We are told, "For whatever things were written before were written for our learning" (Romans 15:4). Today I want to take a look at the king of Israel Saul, I want to point out some observations and hopefully we can learn from them. In 1 Samuel 15 :3 Samuel went to Saul with a command from the mouth of God and this is what he says, "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." The first thing we see is that this command is very specific and direct, anything that required air to breath was to be destroyed. after hearing these words Saul gathered his men and made ready his attack. He attacked and killed every man, woman, infant, and nursing child. Tens of thousands were put to the edge of the sword by Saul and his army. However there were some problems Saul spared the king of Amalek. Why? Possibly he was conforming to the culture of that time. If you conquered a nation and took alive its leader, you brought back to your palace a slave, to show your trophies off. Saul also slaughtered thousands of animals. Yet he spared the best of the sheep, oxen, fated calfs, lambs and all that was good, and gave it to his people so they could sacrifice to God. As I thought about this I'm sure Saul's army thought he was doing a good thing or even the right thing. I wonder if they thought they had a godly king who was always putting the Lord first. If you take a look at verse 11 we see God has a different take on this matter. He lamented to Samuel, "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." Saul killed tens of thousands and spared but one. He did 99.9 percent of what was commanded of him. Most of us would look at this and see obedience in his actions, yet God saw disobedience. In fact the prophet a few verses later called it rebellion. From this we learn that partial obedience is not obedience at all in the eyes of God. 99% is not considered obedience; rather it is rebellion.
Samuel left to meet Saul, and when Samuel reached him, Saul enthusiastically greeted him, "The LORD bless you! I have carried out the Lord's instructions (1 Sam 15:13) You can hear the joy and confidence in his voice. I believe Saul was sincere. He really believed he did what was commanded, yet God said he rebelled.
The Moment a person disobeys the Word of God clearly revealed to him, a veil goes over his heart, and that veil distorts and obstructs his view. It is deception. Saul was deceived in his reasoning and confident he did right when, in reality, he was wrong. His belief conflicted with God's reality, even though it might agree with human reasoning. Can we see today the consequences of disobedience? More than all the sacrifices and religious observances, God wants us to obey him. Are you obeying God in every area of your life? Remember 99% isn't good enough and it's not what God wants. Whatever he is asking you to do follow through and be obedient. Jesus said, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." (Joh 14:21)
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