.jpg)
“Does Adonai take as much pleasure
in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as in obeying what Adonai says?
Surely obeying is better than sacrifice,
and heeding orders than the fat of rams.”
-1 Samuel 15:22
Alrighty, so today we encounter the most abused and probably misunderstood verse in all of Christianity.
In answer to Samuel’s accusation that he had sinned, Saul’s defense was that for the most part, he did what God instructed.
I believe Samuel’s response is a statement that will go down in history as probably the most misapplied, manipulated, and misinterpreted verse in all of Christianity’s history.
“Does Adonai take as much pleasure
in burnt offerings and sacrifices as
in obeying what Adonai says?”
First of all, don’t you find it hypocritical of the church to declare the “Old” Testament done away with and no longer relevant to then turn around and use a verse from that very same OT text they say is dead and gone to validate their point?
The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a wooden butter knife about three inches wide in diameter.
So how the institutional church typically interprets this verse is to say that IN PLACE OF “sacrifices and burnt offerings”, it’s now only important that we be “obedient”.
They’re saying that obedience has replaced sacrifice.
You know what the problem is with that interpretation?
Their definition of “obedience” is some hazy, ambiguous, and unexplained notion rooted in pure subjectivity.
It’s all a bunch of lovey-dovey, maple-syrupy BS based on doing things according to the “love of Christ”.
Like whatever the heck that means.
My question is obedience to WHAT exactly?
And they can’t give me a clear answer…
They’ll just mumble something like…
“Obedience to the Lord man”…
Ya know, just follow the leading of the Holy Spirit”…
Then they go on their merry way with big smiles on their faces as if they’ve just smoked about 20 pounds of marijuana while chomping on their unclean ham sandwiches.
Look, if God’s holy laws and commands have been done away with, then they’re ain’t nothing left to be obedient to!
Period.
Ya feel me?
When you interpret the verse within its proper context in 1 Samuel 15, an entirely different picture is painted.
In no way is this verse saying the sacrificial system was inferior, defective, or done away with.
The prophets may have condemned the people for abusing the sacrificial system…
But they never condemned the sacrificial system itself.
That’s a key distinction the church needs to make.
And that’s pretty much what Samuel is telling Saul.
He’s saying…
“Look man, you can’t treat God’s sacrificial system as some automatic forgiveness vending machine whereby you can sin with impunity and then just pop a coin into the Levitical sacrificial system to get your escape-the-consequences-of-my-sin token.”
Remember, the Levitical system only provided forgiveness for unintentional, NOT intentional sins.
The bottom line is there ain’t no ceremonial ritual that can make up for deliberate rebellion and disobedience toward God’s commandments.
When you harbor a defiant and careless attitude toward the Law, you’re exalting yourself over your Creator.
And that dog ain’t gonna hunt homie.
This also leads to today’s takeaway.
If you think it’s okay to break God’s laws left and right because you can always pop a coin or insert a few bucks into the Jesus-died-for-my-sins sacrificial vending machine, then you’ve got another thing coming.
In that case, your sacrifice means nothing.
That’s what Samuel was saying to Saul.
Remember, the reason God established the sacrificial system was to give worshippers a way to survive when they committed “unintentional” sins.
Where there is no sin, there’d be no need for sacrifice.
In other words, the idea is don’t freakin’ sin in the first place!
Regularly banging your neighbor’s wife on Saturday, and then trying to seek forgiveness on Sunday ain’t gonna cut it homie.
Rant over.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“If we deliberately keep on sinning
after we have received the
knowledge of the truth,
no sacrifice for sins is left,
but only a fearful expectation
of judgment and of raging fire
that will consume the enemies of God.
Anyone who rejected the law of
Moses died without mercy on the
testimony of two or three witnesses.
How much more severely do you
think someone deserves to be punished
who has trampled the Son of God
underfoot, who has treated as an
unholy thing the blood of the covenant
that sanctified them, and who
has insulted the Spirit of grace?”
-Hebrews 10:26-29
Leave a Reply