Contrast the truthfulness of Samuel that we saw in my last post with King Saul. Saul was handpicked by Samuel and by the Lord to be Israel’s first king. We are told in 1 Samuel 10:23-24, as he stood among the people he was a head taller than any of the others. Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the man the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.” At first Saul seems to be very humble, he was reluctant to be made king. He actually hid from the people when they came to take him to the formal ceremony. Things looked good. God was blessing him and giving him victory over his enemies.
Samuel told Saul in 1 Samuel 10:8, Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do. But Samuel was “late.” Listen to 1 Samuel 13:1-14 (NIV),
[Saul] waited seven days, the time set by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul’s men began to scatter. So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.” And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished making the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him.
“What have you done?” asked Samuel.
Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.”
“You acted foolishly,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.”
Cracks were starting to show in Saul’s commitment to live in and live out God’s truth. Samuel had clearly told him that he was not to do anything until he got there, offered the sacrifices, and heard from God what Saul was to do. Saul was showing himself to be untrusting of both God and Samuel, and this expressed itself in doing what he had been told that Samuel was to do as God’s prophet. He took things into his own hands. He showed himself untrustworthy.
Two chapters later God gives Saul another chance, and sends Saul on another mission. He was told to attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys (1 Samuel 15:3).
Again Saul starts out looking like he got the message and was going to be obedient to God’s direction. But this is proved to be short lived. We read just a few verses down in 15:7-9,
Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt.
He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.
But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
The NIV does not convey the sin of Saul very well here, the JPS translation of verse 9 is much clearer, they only proscribed what was cheap and worthless.
When Samuel shows up, he looks around and sees all the sheep and cattle and even king Agag, whom Saul was specifically sent to kill. When Samuel confronts Saul, Saul rationalizes his actions, saying he wanted to save the best for sacrificing to God (1 Samuel 15:20-21). You know the definition of rationalize is to tell yourself rational lies! And Samuel replied:
Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king (15:22-23).
Again, Saul is given the opportunity to show honesty—and take responsibility for this sin. But instead he says,
“I have sinned. I violated the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them.
Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD.”
But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel!”
As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore.
Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you.
He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind” (15:24-29).
God took the kingdom away from Saul because he was not truthful. Saul had been entrusted by God carry out His judgment on the Amalekites and he did not do it. Again when it really counted, he proved to be untrustworthy. When Saul was confronted about this, he was not honest about the fact that he disobeyed God’s commands, he tried to make it look like he was being devout by saving the livestock to be sacrificed, then when that didn’t work, he tried to pass the buck onto his own men. When it counted most, Saul showed himself to be dishonest and untrustworthy. It is no small thing that God says in verse 29, He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind. God is both honest and trustworthy, and he wants those qualities of truthfulness clearly seen in His people. As a result of Saul’s lack of honesty and trustworthiness, God took the kingdom from him and gave it to David.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. To love one another as Jesus loves us means we need to be lovers of truth. It means that we not only work at being honest and trustworthy but that our joy is in being honest and trustworthy. It means that we see the evil of dishonesty and untrustworthiness and run from it. It means that when we hear people being honest we rejoice with them in their sharing of happy truth and embrace them when they are honest about the painful truth. It means we rejoice when we find people to be trustworthy and work hard to help those who are not to become so.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 