Obedience to God is presented as superior to sacrifice, as illustrated by Saul's disobedience in 1 Samuel 15. Saul spared the Amalekite king and the best of the livestock, contrary to God's direct command to utterly destroy everything. This act of disobedience led to God rejecting him as king, demonstrating that hearkening to God's voice is more valuable than any offering. The sermon emphasizes that obedience is vital, though often difficult because it goes against our selfish nature, and ultimately leads to a productive, joyful, and meaningful life in service to God.
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Thank you so much. I'd like you to turn to first Samuel with me, please, and chapter fifteen. First Samuel, chapter fifteen. It was so nice to see the children and to hear the children and have them bring the Easter message tonight, because I don't have another Easter message for you. In fact, I'm not going to preach tonight. I'm going to meddle again. I want you to read with me about Saul.
Chapter fifteen in verse one, Saul also, or Samuel also, said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel, Now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not.
but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telayim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid weight in the city. Verse seven, And Saul smote the Amalekites from Habala until thou comest to Shur, that is, over against Egypt.
And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people sped Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. But everything that was vile and refuse that they destroyed utterly." Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, 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.
And it grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night. Verse fifteen. Saul said... they have brought them from the Amalekites. Now, what about them? Samuel has asked a question, what meaneth this bleeding of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowering of the oxen which I hear? There weren't supposed to be any of them left. And Saul said, they.
have brought them from the Amalekites, 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. Let's go a little further down the chapter. Verse nineteen, Samuel is the speaker. Wherefore didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord? Verse twenty. Saul said, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.
Verse twenty-one. The people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice. unto the Lord thy God in Gilgore. And here's my verse. 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 from the fat of Rams.
Verse twenty three in the middle of the verse. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. And Saul was banished, and the prophet was brokenhearted. In that word obey there is just four letters. but in it there are wonderful truths and challenges. You know I remember some time ago I have a little pond in my yard and I went to the nursery in Gainesville and I looked around at the flowers for the pond.
Since water lilies were twenty-five dollars each I ignored the water lilies, and I asked about something cheaper. Then I pointed out a flower. It was a light purpleish flower, but it was very beautiful. And it was on their pond. And I said, I would like to buy some of that. Is that a little cheaper? They said, we cannot sell it to you. It is beautiful. We love it. but we cannot sell it to you. It is water hyacinth, and the fact is if it gets into a lake, eventually it will spread and choke the lake.
So it is illegal for us to sell it to you. But the lady knows me at the shop, and she said, I'll give you some for your fund, but don't let it get near to the lake. And so I enjoyed it for a whole summer, and then I thought perhaps I should destroy it. It was very beautiful, but it was deadly. I have been to the zoo, and I have seen very beautiful snakes, all kinds of snakes, and different colors of snakes.
and snakes are very beautiful but they're deadly and you know sin is just like that and not to obey especially if God is the one behind the charge it is deadly there is a three-fold assumption in the word obey. First of all we assume that somebody is giving the orders and then we assume that somebody is receiving the orders and then we assume that the orders will either be observed or they will be neglected or they will be ignored.
Now Saul was a man who ignored the charge that God laid upon him. He disobeyed God, and then he blamed it onto the people. They did this, they did that, they did the other. But the Lord said, through Samuel, you did it. You were responsible, they were under your charge, and you were guilty. Now when God gives an order, one of those three things can happen. We can either listen to his word and we can heed it and obey.
Or we can listen to his charge and neglect to carry it out. Or we can totally ignore it and go our way. Now that we are getting older, and some of us older again, and some of us older yet, I believe it's my eighty-fourth birthday in June, I reminded that of you recently, and I have discovered something in my long life, and I consider it to be a long life, in spite of the fact that there's a good brother who's just looking forward to his one hundred and second.
But I have learned that as we go through life, there are things that were very tempting to us in our earlier days. When we were young, when we were middle-aged, they don't tempt us anymore. It's a strange thing. It isn't that we get better. It's just that our inclinations and our desires, they change. But you know there is something that never changes. And that is the fact that although we don't do some of the things that we used to do, we are still tired with that terrible thing called wanting our own way.
We are selfish by nature, and it doesn't matter how old we get, we are still selfish. Now if God tells us something, we had better listen very, very carefully. We had better commit it to our very uncertain memory, God will see we remember it, or we shall do it. Half-heartedly, God wants us to do something. But we say why.
If God is giving the orders, Then there's a solemn challenge in the charge. God is never inconsequential. When God speaks, His words are waiting. When God has something to say, it's because that needs to be said. And nobody knows your life like God knows it. And nobody knows my life like God knows it. He knows the things that are good for me, and one of them is obeying his will whatever it is.
He knows the things that will cause me to be a little hesitant, or maybe even to buck. He knows them. but because he has an end in view he says do it anyhow. To obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of Rams. Now the solemn challenge in the charge that is involved when God says do this or do that or do the other is the cause of a personal challenge now we've got to say I will Lord or I'll think about it Lord or I'll do it Lord we have a choice to make we've got to take up the challenge and do something with it the question is what are we going to do my mother taught me early in my life A little ditty went like
this. A good, better, best. Never let it rest till your good is better and your better best. It is better to obey the Lord Jesus. In fact, it's the best thing that you can do. Now obedience is never easy. It is never easy because we're all tired with that brush of selfishness. And God does not make light demands on us.
There are times when everything God wants and He makes it known to us goes against the grain with us. And that's when we come unstuck. Because we begin to consider ourselves. Pride rises to the surface. Lord, why do you want me to do this? Surely there must be somebody else who can do it better than I, or maybe more willingly than I. Have you ever had a chat like that with God? Have you ever sought to argue? You didn't really call it arguing, but in your mind there was a questioning and your back got up a little bit and you said, this is really too much of God to expect this of me.
It's only because we forget what God has demanded of others and some of them that they lay down their lives. What God wants us to do is the best thing for us. It will produce in our lives that which promotes growth and it makes for joy and happiness. It's never easy. Do you know why obedience is never easy? Because almost always, and perhaps I could say always, To obey God is anti-flesh.
Do you know what the flesh is? Drop off the H and turn the word around and you get self. That's what it is. And because God's demands are always anti-flesh, the flesh is constantly fighting God. the flesh is constantly asserting itself and trying to come between us and the will of God for us. And it's good to be aware of the danger and to recognize the voice of the devil when he takes advantage of our weakness in that direction.
Obedience is never easy because it's always anti-flesh. But, secondly, Obedience is always vital. Let me repeat that. Obedience is always vital. And the thought there is that, is that if I do not obey God, something bad is going to happen to me. And that's true.
If you refuse to do the will of God, something bad is going to happen to you. I don't expect you'll fall off a train. I don't think you'll fall down the stairs. I don't think it'll be anything like that. But there will be an eroding of that, which makes you acceptable to God. And that causes God to be, I want the right word here, To be delighted. And you know, if we go on doing that, there's an erosion that becomes worse and worse and worse until at last our conscience is deadened and there's nothing to stop us going all the way and saying, God, you go your way and I'll go mine.
Many a man has done that. But always he's paid the price. because you see if obedience is costly and it is because it's anti-flesh the end of the flesh is death and following the way of the flesh is disastrous God's will is a perfect will you may be able to see a yard in front of you You may be able to see some direct consequences of doing what God is asking you to do.
You may do that, but somewhere beyond, you may get to the point where you say, God is not being fair to me. God is cheating me. God is expecting too much of me. I've had that experience, and I say it to my shame. But because I'm human, I'm sure that I'm not the only human who has been in that situation. You see, there are eternal consequences in the response to God's request.
Eternal consequences. You cannot serve God. You cannot do the will of God and lose out. It is utterly and absolutely impossible. That perfect will of God is a perfect thing for you. God suits his commands and challenges to our lives to what we are and how we think and what we do. He tunes in and then he gives his commands. And if there's a battle, he knew in advance it was going to happen.
If there's a cost, he knew in advance that you are going to have to pay it. You cannot spring surprises upon God. But one thing is absolutely clear, crystal-cut, that to do the will of God is to have a life that is productive, A life that is happy, a life that is meaningful, and a life that is useful to God. And who could think of anything better than being a tool in the hand of God? You know, I was learning to be a jeweler.
I was working for a ringmaker. And he, to my joy, put me at the bench. Immediately, I come from the technical school at sixteen years of age, I was used to handling some tools, and soon I was looking at miniature tools. These were what I was going to learn. And I got into it right up to my neck. I was happy with it. In fact, I'd said to my father who was a Silmer Smith, Dad, please, I finished school on such and such a day. I'd like to be working the next week. Get me a job in the trade. And he did just that.
He got me a job with the ringmaker. But, you know, I was just getting into it so beautifully, and I like working with my hands. I loved that little peg where I filed away. I loved that flame where I used to blow pipe. I used to watch the gold as it melted. And it was all. It was really getting my blood. And God said to me, that's the end. One day I had a battle with God. I said to him, I'm too young. Oh, that seemed to be very convenient because I was seventeen. He said, look, the Pilgrim preachers are going to be leaving in May and they send off meeting.
Well, he said this to me around about fashion. I got the literature. I think it was May the sixth and I want you with them. I said, Lord, maybe they won't take me. I'm too young. I did have a little argument with God and I looked very longingly at those tools and I began to waver. But you know, I thought of the privilege that it would be to tell the people about the Lord Jesus. I knew the work of the pilgrim preachers.
They had come to my city the year before, and that's how I got stirred up about them. My assembly in Birmingham was one of thirty-six assemblies in the city. And every Saturday night without a let-up, those thirty-six assemblies were represented in a big open-air service in the place in the city of Birmingham that corresponds to Hyde Park in London. When would you go down on Saturday night? There'd be the politician on his little stool. There'd be the atheist on his little stool. There'd be some kook on his little stool.
All kinds of people. But because the people of God turned out, we always started with a big crowd. That was in our favor. Because people always wonder what's going on if there's a big crowd there. and I used to go to every Saturday night open air meeting and when the battle was won and I said Lord I can't say no anymore I'm tempted to say wait maybe next year but I'm not going to do it so I went to my elders and I said I believe that God is exercising me about the work of the pilgrim preachers.
I would like to know what you think about that. Is it a call? The elders met and then they invited me to join them. And they told me, we watch you on a Saturday night. We hear you on a Saturday night. We think, that this is your forte and we'll be very happy, young as you are, to give you a commendation. Down deep I think I had a tiny little hope that they'd say, no, wait a little bit.
But they didn't. But it was a great day in my life. The day that the van with the text pulled up at my door much to the neighbor's alarm and I joined the driver and we drove from Birmingham to London had our send-off meeting in Eccleston Hall there and started out on the first journey just think what I would have missed if I'd been stupid enough to say no to God but I did have a battle in fact I'll tell you a little on the side when I wrote to Mr.
Lough who was the leader of the pilgrim preachers he wrote to me after a few days and he said in his letter come down and see me so I had to travel by train from Birmingham down to the southeast coast and I was to stay there for six days. I don't have the time to tell you this. But however, on the sixth day he said to me, Ernest, I fully expected that by the time the six days were up, I would say, why don't you wait for a couple of years?
But he said, I haven't slept. And I believe it's the will of God that you come with us. So I joined them that May and went on for a number of years. You know, we can lose so much if we want our way instead of God's way. Just a thought to true from the story. Saul smote the Amalekites. He captured the king of the Malachites, but he didn't slay him. And they, he said of the people, they saved the oxen, they saved the best of the sheep.
He forgot. Good, better, best. Never let it rest till your good is better. and you're better best, but his was bad. He was disobedient. And God said, I just made you king, but you just lost your kingship. The word of God said, God gave them a king in his anger and took him away in his wrath. And it was because he wasn't obedient. Only God knows what the outcome of a life that is willing to be devoted to him and to his will.
Only God knows it. But God is a miracle worker. And if we, totally, in the little circle where we move, make sure as day comes upon day that we have taken a stand before God, Lord today, I want it to be your will. Not my will. See, that's following in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus. When in an agony he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but thine be done. And he did know the future. But he went all the way.
How far are you willing to go? How far am I willing to go? That's the challenge. of the message. Shall we pray? Our Father, we have been speaking about the things that every one of us are aware of. But we don't know our hearts as well as you know them, Lord. We only pray for a willing spirit to have you say whatever you will to us. to tell us whatever you want us to do.
We want the willingness to say, Lord, and to say it with joy, I will. Make the will of thyself and thy son very special to us grant that we may never without hurt to our hearts and being. Say no.