Monday, August 22, 2005
1 Samuel 15:22 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 heed than the fat of rams.
ROYAL OBEDIENCE
Our text takes us back to the time before David, when Saul was king in the land. The Lord had instructed Samuel to send King Saul on a special mission to destroy Israel's enemies, the Amalekites. The command was very specific: "Attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey" (1 Samuel 15:3).
After the battle was over, Samuel went out to talk to King Saul. The Lord had told him that Saul had disobeyed the Lord's command. He and his men had destroyed everything worthless in the Amalekite camp, had killed all the people, but they had preserved the life of Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and they had not destroyed the best sheep and oxen.
Saul claimed that he had obeyed the Lord, but he had not, for he had done only part of what God had commanded him to do. He had kept the king alive, and kept some of the animals alive for sacrifice. But this is not what God commanded. Therefore Saul was rejected as God's appointed king.
After Saul's rejection God, chose someone else. That someone else was David, who at this time was still a young boy, working as a shepherd for his father Jesse. Now, how could David prove to be a better king than Saul? By simple obedience, by doing exactly what God told him.
In this respect David was certainly an improvement over Saul. But even David was not perfectly obedient in every way. He was far from being a perfect king. Only in Jesus, David's Son, do we have the real King over God's people, the perfect King, who carried out the will of His Father to perfection and was not disobedient like Saul. For what do we read concerning David's Son? "He humbled Himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." Humility and obedience! What Saul lacked, Jesus, David's Son, displayed to perfection. What does this mean for us sinners? The apostle Paul answers: "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19).
This is the kind of king we need, for through His obedience in our place we are counted as righteous and holy in the sight of God.
