony; he knew that somewhere out, side all the chaos of his broken life, there
were steadfast principles of melody, and calm and measured ways, and the
eternal rhythm of an undisturbed song: he felt once more that the Most High is
He Who sweetly and mightily ordereth all things, and there is peace for those
who love His law. For “there is a rest which remaineth for the people of God.”
That great prophecy of music is among us still: still “the true harmony of
tuneful sounds” helps men to be patient through distress and conflict, and to
hope that their steps may yet be led into the sure ways of peace In the recess
of a wall in the Catacomb of St Calixtus there is a painting of Orpheus: in his
left hand he holds a lyre: the right is raised as though to mark the rhythm of
his song: and round him are the wild beasts, tamed and hushed to listen while
he plays. There is no doubt that the picture represents our Blessed Lord.
Though the artist as he painted it was surrounded by the bodies of those who
for Jesus’ sake had borne the cruelty of persecution even unto death: though he
himself, it may be, had left all to follow Christ and to be a partaker of His
sufferings: still he knew Him as the Master of all Harmony, the Prince of
Peace: still he felt that only since be took the Crucified to be his Lord had
all the wild discord and conflict of his soul passed into mysterious and most
blessed confidence of union with an eternal law of Melody. And we, if out of
the confusion and bewilderment of our days, from the weakness and hesitation of
our faith, we look back with a bitter sense of severance and strangeness to the
simple and unhindered self-surrender of those saints of old: still let us hold
fast by this--which is indeed a truth that all may test and prove:--that in
proportion as the perfect obedience of the life of Christ comes through
humility and prayer and thought to be the constant aim of all our efforts: we
shall with growing hope and with a wonder that is ever lost in gratitude know
that even our lives are not without the earnest of their rest in an eternal
harmony. (F. Paget.)
Because thou hast rejected
the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.
Saul rejected
We walk through the streets and see a fellow creature who had
great abilities; who was once held in great esteem; for whom a brilliant future
was predicted. We see such an one presenting that combination of indescribable
symptoms which we expressively sum up in the one word “reduced.” And the
contemplation of such a wreck is singularly depressing; the disposition of him
who could witness it without sorrow in his greatest enemy is by no means to be
envied. Saul was such a man. His history is indeed melancholy. It is
perplexing, also. Many persons, I dare say, think Saul was, on the whole,
hardly treated. I can easily imagine one taking for granted that he was bad because
he is told so, and because God rejected him; but saying to himself that he does
not quite see that he was so bad--that he should never have expected to find
him so severely punished--that it is strange that David escaped on so much
easier terms. “What, sin did Saul ever commit so heinous as the sin of David?”
I. This
perplexity, and wrong estimate of Saul’s character, arises from various causes:
principally from our false views about sin and obedience. It happens that we
live in a state of society where many acts are at once offences against
society, and also sins against God. Influenced as we naturally are by what is
seen, we come, in time, to view as sins only those which are transgressions of
the laws of society, and to think little or nothing about those of which
society takes no note. So, too, about obedience. We think that it is like work
given to a servant. The more he does of it, the better servant he is. What his
feelings may be about his master make little difference, provided he gets
through his work. What he does is the only way in which we judge of him, as a
good or bad servant. Accordingly, we suppose God judges of us, His servants, by
the amount of our obedience. He issues a command, and, we suppose, the man who
obeys much of it must be better than the man who obeys very little. This is not
true. We may have gone with God’s command, just, so far as that command
coincided with our own inclination, and stopped short where the real and trying
exercise of an obedient spirit came in, where alone it was needed.
II. Guarding, then,
against these common and erroneous views about sin and obedience, let us come
to some of Saul’s acts. His falling away began from the circumstance recorded
in the thirteenth chapter and first verse. Samuel came and rebuked him. This
seems hard, especially when we consider the trying circumstances in which Saul
was placed at the time: powerful enemies near at hand--many of his people
fallen away--the rest following him, trembling--Samuel not coming--and, after
all, as people would say now, “It was only a matter of form. What difference
could it make, who offered the sacrifice?” “He showed a spirit above ritual
observances--above ceremony and order.” He certainly did. So did Naaman: and
both were made to see the folly of their presumption. Some anxiety would have
been natural in any man. But Saul was more than anxious. A distinct commandment
of God forbade him to offer sacrifice, and yet he did it to secure an end which
he thought to be desirable towards the overthrow of the Philistines. He forgot
that the most trifling matter, when once it became the subject of a Divine
command, ceased to be insignificant; if for no other reason, at least for this,
that its observance thereby became a test--not of regard to form, but--of obedience
to God. Now what disposition was manifested by this conduct? Was it not an
utter absence of that “faith, without which it is impossible to please God”?
What would be its effect, upon the people, when the excitement was over? What,
but to encourage them in their departure from the ordinances of Him from Whom
they longed to stray, and be as the heathen?
III. The Almighty,
then, did not reject this his first chosen King of Israel for any slight fault
or any momentary swerving from the path of obedience through ignorance or from
impulse, but for habitually and perseveringly going wrong in that very respect
which was of most consequence in the due execution of his office. He had to
meet the difficult question which met the Apostles, “whether he should obey God
rather than man.” They had no hesitation in arriving at a decision: neither had
he: but they decided it differently. If ever there was a time in which Saul
would have been appreciated, ours is that, time. Were he alive now he would be
just the man that would rise in the world--probably get into Parliament, lead a
party, perhaps become Prime Minister. He was the man for the people. A striking
man; able, energetic, fitted to command; above all, prepared to obey the Lord
just so far as, by suiting the people’s views, he should help to his own
exaltation. The popular religion or phase of any particular religion would be
his. All creeds just as far Divine as they were popular. None more the truth
than another. Saul’s day fell in an evil era, and, for him, under an evil
dispensation. In his time the tares and the wheat, did not “grow together till
the harvest.” The tares were rooted out at the time, and so people who came
could be shown what were pronounced tares by the Lord of the Harvest, and what
was their end. This is one very important, advantage we derive from the system
of temporal rewards and punishments and the special Providence under which the
Jews lived. By these means we can strive at, the principle on which His future
“judgment according to works” will be conducted. Thus, a line of conduct in
which we should have detected nothing very striking, either of good or of evil,
when marked with God’s disapproval, arrests our attention, leads us to
examination, and acts as a corrective to the erroneous judgment on human
conduct which the time or the society in which we live had led us to form in
our minds. Many would think that Saul had succeeded. Our Lord tells us that
this is impossible. The compromise, He says, cannot be effected. God’s
rejection of Saul shows us that he did not succeed. The characters condemned
and approved in the Old Testament are marked by the very same characteristics,
after all, as those which are condemned and approved in the New.
Double-mindedness, want of faith, loving this present world, loving, the praise
of men more than the praise of God, seeking to be friends with it, making that
our great aim, and the friendship of Him Who redeemed us secondary to that: a
determination to do our own will; a hesitation and insincerity in saying, come
what may, “Thy will be done”; these are ever the marks of those who are held up
as sad examples of inconsistency, to be deplored and to be avoided. (J. C.
Coghlan, D. D.)
Saul’s deserved and irrevocable doom
Before Samuel turned after Saul he delivered his conscience, and
pronounced the irrevocable doom against him. That doom was deserved, and it was
irrevocable
1. It was deserved. Saul was forewarned. He had received a plain
commission from God. He occupied a high position. He belonged to a nation that
had the light of Divine revelation. He was their king, and had pledged himself
to keep the constitution, which demanded obedience to the will of God. He was
the first king, and according to his conduct was the monarchy on the one hand,
and the subject people on the other, likely to be influenced. Obedience in his
case had been concentrated on important points; but in these he had
transgressed. It therefore repented the Lord that he had made Saul king. But
his purpose of a right theocracy under a man after his own heart was not to
fail: “The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man that
he should repent.”
2. It was irrevocable. God had solemnly declared that he would turn
the kingdom from Saul. He had never said that Saul would be kept in the kingdom
and found a dynasty in Israel. He was not bound to continue him in the office.
He had raised him to the throne that he might have a fair trial, and full
opportunity of acting aright. Saul was endowed by God with every advantage,
with kingly qualities, surrounded with a band of men whose hearts God had
touched, appointed to special commissions, and hedged up by every means likely
to aid his fidelity. But God might change the sovereignty. When, therefore, he
beheld Saul’s conduct he is said to have repented that He had made him king.
Here we find a principle which can bear a most extensive application. God’s
dealings with us are still wrought on the same plan. He has not given His word
regarding our circumstances here. He has not pledged Himself to continue them
as they have been. He may change these. He acts towards us as a judicious
teacher, and shapes His course according to our conduct. There are reasons in
our manner of action, proceeding from our abuse of mercies, which may
necessitate a change. He may alter our worldly position, and send adversity
instead of prosperity. He may lay a restraint upon our ambition, and make us
feel by sad experience the vanity of human wishes. He may afflict our
households, or prostrate ourselves. In this respect much depends upon the
individual with regard to the providence of life. It was Saul’s disobedience
that warranted the chastisement which he received, and the change in God’s mode
of dealing with him. (R. Steel.)
The character of Saul
1.The first thought which occurs to us is--In this its first king,
as in a mirror, behold Israel itself. Israel, like Saul, was chosen by God to
rule the people. Israel was gifted with grace sufficient and upheld by glorious
promises. But Israel, like Saul, has turned to his own way. Because he has
rejected the Lord, the Lord hath also rejected him from being king.
2. The second thought is--In this character behold multitudes among
ourselves reflected. How many are there, against whom nothing morally wrong can
be alleged, who are not prone to any palpable vice, who have tasted the good
word of God and the powers of the world to come, with whom everything for time
and eternity trembles on the balance, and the question is whether they will
serve the Lord in life or whether they will not. Saul forgot the Lord his God.
He sought not to Him for new supplies of that grace which had once been
imparted to him. He was like one of those foolish ones who slumbered with their
lamps burning, trusting that they would continue to burn on, but took no oil in
their vessels for a supply. He went on his way, and thought not of God. But if
forgetfulness of God be the passive symptom of the fatal disease, self-will is
the active one. It was this which misled Saul. He leaned to his own understanding.
He had his own ways, and his own calculations, where God’s will had been
already positively pronounced. (H. Alford, B. D.)
I have sinned.
Temporary religious feeling
“Some are frightened into a little religiousness in their straits
and deep necessities, but it is poor work and superficial work. They are like
an ice in thawing weather, soft at top and hard at bottom.” They melt, but to
no very great extent. It is upon the surface only that they yield to heavenly
influences. This is a sorry state of things, for it generally ends in a harder
frost than before, and the bonds of cold indifference bind the very soul. Let
those in whom there are any meltings of holy feeling take heed, for their
danger lies in being content with a partial subjection to gracious influences.
Grace will be all or nothing: the ice must all melt, and the soul must flow
like a riverse Jesus did not come to create temporary and partial religious
feeling, but to make new creatures of us. He will have nothing to do with those
Ephraimites who are as half-done cakes, which are black on one side with too
much baking, but have never been turned so as to feel the fire on the other
side. The centre of the heart must feel the warmth of Divine love, or nothing
is done. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
I feared the people and
obeyed their voice.
Saul’s excuse for disobedience
Saul makes three excuses for his disobedience, but they all shift
the responsibility for his sin. Observe:
1. Saul’s excuses are identical with those urged by sinners today: “I
intended to give some of it to God.” “I was over persuaded. I was overborne by
the influence of others.” “I did not sin wickedly and willfully.” “it was only
a mistake under a good motive.”
2. Saul confesses the flimsiness of his excuses. Some time or other
we must all come face to face with ourselves and stop making excuses, and cry,
“Pardon my sin”
3. Saul confessed too late. Our sins reach their bounds and meet
their penalty.
4. Saul repented only because he feared punishment.
5. Every man should make at once an honest self-examination.
6. When convicted of sin, we should without delay confess our sin. (Homiletic
Review.)
Thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath
rejected thee.
One sin too many
The whole story affords an extensive illustration of sin in almost
all of its phases of manifestation as judged by the righteous law of God.
1. We discover the simple nature of sin: it is disobedience of a
Divine command.
2. We learn, likewise, a lesson concerning the wide reach of sin.
Saul felt quite independent in his disobedience It is not possible for any man
to keep his sin all to himself. This universe is balanced with great nicety. It
cannot endure a sinner’s perversity without suffering any more than an oarsman
can tolerate a perverse boy in a boat; every time the self-willed creature
steps across the thwart he rocks the vessel, and makes it uncomfortable and
perilous for each one who has anything to do with him.
3. Next to this, we discover an illustration of the bold effrontery
of sin. Iniquity often tries to carry off shame with a show of daring, and
attempts to restore its self-confidence with a complacency of
self-congratulation.
4. Now comes a lesson concerning the certain discovery of sin. Guilt
always feels lonely; and yet, curiously enough, always imagines that everybody
knows about the crime. Conscience keeps the culprit excited, for he understands
that nature positively abhors transgression of law.
5. Once more: the story gives us an illustration of the evasive
meanness of sin.
6. Then we have a lesson concerning the hypocritical excuses offered
for sin.
7. Now just at this point we receive a lesson concerning the just
condemnation of sin.
8. There is likewise here an illustration of the aggregating force of
sin. It is hardly worth while to attempt to enumerate the acts of wickedness
which followed directly upon this first dereliction of Saul: treachery, lying,
vanity, covetousness, hypocrisy--these were among them. There are degrees of
depravity, no doubt; but all sin is bad, and tends to what is worse.
9. Still another lesson meets us here, and now it is concerning the
inevitable result of sin. Saul had reached the limit of Divine forbearance.
Indeed, he had already committed one sin too many. It was of no use for him to
plead for pardon any more. There is something very strange in the subsequent
career of this monarch; he seems bewildered and off his balance. All sin left
to itself is hopeless. The kingdom was taken from this man so that he should
not injure anyone else any more. Even heathen people know that is lust. When we
were at school we used to declaim this sentence from Demosthenes’ oration: “It
is not possible, O Athenians! that a power should be permanent which is marked
with injustice, perjury, and falsehood.” Hence, finally, sin becomes massed and
destructive. It is an Arab saying that we so often quote: “The last straw
breaks the camel’s back.” No; it is the whole load that kills the camel, but it
is the last straw which makes the load complete and intolerable. When the fall
of the beast comes, all the burden tells. A time arrives at the last when just
one more little act of rebellion against God discharges all the violence of
Divine wrath in an absolute reprobation. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Samuel declaring the deposition of Saul
Few characters more blameless than that of Samuel.
I. His office.
This was to declare the will of God. He was not called to decide or to
adjudicate, but to declare. When Saul was called to the kingdom, Samuel was
employed to declare to him the call of God (1 Samuel 9:17; 1 Samuel 9:20): He did not select,
but declare God’s selection. So when Saul was to be set aside. Samuel was
employed to declare his deposition (1 Samuel 15:28). He did not depose,
but declared God’s deposition
II. The spirit in
which he acted.
1. He was faithful to the Lord who sent him. He faithfully convicted
Saul of his disobedience (1 Samuel 15:14; 1 Samuel 15:17). He showed him the
hollowness of his vain excuses (1 Samuel 15:22-23). He fearlessly
and faithfully told him that the Lord had that day rent the kingdom from him (1 Samuel 15:26). Learn that those
who have a message from God must give it faithfully.
2. He was most tender to the sinner to whom he was sent. Had he given
way to personal jealousy, he might have been pleased at the fall of Saul; for
when he was old the people had asked for a king in a most ungrateful spirit.
But he showed no such mean jealousy.
1. When he heard of Saul’s fault he was grieved and spent the whole
night in prayer (1 Samuel 15:11). He did not give his
reproof in a hard and unfeeling spirit, but with a sorrowing heart. The lips
that seemed so severe in declaring judgment had been employed all night in
pleading for mercy.
2. When the sentence of God was announced, he did all he could to mitigate
the pain. It is the duty of the minister faithfully to denounce sin; but if he
would do so effectually, he must prepare the way by tenderness, tears, and
prayers; and he must accompany his painful message by a clear evidence of
sorrowful tenderness towards the sinner. Nothing tends more to harden sinners
than hard denunciation. (E. Horne, M. D.)
I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders
of my people.
True and false repentance
How may we discriminate between a merely seeming repentance and
genuine penitence? There is hardly a passage of Scripture which could render us
mere decided assistance than that portion of Saul’s history which here claims
attention.
I. We see that
though there was confession, it was not made until Saul was actually compelled
to make it, because the evidence of his sin was incontrovertibly clear. We see
that the confession is wrung from him inch by inch, end if, only comes at last
when, as far as the facts were concerned, it made no difference whether be
confessed or not, for he was proved to be guilty. We discover at once, in this
circumstance, the opposite of that state of mind which feels the weight of
personal sin, and which longs to unburden itself; and, as we compare it with
that scripture (Proverbs 28:13) we are compelled to
regard Saul’s action rather as a bungling attempt to cover his sin--an attempt
which, after all, did not succeed--than as that unburdening of conscious guilt
which is alone consistent with true penitence.
II. A second proof
against Saul’s real penitence is his attempt to palliate the crime which he had
confessed, by throwing the blame on other persons--“The people took of the
spoil.” According to his own view, he was more to be pitied than blamed--“I
feared the people, and obeyed their voice.”
III. A third proof
against Saul was his greater anxiety to have the forgiveness of Samuel than to
receive the pardon of God--the prominent place he gave to the one above the
other consideration. “Now, therefore. I pray thee, pardon my sin and turn again
with me that I may worship the Lord.” What argued that postponement of God’s
pardon till he was reconciled to man--what but that he treated it as a matter
which did not press immediately, which could be arranged subsequently? Could
any real mourner for sin have felt thus? with such a penitent, is not the
thought of God the One exciting, all-pervading idea in his contrition? How
strange the contrast presented by the case before us, to that view of sincere
repentance of which the Psalmist was the subject! There was fervour, indeed, in
Saul, but fervour in the wrong direction. He would press his point with the
prophet, and gain forgiveness if he could, but Samuel “turned about to go
away.”
IV. A fourth
circumstance which throws suspicion on the penitence of Saul--the manner in
which he showed that all his desire was to stand well in public estimation. He
had evidently forfeited his claim on the good opinion of those around him. It
was to be expected that, having lost the favour of God, he would lose the
regard of those around him. That must be an evil state of things which would
enable a wrong-doer to obtain from public opinion an award in his favour; and
what must have become of the cause of integrity--of honour--of justice--of all
that is excellent, where, by reason of the low state of moral feeling, the
voice of society is no longer heard to pronounce its verdict, distinctly and
emphatically, against evil-doers and in praise of those who do well. In this
respect, every community incurs a deep responsibility. To a rightly-constituted
mind, even the favourable verdict of public opinion would be of little worth,
except as it, echoed the verdict of the court of heaven. This is the highest
acquisition, “favour with God and man;” but the latter always in subordination
to the former, never as a substitute for it. Saul reckoned that the people would
think the better of him if he still ranked among the worshippers of God; he
knew that to have given this up would have told effectually against him. There
was something even beyond this. He knew that very much of the success of any
effort which he might make to keep his place in the good opinion of the
community would depend upon the way in which he was treated by Samuel. We blame
not Saul for being anxious about, public esteem, but we do blame him for being
more solicitous about this than about God’s judgment. (J. A. Miller.)
Surely, the bitterness of death is passed.
Death an advantage
So cried Agag, and the only objection I have go this text is that
a bad man uttered it. Nevertheless, it is true, and in a higher sense than that
in which it was originally uttered. We talk about the shortness of life, but if
we exercised good sense we would realise that life is quite long enough. If we
are the children of God, we are at a banquet, and this world is only the first
course of the food, and we ought to be glad that there are other and richer
courses of food to be handed on. We are here in one room of our Father’s house,
but there are rooms upstairs. They are better pictured, better upholstered,
better furnished. Why do we want to stay in the inte-room forever, when there
are palatial apartments waiting for our occupancy? What a mercy that there is a
limitation to earthly environments!
1. Death also makes room for improved physical machinery. Our bodies
have wondrous powers, but they are very limited. Death removes this slower and
less adroit machinery and makes room for something better. Mind you, I believe
with all anatomists and all physiologists, and with all scientists and with the
Psalmist that “we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” But I believe and I know
that God can and will give us better physical equipment. Is it possible for man
to make improvements in almost, anything and God not be able to make improvements
in man’s physical machinery? Shall canal boats give way to limited express
train? Shall slow letter give place to telegraphy, that places San Francisco
and New York within a minute of communication? Shall the telephone take the
sound of a voice sixty miles and instantly bring back another voice, and God,
who made the man who does these things, not be able to improve the man himself
with infinite velocities and infinite multiplication? Beneficent Death comes in
and makes the necessary removal to make way for these supernatural
improvements. “Well,” you say, “does not that destroy the idea of a
resurrection of the present body?” Oh no. It will be the old factory with new
machinery, new driving wheel, new bands, new levers, and new powers. Don’t you
see? So I suppose the dullest human brain after the resurrectionary process
will have more knowledge, more acuteness, more brilliancy, more breadth of
swing than any Sir William Hamilton, or Herschel, or Isaac Newton, or Faraday,
or Agassiz ever had in the mortal state or all their intellectual powers
combined. You see God has only just begun to build you.
2. Then there are the climatological hindrances. We run against
unpropitious weather of all sorts. Winter blizzard and summer scorch, and each
season seems to batch a brood of its own disorders. Have you any doubt that God
can make better weather than is characteristic of this planet? Blessed is
Death! for it prepares the way for change of zones, yea, it clears the path to
a semi-omnipresence. While death may not open opportunity to be in many places
at the same time, so easy and so quick and so instantaneous will be the
transference that it will amount to about the same thing. Quicker than I can
speak this sentence you will be among your glorified kindred, among the
martyrs, among the apostles, in the gate, on the battlements, at the temple,
and now from world to world as soon as a robin hops from one tree branch to
another tree branch. Distance no hindrance. Immensity easily compassed.
Semi-omnipresence. Aye! to make that resurrection body will not require half as
much ingenuity and power as those other bodies you have had. Is it not easier
for a sculptor to make a statue out of silent clay than it would be to make a
statue out of some material that is alive and moving, and running hither and
thither? Will it not be easier for God to make the resurrection body out of the
silent dust of the crumbled body than it was to make your body over five or six
or eight times while it was in motion, walking, climbing, falling, or rising?
3. Now, if Death clears the way for all this, why paint him as a
hobgoblin? Why call him the King of Terrors? Why sketch him with skeleton and
arrows, and standing on a bank of dark waters? Why have children so frightened
at his name that they dare not go to bed alone, and old reed have their teeth
chatter lest some shortness of breath band them over to the monster? All the
ages have been busy in maligning Death, hurling repulsive metaphors at Death,
slandering Death. Oh, for the sweet breath of Easter to come down on the earth!
I was told, at Johnstown, after the flood, that many people who had been for
months and years bereft, for the first time got comfort when the awful flood
came, to think that their departed ones were not present to see the
catastrophe. As the people were floating down on the house tops, they said:
“Oh, how glad I am that father and mother are not here,” or “how glad I am that
the children are not alive to see this horror!” And ought not we who are down
here amid the upturnings of this life be glad that none of the troubles which
submerge us can ever afright our friends ascended? “Surely, the bitterness of
death is past.” Further, if what I have been saying is true, we should trust
the Lord and be thrilled with the fact that our own day of escape cometh. If
our lives were going to end when our hearts ceased to pulsate and our lungs to
breathe, I would want to take ten million years of life here for the first
instalment. But we cannot afford always to stay down in the cellar of our
Father’s house. We cannot always be postponing the best things. We cannot
always be tuning our violins for the celestial orchestra. We must get our wings
out. We must mount. We cannot afford always to stand out here in the vestibule
of the house of many mansions. All these thoughts are suggested as we stand
this morn amid the broken rocks of the Saviour’s tomb. The day that Christ rose
and name forth the sepulchre was demolished forever, and no trowel of earthly
masonry can ever rebuild it. “Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the
first fruits of them that slept.” (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The bitterness of death
I. Why bitter.
Because--
1. It is accompanied with physical sufferings.
2. It is the end of earthly hopes and advantages.
3. It separates from friends.
4. There is within us a fear of the unknown realities beyond the
grave.
5. In each heart there is a consciousness of sin.
II. How this
bitterness may be changed to sweetness. Faith in Christ.
1. Makes physical sufferings trivial.
2. Assures us of hopes and advantages infinitely more important than
those which perish through death.
3. Introduces us to the friendship of all heaven, and this for all
eternity.
4. Makes to know that Christ, our Brother, and God, our Father,
dominate all other realities in the world to come.
5. It clothes us with the righteousness of Christ. O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (Homiletic Review.)
And Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.
The vindictive justice of God
God, who viewed Agag as an enemy to Himself and to His people,
would not release him from the punishment he deserved; but inspired Samuel to
give him a just recompense of reward. This striking instance of the Divine
conduct teaches us that God is more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners
are to punish theirs.
I. I am to show
that sinners are disposed to punish their enemies. This will appear both from their
character and conduct.
1. It appears from their character, as drawn by the Searcher of
hearts. God perfectly knows their real feelings, and has clearly described them
in His word. And according to His infallible description, they are entirely
selfish. They possess not the least spark of holy love, but are under the
entire dominion of selfishness. Though their selfishness disposes them to love
those who love them, yet it no less disposes them to hate those who hate them,
whether they are friendly or unfriendly to God. Esau hated Jacob because Jacob
had injured his interest. Sinners, who are under the reigning power of
selfishness, are not only hateful, but they hats one another.
2. It more clearly appears from their conduct than from their
character, that they are disposed to punish their enemies. They have been in
all ages imbruing their hands in each other’s blood. Nations have destroyed
nations, and filled the earth with violence. I proceed, therefore, to the
principal point proposed, which is, to show.
II. That God is
more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners are to punish theirs. God
knows that sinners are His enemies, and hate His existence, His perfections,
His designs, and His whole government. He knows that they hate Him without a
cause, as He has always treated them perfectly right. He knows that they are
enemies to one another, and be all intelligent creatures. He viewed Agag as an
enemy to all righteousness; and He views all sinners in the same light. It may
be inquired, why God was more disposed to punish Agag than Saul was? and why in
all cases, he is more disposed to punish His enemies, than sinners are to
punish their enemies? To this I answer--
1. It is because He hates the conduct, of His enemies simply
considered, but sinners do not hate the conduct of their enemies simply
considered. Though their enemies may act sinfully, it is not their sinfulness
that, they hate. It is only because their sinfulness is pointed against them,
and does them hurt, that they hurt it.
2. God is more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners are to
punish theirs, because His hatred to His enemies cannot be turned into love.
The hatred of sinners can be turned into love, because they do not hate the
character, but only the conduct of their enemies, which they view as
detrimental to themselves.
3. God’s hatred of His enemies is perfectly just, but sinners’ hatred
of their enemies is always unjust. They never hate them for what they ought to
be hated, but only for the injury which they receive from them. They do not
hate them for selfishness, which is the only thing for which they ought to be
hated; and therefore their very hatred is selfish and wicked, for which they
really deserve to be punished.
4. There is another reason why God is more disposed to punish His
enemies, than sinners are to punish theirs; and that is, His regard to the good
of the universe, which sinners totally disregard in punishing their enemies.
They are disposed to punish their enemies for their own sake, and not for the
good of others.
They are disposed to punish, merely to gratify their own feelings,
whether it tends to help or hurt any other person or being besides themselves.
1. If sinners are less disposed to punish their sinful enemies than
God is to punish His enemies, then their tender mercies are unholy and
criminal.
2. If God is more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners ere to
punish theirs, then none can truly love God without loving His vindictive
justice. This is an essential tribute of His nature; and He can no more divest
Himself of it than He can divest Himself of any other essential attribute than
He possesses. He has as plainly revealed His vindictive justice in His word,
and as strikingly displayed it in His providence, as anyone of His glorious
perfections.
3. If God be more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners are to,
punish theirs, then His present conduct in punishing sinners is a strong
evidence that He will punish the finally impenitent.
4. If God is more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners are to
punish theirs, then all real saints are willing that God should punish His
enemies as much and as long as they deserve to be punished. Samuel was willing
to punish Agag, end hew him in pieces before the Lord, and at His command.
Every good man has that within him which approves and loves the justice of God
in punishing sin. Every good man is holy, as God is holy, and loves what God
loves, and hates what, God hates.
5. If God is more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners are to
punish theirs, then sinners must have a new heart, in order to enter into and
enjoy the kingdom of heaven.
6. If God is more disposed to punish His enemies than sinners are to
punish theirs, then sinners have no ground to depend upon the patience of God.
Sinners are extremely apt to depend upon the patience of God, supposing that He
does and will wait upon them, because He pities them, and is unwilling to
punish them. “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,
therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” (N.
Emmons, D. D.)
Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death.
Samuel’s withdrawal from Saul
Very few bad persons are without some “redeeming quality,” as it
is called; and “redeeming qualities” are usually precisely of that kind by
which we are most fascinated. The “redeeming qualities” of a wicked man are,
however, the very things which should cause us most to fear for these with whom
he comes in contact.
1. Few--very few, avoid falling into the error of mistaking what are
symptoms of possible good in the future for tokens of real good at the present
time, and from at least occasionally thinking that their deliberately formed
opinion of the entire character was after all incorrect, and that the persons
in whom these good qualities are so clearly observable cannot be wicked at all.
These, of course, will think and speak of the “redeeming qualities,” not as
redeeming qualities, but as the main features of the character, and try to
persuade themselves that it is for the sake of these they continue intimacies
which their consciences tell them require in some way to be defended.
2. Besides this proneness to self-deceit, which in greater or less
force lurks in the best of us, there are two other causes which expose us to
the danger of being injured by the “redeeming qualities” of godless men. One is
the fact that there are undoubtedly blemishes in the characters of very good
men.
3. The other source of danger is this. The very best of men are known
to entertain an affection for bad men. From this it is argued that the men are
not bad. Samuel had an affection for Saul. Saul had many “redeeming
qualities”--qualities calculated to make him exceedingly popular. Nor was this
all. He had a good deal about him to be liked, and Samuel did like him. A good
man, then, may have an affection for a bad man, without being at all mistaken
as to his character; nay, even after he had been, as in the case before us, the
very persons who had himself pronounced the Divine condemnation. We must not,
then, be led astray as to the real characters of those whom we should otherwise
feel bound to regard as dangerous by the mere fact that they have awakened an
affection in those whom we justly reverence. Had we known no more than “that
there was a King of Israel named Saul,” and that the holy Samuel mourned
exceeding for him on his losing the kingdom, we should, I think, have taken for
granted that Saul was a good man, and yet you see we should have been wrong.
4. This discontinuance of personal intercourse with Saul shows us
also the limits of a good man’s companionship with a bad man. So long as there
is any reasonable hope of his “redeeming qualities” becoming so developed as to
constitute the main features, instead of the exceptional points of his
character--so long as the influence imperceptibly exercised by early
companionship seems likely to be instrumental in bringing about this change,
just so long familiar intercourse with one whose grave faults we perceive may
be continued without breach of duty towards God: but so soon as that time has
gone by--so soon as these hopes seem unreasonable, then, although the regard
still linger, the familiar acquaintance must be abandoned. Every case will, of
course, have its peculiarities calling for especial consideration. But still
there are certain classes of cases in which we may reasonably suppose that our
associating with bad men will be unlikely to benefit them, in which the
probabilities are so much against it that we had better not make the attempt,
in which we had better not so much look to the possibility of our improving
another as to that of his injuring us, in which the foremost thought in our
minds should be, “Evil communications corrupt good manners.” Generally
speaking, a good and a bad man cannot be much together without either being,
however little or imperceptibly, changed by the other. Nor should it be
forgotten that the companionship of a good man may be a positive injury to a
bad man. He may deceive himself into the belief that his faults are not so
great or dangerous as they really are, by the reflection that a good man and a
sensible man would not like him if he were not in the main good also. Universally,
on persons of about our own age and our own social position, who are obviously
and ostentatiously opposing themselves to the precepts of the Gospel, our
constant companionship is not likely to produce a good effect, except we be
more than ordinarily religious and firm ourselves. Of all the instances you
ever knew in which a woman entertained that wildest of notions that she would
be able, after marriage, to reform the man over whom her influence was
powerless before it--of all such instances--and there are numbers of them, how
many are the successes you can recall? In how many do you know the result to
have been intense and irremediable misery? No, there are those whose age or
weight of character enables them without danger or misrepresentation to attempt
the reformation of the wicked by being, to some extent, in their society. There
are those who, perhaps, to both these qualifications have superadded the
incentive of personal liking. Samuel was one of this sort, yet even to him the
time came when ha, the old man, the good man, the minister of God, the man with
a strong, affection towards Saul, felt it his duty to “see him no more.” (J.
C. Coghlan, D. D.)
Separation of Samuel and Saul
It was a final parting: “Samuel came no more to see Saul until the
day of his death.” They had now nothing in common. Their views and principles
were widely dissimilar. They sought not the same ends, and they used very
different means. Samuel so closely followed the will and way of God that he
could not have fellowship with a throne of iniquity. A lifetime’s godliness had
made Samuel very jealous of the glory of God. He would not compromise his
principles for the sake of keeping the favour of a king; and lest he should be
understood as approving of Saul’s procedure be absented himself altogether from
his court. His absence would be a constant reproof of Saul’s wilful esteems
significant token that he deemed his policy ungodly. There are circumstances in
the history of the believer, and even of the Church when separation from those
with whom there have been union and fellowship becomes a duty. When any one
finds that by his station or character he is likely to influence others, if he
openly unites with those whose policy he disapproves, he is bound to separate.
When any one discovers that he cannot, without countenancing the sin of others,
continue in their fellowship he is bound to withdraw. When any one learns that
his soul is imperilled by remaining with the ungodly, he must separate. The
sacrifice of the dearest ties, the richest gains, and the most cherished
associations, must be made, when duty to Christ demands it. Our Lord has laid
down the law of a Christian in such circumstances in the plainest terms: “If
any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily,
and follow Me,” etc. You may be associated in relationships that forbid your
separation. The law of Christ does not demand the believer to break up his
nuptial tie, or his filial ties; but it demands his faithful witness bearing at
home. There must be no compromise with truth--with Christ--to please any
friend. The world is not to be met half-way. We are not to conciliate by
compromise. In the sixteenth century, separation from Rome became the duty of
all enlightened souls who protested against the errors and crimes of Modern
Babylon. Samuel went away in sorrow. He mourned for Saul. He did not part with
him because his heart was steeled against him, or because of any unkindly
feeling towards him personally, he yearned after the king with all the
affection of a broken-hearted parent. Samuel mourned for Saul, for he pitied
the people. Saul was a king according to their mind, and it was to be feared
that they would approve of his infatuated policy, and thus turn away from God.
Perhaps this had an influence upon his determination to separate from Saul,
that all Israel might see that he was no more a party to their monarch’s ways.
When so good a man as Samuel retired from fellowship with Saul, they might
perhaps reflect upon their own safety. But people are blind, and require long
discipline to correct their sins and reform their ways. (R. Steel.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》