Abounding Grace

Larry: Here is the question of the day on Abounding Grace: What does God delight in—sacrifices or obedience? Well, the Bible's clear: obedience. That's why there's a danger in our relationship within the context of a church service or a worship song or whatever where we're offering up praise and we're lifting up our hands disobediently.

God doesn't receive that. God doesn't receive your disobedience. He doesn't receive your praise in the midst of disobedience. If you're here today and you're lifting up your hands in worship and you're like in rank sin, the only thing you should be feeling is conviction.

We've got a great study lined up for you today on Abounding Grace. Find your place in 1 Samuel 15 as we get ready to hand things over to our teacher, Pastor Ed Taylor. In the Bible, we have some wonderful examples on how to live and honor God. But there are also some examples on what not to do.

In the passage before us, King Saul is trying to do things his own way, attempting to fight the flesh with the flesh, and that never goes well. Pastor Ed is going to take this opportunity to encourage us to do the right thing the right way with the right motive.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Verse six. "Then Saul said to the Kenites, 'Go, depart, get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.' So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt.

"He also took Agag the king of the Amalekites..." Uh-oh. What does your Bible say? Alive. "He took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But..." that can't be good. "Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, they utterly destroyed."

Now, King Saul has a desire to protect the Kenites and show them favor, and I think there's still a piece of goodness in him. And everything they deemed despised and worthless they destroyed, but he allowed King Agag to live. Now, if we continue on with our picture, let's just understand what he did here. The king of the flesh got to live.

The king of the flesh. And the possessions that were desirable in the flesh, oh, he got to keep those too. So the king of the flesh lives, and the best of what they deemed was the best that the flesh owned, they got to keep that too. Why? Well, you might want to mark this. It's very important that you see this. It's a problem with us.

This is the root. This is the root of many, many issues in your life. It's very simple. It says in verse nine, they were unwilling to go all the way. They were unwilling. Do you know what Agag means? Agag means "I will overcome." That's his name. I will overcome. Here's the king of the flesh—"I will overcome"—spared by Saul.

You know what's happening here is King Saul decided to do things his own way. He's going to try to fight the flesh with the flesh, and what happens? You can't win. Because if you're in the flesh, you can't please God. He's in rank disobedience here. He didn't wipe out the Amalekites as he was told to.

They're going to remain a thorn in the life of the children of Israel for many, many more generations to come because of this act of disobedience. You see, serving God acceptably involves doing the will of God the right way, the right time, with the right motives. Serving God acceptably involves doing the right thing, the right way, with the right heart.

It is impossible to please God when we take things into our own hands. God gave Saul another chance, but King Saul blew it again. Now, don't think of these as a bunch of random bad mistakes and decisions. King Saul has deep, deep issues in his heart and in his life.

He's not a spiritual man, even though some would look at him and call him a spiritual man. He's not. He's not a spiritual man. Samuel knew, and we know even in verse ten that Samuel knows of the sin even before the army returned. God revealed that there's trouble with King Saul. Look at verse ten.

"And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, 'I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.' And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night. So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, 'Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal.'

"Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, 'Blessed are you of the Lord!'" Such spiritual language. "God bless you, brother. I'm in the flesh, but you'll never know." Wow, this guy's messed up. "Oh, bless you, Samuel. I have performed the commandment of the Lord." We have a word for that: liar. He did not perform the commandment of the Lord.

Did he serve God acceptably? Well, number one, did he do the right thing? No. Did he do it the right way? No. And did he do it with the right heart? It doesn't look like it. We don't see his right heart, but we'll see in a moment—we can't say it now, but as we're going to read ahead, you're going to find out that his motives were wrong as well. His motives were not to please the Lord but to please himself.

Verse 14. Samuel said—and isn't this great? "I've done the commandment of the Lord." And Samuel doesn't mess around. "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" I mean, you could just get the scene. Like if we were doing a little play here, you've got King Saul so royal and regal, and you've got Samuel coming as a man of God, and Saul's like, "Oh, look at me! Look, blessed are you. I did the commandment of the Lord." (Baah!)

And it's like, "What's that?" He doesn't even hear the own bleating of the sheep and the goats. "What is this I hear?" Well, let's find out. "Oh," Saul said—and what a rat. That's all I can think of, what a rat. "They have brought them from the Amalekites." Oh, it was the people's fault. That's it, the people. He blamed—we've seen this before, haven't we?

He blames the people. "For the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed." I have another word for that. Actually, it's two words: lame excuse. What a lame excuse. And before we blame Saul and the unfortunate situation where we're looking at him, man, we just need to pray that we don't get good at lame excuses.

God sends a Samuel to us, man, and we just receive it from the Lord because it was the word of the Lord as he came. Samuel said, verse 16, "Be quiet, and I'll tell you what the Lord said to me last night." And he said to him, "Speak on." And Samuel said, "When you were little in your own eyes, were you not the head of the tribes of Israel?

"And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? And now the Lord sent you on a mission and said, 'Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then didn't you obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on spoil and do evil in the sight of the Lord?" By the way, this is no small mistake. The Bible calls it evil. This is evil.

Verse 20. "And Saul said to Samuel, 'But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission which the Lord sent me, and I brought back Agag king of Amalek; and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.' Well, wait a minute. Is Agag an Amalekite? 'I utterly destroyed them, but Agag...'" There's always a reason. There always is a reason that we can latch onto.

It's always a temptation when you're in the flesh that you have a good reason why you're fleshly. You have a good reason. It's not a good reason, but you have a good reason. And we just have to be careful. Verse 21. "The people took of the plunder, the oxen, the best of the things which should have utterly been destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord our God in Gilgal."

Oh, that's why we didn't obey the Lord. Because we wanted to take some things and worship God. That's why. Now he probably was thinking about it as he was going along and finally, "Oh, I know why!" All the people spared them, but we had them because we're going to use them to worship. I mean, what are we going to worship God and thank God for if we don't keep some of their best?

And how just simple—these little steps you take away where you forget the simple—it was—God couldn't have been clearer. He said, "Go attack Amalek, utterly destroy all that they have, do not spare them." And he even mentions the ox, the sheep, the camel, and the donkey. "None of it's valuable to Me," God says. "I don't want any of it."

And then some of the most popular words ever written in the scriptures are found in verse 22. Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For," verse 23, "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He's also rejected you from being king."

These are heavy words. It's huge. What does God delight in—sacrifice or obedience? Well, the Bible's clear: obedience. That's why there's a danger in our relationship within the context of a church service or a worship song or whatever where we're offering up praise and we're lifting up our hands disobediently.

God doesn't receive that. God doesn't receive your disobedience. He doesn't receive your praise in the midst of disobedience. If you're here today and you're lifting up your hands in worship and you're like in rank sin, the only thing you should be feeling is conviction. You shouldn't be enjoying the songs.

You shouldn't be enjoying the time here. You shouldn't have the sense of your conscience being cleared. The only thing that God is wanting to reach you as you've drawn near to Him, He's drawn you near to convict you of sin in your life. Don't think that five hallelujahs and ten church attendances are going to cover your disobedience.

Why? Well, because the Bible says God delights in obedience. So one act of obedience will be more than 365 days of disobedience and fake worship and offerings unto the Lord. To me, that's good news. Because God makes it very easy for me to be in right relationship with Him. It's very easy. Repent and obey.

Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and repent and obey. It's very easy because the opposite religion often makes it the other way, right? Worship well. Do good deeds. Be a good tither. Be a good church-attender. Make sure you do what the priest tells you to do. Crawl on your knees all the way up to Mount Kilimanjaro and maybe if you get there, the false god might accept you. And on and on those lists go.

But not so. The Bible says this: that by faith in Jesus Christ, you and I—not only does the Holy Spirit give us the will to do what's right, but also the power to accomplish it. So we're not even on our own. The Bible says that God both works in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. And King Saul is on the opposite of that.

Rebellion is like witchcraft. Have you ever seen that in your life? You look at witchcraft and go, "Man, I'm not—no Ouija board, nothing in my house." But rebellion—it's like witchcraft. Why? When you think of witchcraft, witchcraft is a rejection of the will of God. It's a rejection of the way of God. It is a false replacement of God, as is rebellion.

Not only that, but you have a lack of obedience, rebellion, stubbornness. Have you ever considered stubbornness like iniquity and idolatry? I've met people who go, "I'm just stubborn," and they're proud of it. Like, "Well, I'm Happy, Go Lucky," whatever, and then they're stubborn. I don't even know them all, so it's not even going to work for me.

But then there's little stubborn. I don't even know if there is a stubborn one, but let's just say—I've seen people and I've talked to people personally where they have a badge: "Well, you know, I'm just stubborn." Well, just consider this, man of God, consider this, woman of God: stubbornness is not a good thing. It's just like iniquity and idolatry.

So what does Saul do in verse 24? "Saul said to Samuel, 'I have sinned and transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.'" We don't have time to develop this because we're quickly out of time, but this is a warning to you that have a fear of man.

I don't know how much of this was true in Saul's life. I do know this: he said it happened and he demonstrated a lack of the fear of God, so it could have been a part that played in this where he's a people-pleaser. We don't think of fear of man—nobody ever talks about that.

But people-pleasing and trying to please everyone and not worrying about the glory of God, but what about this and what about that—instead of having your eyes on the Lord, you know, he's blaming the people again like they were putting the pressure on him. He's the leader. He's the leader. He's the king.

"Now therefore, please pardon my sin," verse 25, "and return with me, that I may worship the Lord." But Samuel said to Saul, "I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord." You know, there are just times—and later on in Romans, it talks about those that are divisive, not to have fellowship with them.

You would think, "Wait a minute, the God of love and grace and mercy—would He ever call me to separate from other believers?" Oh, yes. Yes, unfortunately, that's true. Unfortunately, there are many times you reject the divisive man, the Bible says. The Bible says not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

The Bible says that—so there are limitations even on relationships in our lives, and Samuel is separating from a man that was anointed of God. Why? Because he's in disobedience to God and unrepentant. You go, "Wait a minute, I see these words." No, the Lord reveals—he's got the right words. They're not genuine. They're not genuine.

You go, "How can I possibly know that?" Well, we know it because the man of God, Samuel, rejects him here. In our lives with one another—and this comes up a lot lately on the radio program—but repentance will lead to change. So if someone says they've repented and they haven't changed, they haven't repented.

It's true. It's true for you and me. You go, "Oh, no, look what he said. He said he was sorry." I know, but he hasn't repented. You go, "How can you say that?" Because Samuel's separating from him. Samuel's giving him the word of the Lord in verse 26: "Because you've rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has rejected you."

And Samuel turned around to go away. Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. I just want to put a little thought in your mind for a study coming up ahead. Here Saul grabs the robe selfishly and wants to take from Samuel. Later, David is going to meet Saul in a cave and he's going to take a little part of the robe, but he's not going to do it selfishly but he's going to do it unto the Lord.

So you guys can read ahead if you want to find it, but we'll develop it when we get there. I thought, man, there's so many little ingredients here to see the difference between David and Saul. Saul is just so desperate he's willing to rip a guy's robe. David is so in tune with the Spirit of God that he won't wipe a guy out, but he'll cut a little bit of the robe and take it as a reminder that I am a man of integrity, and here's your robe back.

So different. So verse 28. "So Samuel said to him, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you...' You want to tear my robe? Well, let me use that as an illustration. Your kingdom of Israel's been torn from you and given to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

"And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent.'" Don't you love that song that we sing? We sing a song just like this: that God will not relent. The Strength of Israel will not relent. "For He is not a man, that He should relent." And then he said, "I have sinned; yet honor me now." Those are not words of repentance.

"I've sinned, but please give me some honor before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God." And Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord. Then verse 32. Samuel said, "Bring Agag." Now, after this feeble, weak, "I'm so sorry" statement, Samuel delivers the difficult words, and then in verse 32, the brother takes care of business.

Check this out. "Samuel said, 'Bring Agag king of the Amalekites here to me.' So Agag came to him cautiously." I bet he could see his face, man. You know how you just see it on someone's face and you're like, "This is not going to be good." Maybe he was within earshot and listened to all this.

We don't know. But whatever he saw or heard made him a cautious man. And Agag said, "Surely the bitterness of death is past." He's like, "Hey man, if King Saul didn't do it, I'm safe." But Samuel said, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." And Samuel hacked Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.

Wow. All right, that's a good bedtime story that the Lord gives us. It shouldn't get that bad, you know. Samuel shouldn't have had to do this. This was a military campaign. It was in the—it could have happened in the midst of a military battle. There are times when there are, unfortunately, because of people's decisions, leaders are put in a place to take care of something, and by the time leaders get in place, it's far worse than it would have been if it would have been taken care of the right way by the person involved.

And then there's this battle going: "Well, who are you and who do you think you are? What do you mean? You put me in this position. I was enjoying—I was lifting up my hands to the Lord. I was seeking the Lord. What were you doing? Well, I was worshiping..." No, Saul, you weren't.

So you know what? Let me show you how it's done. Bring Agag here. You know, we need to kill the flesh. And you could even say this: you need to hack the flesh in your life. It is not to be left alone and left to lie. And even the flesh might even come up to you.

I thought that was an interesting thing. Again, I didn't really develop it as much, but I thought that was really interesting: King Agag. Now, even when you take a stand for what's right and you're in front of righteousness, your flesh gets cautious. Like, "I don't know, I wonder..."

Maybe you're around—this doesn't really happen, but maybe it has and you never told me, but you know, you're involved in something and then Pastor Ed shows up. And then your flesh gets really cautious. It was cool before someone that you knew was there and you were involved in that, but now someone that you know, and your flesh gets really cautious and you go, "Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry."

Or you see it a lot at work where you're the Christian and you're the Bible-thumper and everybody is "la-this" and "F-that" and "F-bomb this" and all this, and then you show up. (Zip!) "So what's up? Why aren't you guys..." "Well, you know, you know." It's like, you're the Christian in town, you know.

Now can't say that around the Christian, and the flesh gets really cautious. But even with a cautious flesh, it needs to be hacked. You don't give the credit, "Oh, you're so cautious and submissive now." No, the flesh will not stop. Sin will take as much as you give.

And isn't it true, in the times that sin has been introduced to our lives, it will take us farther than we want to go. It will bring us to places we never thought we'd be. And it always ends in destruction. The wages of sin is always death. Always. And what I see here in such a sad ending to the chapter is King Saul threw another chance away.

Larry: Today on Abounding Grace, we've learned obedience is better than sacrifice. And that's actually the title of Pastor Ed Taylor's message. To hear it again, simply go online to aboundinggraceradio.com. Here in the month of September, we have picked out an excellent book from our friend in the ministry, Ron Rhodes.

It's The End Times in Chronological Order. You'll learn when the important end times events will happen in relation to each other, who the major players in the end times will be, and how to interpret the signs of the times. And we'll send it to you when you support Abounding Grace with a gift of $25 or more today. Reach us toll-free at 877-30-GRACE or go online to calvaryco.store.

Pastor Ed, here we are on 9/11. It was back in 2001, 25 years ago, that something happened that we will never forget. Do you remember where you were when you got the news? And what do you think the Lord might want us to reflect upon on days like this?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Yeah, Larry, it wasn't too long ago that I was in Manhattan in New York City. We were on a mission trip to Newark, serving with my friend Pastor Ray Dash there at The Rock Church in Newark, New Jersey, and we went into the city for dinner to talk ministry.

And we went directly to—we took the train to the Freedom Tower, to the place where the Twin Towers were. And we stood in silence for a while. We talked a little bit, we shared stories there, and then we headed off to our dinner. And I know exactly where I was when it happened.

We go back 25 years—I was in Southern California. It was our first or second family vacation since moving to Colorado with my young kids. We had just finished driving all the way from Colorado to Southern Cal to visit my parents and to visit the rest of our family and friends there. And we just rolled in, went to sleep, and then my oldest son Eddie ran into our bedroom and said, "Dad, Dad, you've got to get up. You've got to see this."

And we're like, "We are exhausted. We're going to sleep. We'll see it when we wake up." And he said, "No, no, you've got to see this." And he's probably 14 or 15 years old at the time. And it's like, "Okay, we'll get up." And what did we see but everything going down in New York City.

Very challenging, very difficult, very hard. A real big crisis for the nation, for all the families that lost loved ones. And really a big crisis, the first time we're facing something with our kids to disciple them and help them. And we assessed the situation and ended up driving right back home to lead the church.

We were a brand new church plant. We came back to lead prayer meetings, to comfort the flock, and delayed our vacation for another time. But it's challenging and difficult. The longer you live, the more crises you go through, and I would just encourage you to keep your eyes on the Lord, you guys that are listening.

The Lord will get you through every crisis that He allows into your life. And looking back, I pray for that kind of unity that the nation saw at the time, the kind of patriotism to rally around watching out for one another. And grateful for the leadership at the time.

We took a lot of trips out there to help serve and to minister. And, you know, time is short and the coming of the Lord is at hand. So keep your eyes on the Lord and serve Him only.

Larry: Well said. Thanks again, Pastor Ed. And then come back next time when we'll continue our study of 1 Samuel with Pastor Ed Taylor. That's right here on Abounding Grace. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado, here in Aurora.