1 Samuel 15:14-31

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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The last verse we read was verse 13.

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And we'll pick up right there.

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And I'm going to read through the end of the paragraph, which would be to the end of verse 16, and then we'll start walking through the text.

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Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed art you, O of the Lord.

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I have carried out the command of the Lord.

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But Samuel said, What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God.

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But the rest we have utterly destroyed.

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And Samuel said to Saul, Wait, let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.

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And Saul said, Speak.

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So y'all tell me what happened last week.

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If I explained it, what happened last week? What was Saul supposed to do? Everything, man, woman, boy, yep, everything.

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He was supposed to go, everything was dedicated to God for destruction.

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Basically, the city, the tribal land, everything was a sacrificial dedication to God for destruction.

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And Saul went, and what did he do? He tweaked the command.

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He tweaked it, Hey, I think I can make this command a little better by saving that which was the best of the oxen and the sheep and all that, save it for God to sacrifice at Gilgal.

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Now, when we get here, we know that God came however he did to Samuel at night, and he said, Look, Saul's disobeyed me.

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I want you to go confront him, and that's when we have Samuel coming to him.

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Remember, this would have been probably a four days or so, because he came from down here to Carmel, which would have been somewhere here, and then he was going to Gilgal, which is here, 120 plus miles.

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And remember, if you're dragging sheep and oxen and whatever else, the spoils that they got probably would not have gotten there as fast as back, as fast as they went, wrangling all the cattle.

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So we'll just say it's been four days.

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So it's been four days for Saul to at least recognize his transgression.

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Imagine when Samuel came to him and he was given instructions.

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I think it would be all right to say that were not his advisor standing there with him when he heard this? Let me think about it.

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Every king has a cabinet, correct? Every king has his advisors.

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I don't know about y'all, but when I read through this passage, I go, where was Abner and where was Jonathan? Abner was his head of the army, and Jonathan was the one that was the faithful that would run out and was raiding the Philistines and knocking their garrisons down, remember? So I go, man, where were these dudes when this took place? Let's say that they were there and they did hear it.

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What do we know from the text that Saul did? He disobeyed.

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He told his people, and we're fixing to see how many times he lies in this passage.

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He says, blessed are you, the Lord, I've carried out the command of the Lord.

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Look, Samuel ain't even said nothing to him, and he's already defending his position.

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Samuel's walking up.

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Oh, I've done what I was supposed to do, flag number one.

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He says, I've carried out the command of the Lord.

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That's a lie.

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Did he carry out the command? No, he did not hearken to the voice of the Lord.

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And you get to verse 14, but Samuel said, what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the ox in which I hear? It's obvious that Samuel's hearing the evidence of the lie.

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He says, look, I hear all these sheep and all these oxen.

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This isn't normal.

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Why am I hearing this? And Saul said to him, well, they have brought them from the event.

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They, who's the they? Lie number two, who was responsible for the people? He's the king.

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You don't disobey the king.

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You do what the king tells you to do.

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Matter of fact, when the people wanted to do their own thing, I think it's back in chapter 10 and 11, when he was gonna put, they wanted to put the people to death that didn't like Saul.

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What did Saul do? He stepped in the place and says, no, no, no, no, we ain't gonna do that.

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And the people listened.

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So Saul should have told these people if they were doing their own thing.

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No, no, no, no.

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God has commanded us to do this a certain way.

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He's given us explicit instructions on how to do it.

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So there's no wiggle room for misinterpretation.

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You kill everything.

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And he says, but they have brought them from the Amalekites.

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For the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God.

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That's a lie.

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They had no intention of sacrificing this to the Lord your God, zero.

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When kings go in and conquer lands and tribal lands, what did they do? They took the best of the spoils.

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And you're gonna see that continue.

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Even when they fight the Philistines and Ziklag and all this, they take the good stuff and they just slaughter and kill the rest.

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I mean, that was the normal way of doing war back then.

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But in this case, God said, you don't do anything.

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You kill all of them.

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You don't take any spoil.

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And he says, but the rest we have utterly destroyed.

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Lie number three.

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They did not utterly destroy everything.

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They only destroyed that which was despised.

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That's what was worthless.

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That's what was sick.

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And that what was maimed.

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Hey, just under the sacrificial system, this for a second, under the sacrificial system, what was supposed to be offered to the Lord? The very best.

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And what did they, well, just for a second.

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They said they utterly destroyed or gave, did you raise your hand? No.

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Sacrificed to God in the land of Amalek, only that which was despised.

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So if they were even wanting to say that they were partially doing what they were supposed to, only thing that they sacrificed to God in as an act of destruction in Amalek or in the land of the Amalekites was that which was despised.

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In verse 16, then Samuel said to Saul, wait, let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.

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And he said to him, speak.

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I don't know about y'all, but what we know about God speaking to prophets.

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And he says, hey, God came to me last night and I'm standing in front of you.

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And he says, hey, let me tell you what the Lord said.

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And he should be ready to at least get a tongue lashing here.

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And he says, speak.

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Now, before we move forward, I want us to understand, I don't know how many times y'all have heard this passage taught.

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I don't know how many times you've read through it, but a lot of times there is a heated, when we're talking about the exchange between Saul and Samuel, that this is a heated argument that these men are, it is an angry response from the prophet.

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I want you to, that is not the position that I hold.

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And the reason being, if we go back up, it says when the Lord came to Samuel at night, he was grieved.

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He was grieved.

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And multiple times in this passage, we're gonna see the word grieved used, meaning, or lament.

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So what's that? Mourn.

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Okay, something, yeah, passage may say mourn.

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So I want you to understand that it's not an angry disposition of the prophet.

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I'm even going to go as far as to say, it was not an angry response when he chopped up Agag.

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Was it an act of violence? Yes, but it was an act of obedience to God to do what he did.

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It was not an outburst of anger, okay? And we're gonna see even when the prophet here and the Lord both are grieving over Saul.

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So this is an attitude of bereavement and grieving over Saul, not of anger.

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And here it is in verse 17.

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As Samuel said, is it not true that you were little in your own eyes and you were made the head of the tribes of Israel when the Lord anointed you king over Israel? Think back to that.

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Remember when he was told that, hey, you're gonna be the king of Israel? Remember what he said to Samuel? How can this be? Remember, he was looking for the donkeys.

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He says, you don't even worry about those three donkeys because the best of all of Israel is gonna be yours.

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And what did he say? He said, how can this be? Am I not the least of the tribes of the nation of Israel and you're going to do this for me? So he recognized even at the beginning of him being anointed that this shouldn't be true.

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I am not worthy.

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And I do believe that was the reason why he was originally hiding, was not to take the kingdom because he felt unfit.

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Now, King Saul's disposition towards stuff now ain't like that.

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Look, he's had a little bit of time to reign.

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He's had a little bit of time to do what he's want.

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Does anybody tell the king what he's gonna do? No, he tells a guy to go do this and he does it.

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He tells his servant to go do this and he does it.

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So nobody's gonna tell the king what he's supposed to do.

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And in this case, God ain't even gonna tell him what to do.

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He's gonna do it his own way.

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It's difficult to say right here, but I would imagine probably 10 years.

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And the reason being is because when we get into the next chapter, we have an idea kind of how old King David was, or David at this time, how old he was.

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We see him anywhere between 15 and 16 years old.

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So we know this happened probably, obviously it happened before this.

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And we know that Jonathan was at least the age of 20 because he was a man of war.

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Nobody was supposed to go out to war, pressed into service by the king, unless he was 20.

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Now they could go, but not pressed into service.

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Remember, once you were 20 years old, if there was a war, you went.

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Now there was others that could go.

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David's a little different.

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They see him as being a man of war.

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He's slaying everybody 16, 17 years old.

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And they're like, hey, that's the guy we want to lead us.

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So probably 10 years or so.

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Remember, he only reigned 40 years.

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And then we're going to see him chase David.

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You may remember how long he chased David? 15.

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He chased David for 15 years.

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Because if David comes to the throne when he is 30 years old, and he chased him for 15 years, what does that make David's age? No, what would it make David when he was anointed king? I'm sorry, when he was anointed king, what would that make him? 15, 16 years old.

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Understand? Do I need to draw a line on it? Okay, all right.

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Nope, y'all don't want none of my nice images I did last week? Okay.

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So he says, is it not true? Basically, hey, weren't you not humbled when you were set up over the tribes of Israel? And he was, he was.

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And the Lord anointed you king, but he sent you on a mission.

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And he said, you go and you utterly destroy the sinners.

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I.e., the Amalekites.

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And you fight against them until they are completely exterminated.

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Why then, here it is, why did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but you rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord? Well, why did he go upon the, just, I mean, logically speaking, why did he rush upon the spoil? He wanted it.

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He wanted it.

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The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the desire to have, dude, covetous, the desire to have what, the king of the Amalekites, what Agag had, now he wanted.

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It was good, it was nice, and that's what he wanted.

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And he didn't care what the voice of the Lord said.

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I'm gonna do what I want.

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In verse 20, then Saul said to Samuel, I did obey the voice of the Lord.

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Why again? Did he obey? No, he did not obey.

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I did go on the mission on which the Lord sent me.

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Did he go and fight? Yes, he did, but he did not obey.

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Obey means I'm gonna go down there and I'm gonna kill everything that has breath, basically.

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He said, I did obey the voice of the Lord, and I went on the mission on which the Lord sent me and have brought back Agag.

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Was Agag supposed to come back? What was supposed to happen to Agag? He should have died four days ago.

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Here, when they were down just on the east side of Egypt, but the people took, once again, here we are, another lie in verse 21, but the people took some of the spoil.

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What did it already say back in the chapter? It said that Saul and the people were what? Unwilling to utterly destroy all that was in the Amalekites.

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So Saul lying again.

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The people took some of the spoil, the sheep and the oxen, and the choicest of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice unto the Lord your God at Gilgal.

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There was no, I said it already, there was no intention of sacrificing anything at Gilgal.

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Have I not made it very clear how many times he has lied here? Do we have any reason to believe that Saul was going to make this huge sacrifice at Gilgal? No.

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Oh, he see, ma'am? Yes, ma'am.

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Yeah, when they saw, and the weight of all the disobedience falls on the king.

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They were doing what the king told them to do.

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Let's just say the cabinet wasn't there, there wasn't anybody to hear that.

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The king's responsibility is to disperse the message from the prophet to the army and let them do what they want.

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Hey, I'll even go back as far that these people really knew their book of Moses.

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They would have known, you know what was written in a scroll and embedded in the Mosaic legislation.

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And if you want to do it under the 613 commands and prohibitions, the 613th command and prohibition under the Mosaic legislation is you kill the Amalekites.

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It was in the legislation.

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There was no denying what they were supposed to do.

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And they were unwilling.

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The people took it.

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You're a liar.

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It was not the people, it was you.

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And they were gonna devote them.

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Listen to what he says.

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They were gonna sacrifice it to the Lord your God at Gilgal.

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You go, oh, that's not big of a deal.

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Words have meaning.

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Do you understand what Saul is saying here? And he uses the same term again, the Lord your God.

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Why didn't he say the Lord my God? Why? He's made himself his own God, set up his own kingdom.

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The only thing that he cared about is he's gonna do what's right in his own eyes.

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And he's gonna worry about making more stuff for himself.

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Just like, remember, just like the other kings, they wanted.

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The kings, they wanted a king just like the rest of the nations.

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That's what this king's doing.

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Still a great deliverer, right? I mean, still, was he not a great deliverer? From man's perspective, was this not a great slaughter? Yeah.

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I mean, dude, there's only one survivor.

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Not forget about what happens down, you know, in the rest of the book.

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But from our understanding and how this is unfolding right now, there's only one survivor, humanly speaking.

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And who is that? Agag.

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So from the army standpoint, from the nation knowing what has taken place, this is actually a very good squash of their enemy.

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He says in verse 22, then Samuel said, has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifice as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Look, does God want you to sin and then repent? Or would he rather you just obey? Obey.

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I mean, it's easy for us to understand what he's saying, but you know how hard and difficult that is even for us today? I mean, has anybody in here obeyed perfectly? Okay, if you raise your hand, you have just disobeyed.

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No, none of us.

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And nobody.

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But he's saying, look, God does not want the smell of the fat of bulls and calves and all of that.

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He wants you to do what was right.

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And the instructions that was given to Saul were very explicit.

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There was no wiggle room.

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There was no, hey, I want you to go and fight against the Amalekites and I just want you to destroy them.

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Okay, that would leave a little wiggle room to figure out, well, what did that actually mean? No, it was explicit on how to do it.

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Just like when they went into Jericho, they were given explicit instructions on how to do it and what was to be done.

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He says, but behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed, meaning to listen or obey, remember we talked about that word last week when you hear the heed or hear the word of the Lord, that has the idea of what? Obey, obey, obey.

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And then he says in verse 23, that rebellion is as the sin of divination.

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What is rebellion? Sure, disobedience, doing your own thing.

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And then it says, it is as the sin, does it make translation say witchcraft? Okay, why would we say that or why would we understand it or how would we understand that as being witchcraft? Because we do know this, although Saul, as the book unfolds, witchcraft was supposed to be put to death.

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It's interesting that the only person who knows where a witch is towards the end of the book is who? Saul.

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Saul, Saul.

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So why is witchcraft, I mean rebellion, is the sin is divination? I prefer the translation divination, I'll tell you why in a second, so.

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Anybody? Appealing to a different voice to listen to.

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And so yes, so divination, they would conjure up things to hear from another spirit.

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They would wanna hear from another voice.

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So rebellion is as the sin of divination or witchcraft, why? Because you're wanting to hear another voice other than that which the Lord had already given.

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And then as we get to the end of the book, when I think it's in chapter 28, when he goes to the witch of Endor and he's wanting her to bring up Samuel, because why? Anybody remember why he wants Samuel to come up? Because the Lord won't answer him.

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He's asked for the Lord several times to talk to him, the Lord doesn't listen to him.

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So when the Lord doesn't answer him, he goes and seeks out another voice.

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That's why.

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Hey, and although there's only two spirits in all the Bible that come up, Samuel's one and the Holy Spirit.

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That's it, that's the only two spirits.

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So it says, is that of divination? And in the next section of verse 23 says, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.

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Insubordination is what? Did anybody say stubbornness? Yeah, that's what it is.

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Stiff-necked.

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What were the people of Israel the whole time they came out of? Stiff-necked, disobedient, not wanting to do what they were commanded to do.

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And it says it's as iniquity and idolatry.

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Does anybody say sin where it says iniquity? No.

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How should we understand iniquity? What is iniquity? It's sin.

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Sin is iniquity.

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And we oftentimes think about sin in two terms of, and maybe this will help.

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What is, just a quick definition, what is sin? It is disobeying.

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But what, when we think about sin, hamartia, that's the Greek word.

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How do we understand that? Missing the mark, right? So if this is the goal, we fall short here.

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All have fallen short, right? All have fallen short.

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This is perfect obedience.

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But then there's another part, and you'll remember this when I say it, forgive us our sins and trespasses, right? So how should we understand trespass? What's that? Actually, if this is where we're supposed to go, we go too far.

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Think about this.

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I put a gate at your house, Caleb, and this is no trespassing.

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Or you put a gate, I should say.

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And I go through that gate.

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What have I done? Trespassed.

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I've gone beyond that which I'm supposed to.

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So that's how we should understand, when we think about sin and trespasses, this, missing the mark of perfect obedience, this here, trespass, gone too far.

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God says, this is where you stop, but you went this, you went way beyond.

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And that's how we should understand it.

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So it says here that insubordination is that of iniquity and idolatry.

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Why is insubordination and rebellion idolatry? Yep, anytime we put, set something else to obey other than God, that's idolatry.

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Every time.

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Anytime.

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Then it says, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he also has rejected you from being king.

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What was the command at the beginning? Listen to the word of the Lord.

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Listen to the word of the Lord.

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Take heed to what the Lord is saying.

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And what does Samuel say that Saul did right here? You rejected it.

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You heard what you were supposed to do, you did not care, and you have rejected the word of the Lord.

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And then he says, he has also, in kind of a play on words, now God, Yahweh, has rejected you from being king.

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Says in verse 24, then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned.

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I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord in your words.

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Okay? How many of you think that this is really an act of contrition and repentance? Repentant of what he'd done.

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He wouldn't have had to wait till someone called him on the carpet to.

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Yeah, now that it's all been found out, hey, you know, he's not denying that he hasn't, he did at first.

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How many times did he lie? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and we could go into a little bit more.

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He lied six or seven times.

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Now, okay, after a conversation with the prophet, okay, you win.

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I have sinned.

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Is acknowledgement of sin, the admission of sin, repentance? No, it's not.

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Acknowledge of wrongdoing, it is now, is recognizing you have sinned against a holy God part of that? Yeah, before you can repent, there has to be a knowledge that you've transgressed the command of the Lord.

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But in this case, let's say this, when Samuel came and he heard the bleeding of the sheep, and he says, I did obey the voice of the Lord, but the people brought this, what should immediately him and his servants should have done when he recognized that he was caught? You know what? You're right, what we did was wrong, and they just start slaughtering everything.

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You're right, we'll take care of that now.

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I misunderstood what you meant.

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I was gonna do them here, but that's not it.

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He was no intent.

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He said, I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and because I feared the people and listened to their voice.

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Now, I know there might be some of y'all that really believe he was fearing the people, and I believe he's lying here.

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Yeah, I believe he's lying here.

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I believe he's trying to push it on the people.

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I feared the people.

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Now, is the fear of man a snare? Absolutely.

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Sure, it can be.

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Are we gonna see shortly in just a couple of chapters, Saul fearful? Yes, I do believe there was a part of him that was fearful to fight Goliath, and the reason why I think he was fearful to fight Goliath is what's gonna take place here, because he says, I've taken the kingdom from you and I've given it to somebody else.

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Now, just however this unfolds, there's uprises this champion wanting to fight their king, and he's thinking in his mind, I know this is conjecture and an inference, if I go, maybe this is the medium by which I'm removed from my office, this could be the guy that kills me.

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So he doesn't go out and fight in fear of losing the kingdom for fighting the champion.

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Now, you might disagree with that conclusion, and I'm fine with that, but that's the only time I see him fearful.

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This is a bold-faced lie.

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King ain't scared of nobody.

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He tells people to go do what they're supposed to do, and they don't.

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I don't even think he's fearful of Samuel.

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I think at this point, he's not even caring what Samuel has to say until it affected the kingdom.

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Now that he says, you've rejected the word of the Lord, and now the Lord's rejected you, now the rejection of the kingdom incited what? The admission of guilt.

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So he said, all right, you've been rejected as king, and then Saul says, okay, I have sinned.

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I feared the people and listened to their voice.

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Now, therefore, here's what he says, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord.

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Why does he want Samuel to pardon his sin so that he can return with the Lord to worship? What is he trying to do? That's it.

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And actually, he's gonna say that.

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He's gonna actually, we continue, we're gonna see that's exactly what he wants.

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He wants them to intercede for him so that he can go back and worship the Lord.

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And all that's just religiosity.

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It's not real.

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It's not a desire to worship the Lord.

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The desire to worship the Lord would have been to carry out the command of the Lord, the way it was supposed to, and he did not.

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But he wants it to look like, now that I have done this great slaughter, forgive me, but let's go in and let this procession be now that you're here with the prophet and the king as what I did was right in obeying.

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And he says, I will not return with you because you rejected the word of the Lord.

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And now the Lord has rejected you, O king over Israel.

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Now here's a, we get to verse 27, and this is where the, we've had an oracle from the prophet, all right, an oracle from the prophet, and then we're gonna get a sign.

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Samuel turned to go, and Saul seized the edge of his robe and tore it so that Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you.

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The oracle is what? What was the oracle? The word of the Lord.

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Torn, kingdom's torn.

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This sign guaranteed that that oracle was gonna come to pass.

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What does he say? His, he was turning, his robe was torn.

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And what does Samuel connect the word of the Lord to? The tearing of his garment.

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Just as this garment has been torn.

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That's not how he says it, okay? So this has, the garment has been torn.

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The kingdom's been torn from you.

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You remember back when he was, the oracle came that he was going to be king.

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Do you remember how many signs were given to him? Anybody remember? There was three goats.

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Right before that, there was gonna be two people.

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There was gonna be two men at the tomb of Rachel.

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Then there was gonna be three men carrying three goats with three loaves, and he was gonna get two, right? So there was an oracle, he was gonna be king, and then there was signs that then qualified that what the Lord had said was true, right? He says, hey, when you go and you see these signs, know that what I'm saying is true.

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Well, because your robe, my robe has been torn, it's a sign sealed, this is over.

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Now, this is the part where some people think that Saul was reaching for Samuel, his robe or his mantle, depending on how you understand that word there, his garment or robe, as being an act of, don't leave, and to snatch him.

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I do want you to consider one thing.

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In Jewish culture, the reaching for the garment was an act of supplication.

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What have we seen already back up here from him? He is pleading, understand, that's what I said at the beginning, understand this isn't a heated argument.

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This is Saul grieving over the rejection that Saul has done.

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This is Saul, I mean, Samuel mourning and lamenting, and you're gonna go on to the end of the chapter, and that's exactly what he's doing.

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So as Samuel goes to leave, and one more act of supplication reaches for his garment, and it tears, not as to snatch and turn around.

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I'll even go so far as even say, if you look in the New Testament, I think it's in, Andy preached on it recently, the touching of the hem of the garment, it's three times, like three accounts of that, but then also in Matthew, I think it's in chapter 14, it says, and all of them that reached and touched the hem of Jesus's garment were healed.

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You understand that's an act of supplication.

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That's not my interpretation, that's the Jewish Hebrew culture.

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Take, for instance, under the Mosaic legislation, they made their shawl, right? What did they put the tassels, the tzitzit, or the talit, as wound up with the shawl being called, what were the tassels on the bottom for? Supplication, well, just prayer.

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It's supplication to God.

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Supplicating, an act of imploring.

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So in here, the reaching for the garment shouldn't be understood that he was trying to spin Samuel around in some type of violent interaction.

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No, no, no, it was the act of, hey, just one more time, just listen to me one more time, and here, listen to this.

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He says, also the glory of Israel will not lie or change his mind.

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How do we know that it's not gonna change his mind? Because we had the torn garment to go with the oracle.

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Look, we often go, okay, we know that God doesn't in the sense of he's immutable, we know that, and he doesn't change his mind in the sense that God's not manipulated by men.

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This specifically is often used to see God can't change his mind.

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He is saying because the garment has been torn, the kingdom's been torn from you, it is settled, God's not going to go back.

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There is a sign with the revelation that I have given you that your kingdom is done.

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That's what he's saying.

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He said he is not a man that he should change his mind.

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Now, there are times in scripture where we see God change his mind, humanly speaking.

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Yeah, yeah or nay? Who said yeah? Yeah, okay, when? Just one would be good.

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He did.

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Chapter 32, they were doing their little, they were making sport, and when it says making sport, they went down there playing badminton, okay? They were having them in an orgy, and he said, you go down.

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I'm gonna wipe them out, and I'm gonna make you.

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And he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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He says, don't do that.

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He says, you brought them out.

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You're gonna make a disgrace to your name, and he interceded, but understand, when he said I'm gonna wipe them out, there was no sign given with that oracle that the judgment was secure.

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The oracle of God to wipe out the people was to incite Moses to do what? Intercede for the people.

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So any time, preaching of Jonah, what did Jonah do? He said, if I go preach to them people, they're gonna repent, so what did he do? He went the opposite way.

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He even says, I knew that if I went and did what you told me to do, they were gonna repent, and you would relent of the judgment that you were saying you would do.

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So we do, from our perspective, it's God changing his mind.

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It is actually God using that act of judgment to then turn his people.

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In this case, there ain't no turning back.

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God's not gonna turn back from the oracle because you have the sign, and you have the oracle to go with it, just like when he was given a king.

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The oracle came.

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These are gonna be the signs to prove that you're king, and when they happen, know that it has taken place.

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We good? Questions? Nope.

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And then verse 32.

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Oh, hang on, let me back up.

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He said, then I said, I have sinned, but please, as we were just saying, me and Miss Debra were saying a minute ago, this is all show.

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He said, once again, he is an act of imploring him, an act of supplication, please honor me now before the elders of my people.

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Look, he is wanting Samuel to still show that he was obedient.

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He is wanting to be honored by the people instead of being honorable to God.

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He does not care about what God thinks.

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I don't think he ever really did.

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Maybe in the beginning, we can see the beginning part that he said, yeah, there was an act of acknowledging that the great slaughter in the beginning of his reign came from God.

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But here, who does it say in this narrative last week, who does he make a monument to? Himself at Carmel.

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So this is all me.

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This is all about me.

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And in this case, he's wanting them, honor me before the people, honor me before Israel, and go back with me that I may worship.

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And here it is.

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What does it say? Your God, yeah.

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He's talking about, okay, I want you to go back.

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I want you to honor me while you worship your God.

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Worship your God.

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Your God.

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He should have been saying whose God.

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Do you all believe that there can be apostasy even within the covenant community and still remain in the covenant community? Do we? Yeah, they can.

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Jeremiah.

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Were they still active doing religiosity sacrifices? Were they? Yeah.

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They still had men going in there with funny clothes once a year, going in the Holy Holies, doing all that stuff.

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But how many times did he tell them in the book of Jeremiah, you're an apostate nation, you're an apostate nation, you're an apostate nation, and they were judged for that.

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And this- Define apostate.

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Just turning no faith in Yahweh.

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He actually says it in there.

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And we had this, I don't think you were here, we talked about the, I think me and you were talking about backsliding and apostasy.

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Do you see that in here? The word that's used is three times, backsliding in there, and the word's not backsliding.

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The word means to be an apostate.

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It means to be faithless.

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That word backsliding in there is a terrible translation in English because that ain't what it means.

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It means to apostatize.

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It means to faithless, no faith, not trusting God.

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And what are we seeing from King Saul now? No trust in God.

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He does not trust in God.

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He trusted in himself.

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And then he says here, so Samuel went back following Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord.

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Interesting that Samuel went back following Saul, not Saul following the prophet.

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Look, I know you go, okay, you're making a big deal about it, okay? I think it shows that my application of this shows that Saul is leading God's word, not obeying God's word.

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You get behind me.

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Let me go first.

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I'm more important.

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Who was more important in the land of Israel? Prophet or king? Prophet.

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Prophet.

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Prophet.

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Who spoke to the king? Prophet.

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You're gonna see if you ever read through the book of Isaiah and you got a guy that could just waltz right into the king's, just walk right in.

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Who has the authority other than the prophet of God to just walk into the king's court unhindered? Only the prophet.

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And in this case, we have, for whatever reason, grievance, lamenting over him, Samuel says, okay, I'll go back with you.

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Any questions? Was, is 22 and 23 kind of a foreshadowing of Isaac's and the blood? Bulls and goats? Sure, and that is the continual thing.

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We'll just take, for instance, even in, like I said, Jeremiah, there were continually doing those sacrifices, but those sacrifices were in vain because they were not really acts of worship because anything done outside the act of faith is what? Sin, it's sin.

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They were just doing it as an act of religious, religious stigma.

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That's all they were doing.

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And I mean, this is the constant thing that happens with the nation of Israel.

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They put more pleasure in blood of bulls and goats as an act of worship than obedience.

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I mean, why do they continually have to slay bulls and goats? Because of their disobedience.

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The only time we see massive amounts of offering to the Lord is the dedication of the temple with Solomon.

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And I mean, he actually has to stop sacrificing as an act of worship, okay? As an act of worship.

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He had to stop because the blood was running down the Kidron Valley so much they couldn't get the blood out fast enough.

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I'm talking like 20,000 bulls or some ridiculous, it might be like 30,000 animals.

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And they just, I mean, imagine that, just.

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I mean, the drainage system to get it out of the temple complex would have been just crazy.

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And they go, hey, we can't do anymore because the blood won't flow.

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So yes, is this something that we will hear again? Yes, most certainly.

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Yes, yeah, yeah.

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And Israel rejects their king, yeah.

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Think that clock's a little fast.

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What time is it? Time to go? 10, 13, I got two minutes to do.

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I ain't gonna do it.

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We'll finish up 32 through 34 next week.

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And then we'll talk about both of them grieving, the regret of God towards Saul, what that means, what it looks like.

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How should we understand that text? Does God really have feelings? Does God really have feelings? Okay, so next week we're gonna argue about that a whole bunch, then we'll end.

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Okay, all right.

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Mike, would you pray us out? We pray that as we study today that these things would not just be things that we can just tuck away as spiritual information, but that we would allow it to cause us to obey in all things, and that our faith would be in Christ and not in a bunch of show, because as we've read today, obedience is better than sacrifice.

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Pray, Lord, that we would be obedient servants of the great king, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

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Amen.