A Lame Excuse
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Saul had now been subjected to the final test.
His presumptuous disregard of the will of God, showing his determination to rule as an independent monarch, proved that he could not be trusted with royal power as the vicegerent of the Lord. While Saul and his army were marching home in the flush of victory, there was deep anguish in the home of Samuel the prophet.
He had received a message from the Lord denouncing the course of the king: ‘It repenteth Me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following Me, and hath not performed My commandments.’ The prophet was deeply grieved over the course of the rebellious king, and he wept and prayed all night for a reversing of the terrible sentence.” The next morning Saul went out to greet the prophet, saying, “Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD” (1 Samuel 15:13). Both men knew this was a falsehood.
Samuel challenged Saul, saying, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” (v. 14).
Saul sought to blame the people, even though it was his command that spared the livestock. “They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed” (v. 15; emphasis added). Samuel gave Saul a second chance, but he stuck by his alibi (vv. 20, 21). “And Samuel said, Hath 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 hearken than the fat of rams” (v. 22). “God required of his people obedience rather than sacrifice. All the riches of the earth were his. The cattle upon a thousand hills belonged to him. He did not require the spoil of a corrupt people, upon whom his curse rested, even to their utter extinction, to be presented to him to prefigure the holy Saviour, as a lamb without blemish.” Imaginary obedience deceives few—least of all God.
