1 Samuel 13 (Saul's Unlawful Sacrifice)

Saul’s Unlawful Sacrifice and the Beginning of His Downfall

Let's turn to 1 Samuel chapter 13. 1 Samuel 13, we've been going over the life of King Saul and we've seen how he started out well, but things are quickly going to go south. So this chapter is titled, Saul's Unlawful Sacrifice.

So basically what happens is Saul takes matters into his own hands instead of waiting for Samuel, the priest, to come and offer the sacrifice. Saul decides he's going to offer the sacrifice himself. So a lot of people, and this is something you typically hear, people say, well this kind of violates what the Old Testament people call the Old Testament separation of church and state.

You know, it's supposed to be the priest, not the king, who's offering the sacrifice. Well, that's not exactly it, but I will address that idea. But in Israel, the Lord was very clear in speaking through his prophets.

And what Saul did really is Saul disobeyed the voice of the Lord given through Samuel. So Saul disobeys Samuel, or God, because Samuel speaks for God, but Saul offers the sacrifice in disobedience. Basically there's a test, he fails the test, and the equivalent would be like a Christian leader today, openly and intentionally ignoring the Bible, which is a very serious thing.

This is really a sign. 1 Samuel 13, Saul, things have been going well, now it's all going downhill. It's a sign that Saul is becoming arrogant. Let's begin reading 1 Samuel 13. We'll read verses 1 through 15.

The scripture says Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose for himself 3 ,000 men of Israel. 2 ,000 were with Saul in Michmash, and in the mountains of Bethel, and 1 ,000 were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin.

And the rest of the people he sent away, every man to his tent. And Jonathan attacked the garrison of the Philistines that was in Gibeah, and the Philistines heard of it. Then Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.

Now all Israel heard it was said that Saul had attacked a garrison of the Philistines, and that Israel had also become an abomination to the Philistines. And the people were called together to Saul at Gilgal.

Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, 30 ,000 chariots and 6 ,000 horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude. And they came up, and they camped in Michmash, to the east of Beth-Avon.

And when the men of Israel saw that they were in danger for the people were distressed, then the people hid in caves and thickets and rocks and holes and in pits. And some of the Hebrews even crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad in Gilead.

As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him.

So Saul said, Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me. And he offered the burnt offering. Now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came, and Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him.

Then Samuel said, What have you done? Saul said, Well, when I saw the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, then I said, The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord.

Therefore, I felt compelled and offered a burnt offering. So we see here that there is the word of the Lord versus how Saul felt. Now, did Saul obey the word of God or did he just go with his feelings?

Well, he went with his feelings. Verse 13 and Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly, for you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.

But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

Then Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin, and Saul numbered the people present with him about six hundred men. So this is a very serious thing. It's for this reason that Saul ends up getting replaced by David.

Saul doesn't really care much about the word of God. When confronted by Samuel, realizing that he disobeyed, he doesn't really seem to see what the fuss is about. So this chapter begins with this statement.

Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose for himself three thousand men of Israel. Now, there are some people who are going to be following along. I'm using the New King James version.

So if you use the King James or the New King James, you're going to see something like what I just read. However, if you use the other translations, other modern translations that really do come from a separate line of manuscripts, the NIV, the NASB, I believe, they render this a different way.

So the NIV says Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel forty years. And let me just compare that to what I just read in the New King James. Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years over Israel, he chose for himself three thousand men.

So which is it? There's a textual issue here. Saul reigned one year. That's the King James, New King James. Other translations say Saul was thirty years old. Well, that's not the same thing. So how do we deal with this textual issue?

Because I know there are people who follow along with these Bible studies. You have your Bible opened, and that's what you should be doing. And when you notice a discrepancy where I'm reading something, and you're reading something completely different, I mean that needs to be addressed.

So here's the thing. The Hebrew, and I encourage you to check this out for yourself, but the Hebrew literally says that Saul was one year old. Okay. Well, based on what we've read up until this point, we know for a fact that cannot mean that he was an infant one year.

That's obvious. The way it's rendered, it has to mean something a little different. Saul is one year old in the kingship. Saul is one year old. He's been serving as king for one year. That's what's being said.

And then after he has reigned for two years, this is what happened, how things start going bad. So that's really what it's saying. Saul has been reigning for two years, and then this happened. So there's nowhere in the scripture that gives Saul's age when he became king.

So Saul started out good. After two years, things went bad. That's basically if you look at the Hebrew, that's what's being said. Now, how these other translations determine that Saul was 30 years old and all that, I don't know.

But in Acts 13 verse 21, we do read that Saul did in fact reign for 40 years over Israel. So that is true. We don't know about his age. And I don't think that is the point here to mention his age. And I just have to say this, and I'm not looking to fight about this, but the more I study scripture, I'm just giving you my conclusion.

The more I study the scripture, the more I am convinced that the King James Version of the Bible and the New King James Version, which come from one line of manuscripts, are more accurate than the others.

NIV, NASB, ESV. I know that's a minority position, and like I said, I'm not looking to fight about it, but you know, if you study the Word of God and you follow along, you're going to find that sometimes Bible versions say something completely, like both can't be true.

So at least one of these translations has to be wrong when you look at this verse. Moving on from that, Saul has all of these soldiers under him, and one unit is being led by his son Jonathan. So Jonathan, following his father's orders, he attacks the military outpost of the Philistines.

So this causes the Philistines to view the Israelites as an abomination. Have you ever wondered what that word means? An abomination. That's like a very strongly worded rebuke, right? When someone is seen or something is seen as an abomination.

Well, the Hebrew term simply means to stink. So what it's saying is the Israelites have become a stench to the Philistines. So you could say that they hated them, but this is maybe a stronger way of saying it.

So with full-on war potentially on the doorstep, Saul now calls for more troops. We're going to read later in the chapter, and I don't know if we'll get to that. I would recommend that if you follow these studies, read the chapters before or after.

But later on in chapter 13, we read the statement that the soldiers in Israel, they didn't really have much for weapons. Verse 19 says that there were no blacksmiths to be found in Israel. What does that mean?

Well, it means they didn't have swords. They didn't have spears. It says if they needed anything, they had to go to the Philistines to get it. So this is a really bad situation. And when the Israelites see the way things are shaping up, I mean, they just assume there's no way we can win.

Verse 6 said they started hiding in caves and some fled the promised land altogether. So this is basically like an evacuation. War is about to begin. That's what they think. The people are getting ready.

They're preparing for war. And those who followed Saul, verse 7, it says that they trembled. So they're definitely not feeling confident. Of course, you remember, just to jump forward, remember when David, before he was king, he shows up as a youth, and all the Israelites are afraid of this champion named Goliath.

The Israelite soldiers are all fearful. Saul is fearful. He doesn't know what to do. And David's like, what's the problem? I'll go out and fight the giant. And, you know, part of that, being fearful, sometimes when a person is fearful, you're lacking faith in the Lord.

And, you know, there were reasons why Israel should be concerned, but they were lacking faith in God. And really that fear and that lack of faith is what led Saul to offer this sacrifice. So fear and a lack of faith cause us to do things that we shouldn't do, to defy the Word of God because we rationalize it in our mind and come up with our own way.

So the people were afraid. Saul is getting nervous. And here's the thing. Here's what Saul probably wasn't even thinking of. This all amounted to one big test. Samuel tells the king, wait for seven days.

By waiting on Samuel, because Samuel is the man of God, it shows not only loyalty to Samuel, it shows a trust for the Lord. But when Samuel doesn't show up, which we assume is by design, it's part of the test, Saul fails by deciding to move forward on his own.

As one commentator puts it, Saul, by doing this, he shows that he desires to rule as an autocrat. The word autocrat refers to ruling by oneself. So instead of Israel being a nation under God, Saul now in effect is trying to rule Israel as though it belonged to him.

Not him and Samuel as a team, which is the way it started out. Under God, the two of them as a team, they probably would have been unstoppable, walking in the ways of the Lord. But Saul now is becoming arrogant and he seems to think that he has or should have this unlimited power.

Now, Saul does still give lip service to God, sure. But I'm reminded of the words of Christ who said, these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Saul is now all about Saul.

Well, he still praises God, but that's not really what's in his heart. And we see the same thing today in our nation as far as a nation under God, but the leader decides he's just going to do things his way instead of God's way.

We see this today in our nation as well as in many other nations in the West who still profess to believe in the God of Christianity. We speak of God. We have in God we trust on our currency. But when you look at what lawmakers are doing and when you examine the worldview of presidents and senators and prime ministers and Supreme Court justices, it's painfully obvious that their decisions are directly opposed to what scripture teaches.

You know, if we're going to be like actually a nation under God, or if Saul is going to rule as God's anointed, he and we, we must do what God says. Today, we have what God says in the Bible. Back then, they had to listen to the voice of the prophets.

Samuel, who spoke for God, said wait, Saul, you need to wait seven days. That's the time that you should expect me, but wait, wait for me. And what did Saul do? He didn't wait. Saul failed the test. Now, what people usually think in regard to this passage of, you know, what did Saul do?

It was wrong. Why was it wrong? Most people think and honestly, this is the way I kind of viewed it for a long time. Saul, the idea is Saul disobeyed God simply by offering the sacrifice. Well, that's not exactly true because later on David would offer a sacrifice.

But the idea is that well, only the priests could offer the sacrifice, you know, and the priests were from the priestly tribe, Levi. Saul was king and he's from Benjamin. Therefore, he's not eligible to offer sacrifices.

So, when he does it, that's the sin. Well, I mean, it would be true if Saul tried to enter into the tabernacle and offer a sacrifice, then yeah, that would be true because there was, for a lack of a better term, a separation of church and state.

The priests had one duty, you know, the political rulers had a different duty. But later on, both David and Solomon offer sacrifices as king and they're not from the tribe of Levi and they're not condemned for it.

David does this in 2 Samuel 24 -25 Solomon does it in 1 Kings 8 62 -64 and I realize just because it says David or Solomon did something it doesn't automatically make it okay. But they're not condemned, Saul is.

So, it's not really that Saul could never offer a sacrifice. The real issue is that he was commanded not to in this case and he just broke the commandment of God. Now, as for this so-called separation of church and state, you know, I brought up the term and many people do see a type of separation in the Old Testament and certainly we hear this in our country that there's this wall of separation.

Well, this is something that often comes up and just to reiterate that, yeah, the priests had one duty the kings had a different duty. Kings had their job, the priests had their job. But this, it should go without saying that this phrase separation of church and state, right?

It's not found in the Bible obviously and maybe it's not obvious but it's not a biblical term but you do find it today in sermons, it's found online. All sorts of people use the separation of church and state argument all sorts of bad arguments from atheists and agnostics and politicians who really use this statement as a way to kind of attack the church of Jesus Christ.

As you probably know separation of church and state, that is not found in our constitution it's not found in any of our nation's founding documents. I mean, people argue the concept is there but the phrase is not there.

The phrase separation of church and state was found in a personal letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1802. The original meaning of this separation is that the government, here's the key the meaning of separation of church and state originally meant that the government is to stay out of the affairs of the church and to that I say amen.

Actually, I say amen and amen but the enemies of Christ today they have twisted this statement to mean the exact opposite which of course is what the devil does. He just flips everything on its head. So today people use this term not to say that the government should stay out of the affairs of the church which we agree with.

No, they say that the church must stay out of the affairs of the state and then it goes even further that you as a Christian you just need to kind of shut up. You can believe what you want in church, in the church house and in your own house but in public life you need to keep quiet.

Wrong. That's the exact opposite of the truth. Not only is that a lie. That's not what it originally meant. Here we see in the scripture the preacher, Samuel he is the one telling Saul, the king, what to do.

Let me repeat that. Here in this story, 1 Samuel 13 it's the preacher telling the king what to do. Who's the superior one in this relationship? Saul or Samuel? My friends, it's clearly Samuel. Now that doesn't mean that the church in America or that pastors should be running the government.

That's not what we're saying. There is a separate sphere of authority. True. The authority to use the sword and to punish evil, what Paul talks about in Romans 13. That is not given to the church. That is given to the governing authority.

As a matter of fact, no evangelical that I know wants the church to have this power. First of all, which church would get it? At this point, it'd probably be the Catholic church. So it's like, no way.

We do not want this. Number two, it already happened. It's called the dark ages when the Catholic church ruled Europe. We don't want that. But at the same time, the church does have a prophetic role to play.

That when the governing authorities overstep their bounds. Remember COVID? When the governing authorities overstep or as they're doing today when they call evil good and good evil is absolutely the responsibility of the church and for preachers to speak up about it and to instruct the government what to do.

Now, will the government listen? They almost almost always do not listen. Saul, let's face it. Saul really isn't interested in listening to Samuel, right? He's got a swollen head. And this is what happens with leaders and kings and presidents.

They get elevated to this position of power. Now, the good leaders are humble and they acknowledge God and they try to uphold God's commandments. But arrogant, boastful leaders, they think they know better and they're going to do what they want instead of what God wants.

But yeah, Saul really isn't interested in listening to Samuel. He thinks that he is. He's the man in Israel and he's going to do what he thinks is right. Matter of fact, in chapter 16, Samuel will express how he is concerned that Saul might even kill him.

So unfortunately, the governing authorities typically, not always, there's exceptions but typically they don't listen to God's prophets and preachers. David, the man after God's own heart he did listen to Nathan, the prophet, when he was rebuked.

But I think the main takeaway from this passage is that number one, we obey God even when we in our minds can think of logical ways why it might be better not to obey. That's what Saul did. He rationalized it in his mind.

He said, well, I know this is what God says. This is what Samuel says. But, you know, and then he comes up with this reason why he doesn't have to listen. Saul, in his mind, he may have really thought that he was doing the right thing.

When confronted by Samuel he says, hey, when you didn't show up, I felt compelled. He probably did feel compelled, but it wasn't God who was compelling him to do that. The thing Saul did. Also, another point.

The thing that Saul did, offering a sacrifice, this was religious in nature. So the second thing this shows us is just because something is religious, that doesn't make it right. Religion that does not align with the word of God.

Religion or religious acts that do not align with God's truth. It's hypocrisy and it profits nothing. Saul then receives word that the kingdom will be taken from him. But let's be honest. Saul didn't really believe Samuel the first time about waiting.

So he probably doesn't believe this either. Oh yeah, Samuel is saying this, but does he ever expect it to happen? Probably not. And we're really seeing that Saul lacks faith in the word of God. My friends, we don't ever want this to be us.

So in conclusion, here in 1 Samuel 13, we begin to see the decline of King Saul. Which will then lead to the rise of King David. The blessings that were meant for Saul will now be given to the man after God's own heart.

So this is yet another reminder of the importance of believing God's word and doing God's word. Be a hearer of the word, number one, and then a doer of the word. If you're not a doer, hearing the word makes no difference.

And we have to recognize that like with Saul, life is a series of tests. And we always want to make sure that we are being faithful to the word of God. Don't ever start thinking that your way is better than God's way.

Amen? So let's be a hearer of the word and a doer of the word. And the Lord will bless the one who seeks to do his will. I'll close with verses 14 and 15. Samuel says to Saul,.