“Saul answered, ‘The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.‘”-1 Samuel 15:15
Gotta question for you.
Do you understand why it would’ve been wrong for Saul’s men to sacrifice the best of the sheep and cattle they took from the Amalekites?
I’m NOT talking about the Law of Herem here.
I’ve already beaten that horse to bloody death.
I’m talking about understanding the difference between a sacrifice that is acceptable to God based on the Torah and one that is not.
If you were asked to give a Biblical defense as to why Saul and his men were in the wrong, could you do it?
I’ll tell you right now most pastors, preachers, and teachers would fumble and stumble around like drunk men in a dark room if pressed for an answer to this question.
Fortunately for you, if you’re reading this, you’ll never face that problem…
Because I’m about to give you four irrefutable Torah-based reasons why it would’ve been illegitimate from God’s perspective for Saul’s men to use the animals they took from the Amalekites as a sacrifice to God.
Reason1:
A sacrifice to God must take place on holy ground, upon the holy altar, NOT on unclean pagan ground which is where the battle of the Amalekites took place.
Reason 2
An authorized and holy sacrifice must be officiated over by Levitical priests of which Saul’s soldiers were NOT.
Reason 3:
The sacrifice must be burned up using holy fire, not what the Scripture refers to as “strange fire”, which is the type of fire Saul’s men would’ve inevitably ended up using had they tried to sacrifice the animals of the Amalekites to the Lord.
Reason 4:
Animals to be sacrificed to God must be KOSHER or Torah-approved. No unclean animals are allowed.
To be clear, banned war booty can be a combination of clean and unclean things, but unclean items can NEVER be offered up to God as a sacrifice.
I should also make it clear that human beings can be included in the things devoted to God for destruction as was the case in this war against the Amalekites.
But God NEVER accepts human beings as a sacrifice.
By the way, this means that Yeshua’s death on the cross was NOT a human sacrifice.
Yeshua sacrificed himself, but he was not a human sacrifice unto God.
That would’ve been an abomination.
=======================================================================
The bottom line is that God instructed Saul and his men to destroy the plunders of war on the spot.
He never told them to gather up some of the animals and haul them up to Gilgal for sacrifice.
Saul and his men were without excuse.
They had directly disobeyed a clear command from God.
All of them were guilty of sin…
But Saul was the MOST guilty because he was responsible for his men.
So here’s the takeaway I’m getting for today.
At the end of the day, why did Saul and his men fall into such grievous sin?
The answer is simply Scriptural ignorance.
They didn’t know the proper Torah protocol as demonstrated by the four reasons I provided above.
If they had known, they wouldn’t have even considered doing something so foolish as to propose taking God’s holy war property that was devoted to destruction and proposing to offer it up to the Lord.
Another point we shouldn’t overlook is that while Saul’s men were in the wrong, Saul was doubly in the wrong, because not only was he leading his men, he was the freakin’ king over all of Israel for crying out loud.
If there’s anyone who should’ve been well-versed in the Torah, it should have been the King of Israel.
Fortunately, the coming ruler to come, will not possess such faults.
Here’s the thing.
We all regularly commit unintentional sins because of our Biblical ignorance…
And I’m telling you, man, it’s hurting our relationship with our Creator.
So that’s my exhortation to you today.
Study your Bible man!
Study it every day!
Study it as if your very soul and your very life depend on it!
Because it does!
Done.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“Do not think that I have come
to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish
them but to fulfill them.”
-Matthew 5:17
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God,
a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.”
-2 Timothy 2:15
Leave a Reply