Obedience is better than Sacrifice

And Samuel said,

"Has 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 listen than the fat of rams".



This passage of scripture is taken from 1Samuel chapter 15 and for those who may not be familiar to the story leading up to these words, Saul has just been anointed king over his people Israel and the Lord says to him through the prophet Samuel that he must completely destroy the Amalekites..... "devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."



Sounds very clear, right? Well Sauls response was one which I can sympathise with. He did something very human. He carried out Gods instructions, but thought he would keep alive the king of the Amalekites and the better livestock to make a sacrifice of Thanks to God.



The reason I sympathise with him is it seems to me that Saul was acting out on what he thought was a way to honour God. He thought that this would be a nice thing to do for God. Yet when the word of the Lord came to Samuel he said, that he had regretted making Saul king. Why is this?



Saul wanted to do something for God and was rebuked. The thing is he missed the point. Its more important to let God do what He wants to do, than to do something that we want to do, for God.



After Samuel confronted Saul over this, Saul recognised the error of his judgement and realised he had sinned and rejected the word of the Lord. As a result Sauls dynasty would end with him and he would be succeeded by David. A very sobering lesson. Obedience is better than sacrifice.