To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. Proverbs 21:3, ESV

I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6, ESV

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. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and presumption as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being King. I Samuel 15:22-23, ESV

 

In the 15th chapter of I Samuel, we have one of the most important and consistent principles of service to God: God desires obedience, rather than sacrifice. Why is that? 

 

To understand this important teaching, it is helpful to look at exactly what has been occurring. The Amalekites had been oppressing Israel for many years, and the time of their punishment had come. God had ordered Israel under the leadership of King Saul to bring that judgment. It was to be so thorough, that they were to even wipe out every head of sheep and oxen that belonged to the Amalekites. But Saul and the people saw it differently. It must have seemed a shame to slaughter perfectly good livestock, so they decided to keep back the best for themselves.

 

Then along comes the prophet Samuel with a message from God. He confronts King Saul for not obeying God's instruction, but Saul insists that he has. Samuel then asks Saul what this bleating of sheep and lowing of oxen that he can obviously hear is if Saul has in fact wiped them out. Saul explains that these cattle have been spared, but only for the purpose of offering a sacrifice to God. Oh, you might be thinking, that's different! If the people spared the best of the cattle to make a special offering to the LORD, then that must have been acceptable to God... right? 

 

But King Saul and the people of Israel were about to find out different, and the punishment that ensued should be a lesson to all who might be thinking of tweaking the commandments of God and then claiming that the only reason they did so was to honor Him in the first place.

 

Perhaps an example to illustrate this principle would help:

Suppose when you were five years of age that you had developed the unfortunate habit of picking flowers from your neighbor's garden. After all, the neighbor had so many flowers and they were really very pretty. Surely, they wouldn't miss one or two flowers from such a large collection. And so you would pick these flowers and enjoy them from time to time and everything seemed just fine. The neighbor didn't seem to notice and as has been previously established, the flowers were very pretty indeed.

 

But one day you Mom finds out what you have been up to and insists that you go to the neighbor to apologize for your petty thefts, and that's exactly what you do. The neighbor is quite decent about the whole thing, understanding that kids will be kids, and she lets you off with a word of thanks for your honesty in admitting what you have done. You feel wonderful to be unburdened by the guilt that you had for your childish indiscretion and proceed to make your way back home. 

 

Then, it happens! As you are passing by the garden, you just cannot resist taking another small bouquet... but mother sees! It turns out she has been watching from a short distance to make sure that all has gone well and in doing so she sees your return to crime. You, my friend, are busted!

 

In your five-year-old brain you quickly fabricate a defense for your high-handed act of wanton crime. You explain to Mom that you were merely gathering these roses for her, as a tribute to her own great beauty and as a testament to your love for her. Of course, you put this in the vocabulary of a five-year-old, but you get the picture. You have been caught red-handed and are desperately searching for an escape. 

 

So, let me ask you this: Will your mother accept this explanation? Will she thank you for the touching gesture and commend you for your beautiful gift? Not your mother! Not my mother! In fact, there is not a single decent parent who would fall for such an audacious explanation, and our parents were decent. In the case of my mother, corporal punishment would have been involved. She probably would have subjected me with the humiliation of being marched back to the neighbor's house for a confession and additional apologies. Dessert would have probably been off the table - both literally and figuratively - for the rest of the week. Even worse, Dad would've have had to be informed. More corporal punishment would have likely followed, and I could have likely kissed my allowance goodbye for a few weeks.

 

I suspect if you had good parents, the outcome would have been similar... but why? The answer is obvious. Your parents and mine did not dare tolerate dishonesty nor disobedience. They knew that such actions were wrong, and if allowed to become a habit would lead to a lifetime of dishonesty and disobedience. So they took of these ugly characteristics as soon as they reared their ugly heads.

 

And now maybe we can understand why God was so hard on King Saul. He literally took the kingdom away from him for his act of indiscretion - even though he claimed to be doing it for God. But what if he had been sincere in his reasoning? What if the only motive in disobeying God's instruction was to honor Him with a sacrifice? And, of course, the answer should be obvious for God made it clear: To obey has always been more acceptable than sacrifice! 

 

This lesson is one that would be valuable for each one of us to learn. There are so many times that we are tempted to tweak God's commandments. Perhaps it is in the area of our everyday lives where we are tempted to indulge in immorality. Maybe it's not even us who are doing so, maybe it's just a friend who we don't want to offend, so we act as if their immoral lifestyle, though forbidden by God, is really okay. After all, our motivation is only that we do not offend or hurt the feelings of a friend. So, we fool ourselves into thinking that "love is love is love" and we normalize what God has defined as deviant. 

Then, there are the areas of worship and salvation. Surely God wouldn't mind if we added something special to His instruction on the worship as long as we were doing so to honor Him. And in the area of His commandments concerning salvation? Surely He wouldn't mind if we "eased up" a bit on His commands if we were doing so to be more inclusive and bring more people into the fold... would He?

 

Of course, the answer is the same as it was for King Saul, and it is the same that our parents tried to teach us: Obedience is always better than sacrifice and punishment! Obedience is one of the ways we demonstrate our love to God. Disobedience, even when we say it is for noble reasons, always demonstrates a lack of love for God. It is one of the most consistent teachings ever, and it is one that we would do well to heed if we are to ever have a hope of being pleasing to God.

 

The good news is that though we may have already "blown it" that God will permit us to repent on His terms and thus return to Him. Our parents did the same for us when we stopped doing what was wrong and returned to obedience, and so will our loving Father in Heaven. But if we have been living a life of disobedience, return we must, and we must do this on God's terms. Anything short of such a repentance may very likely find us on the outside looking in, when it comes to God's Kingdom.