What comes to mind when you think of King Saul? Do you think about the failed first king of Israel? Maybe a selfish man whose life is a monument to disobedience? You'd be right on both counts, but there is more to this feller.
Saul was a farmer. He was from the smallest and least important tribe of Israel. The Bible says that he was the handsomest man in all of Israel, and from the shoulders up he was taller than any of them. I'm not sure if that means he just had a really long neck or not. But Saul was chosen by God to lead His people. That tells me that God saw in Saul something He liked. He saw someone who would obey Him, and God promised to make Saul prosper if only Saul would follow His commands.
Fast forward a little bit and you'll see that Saul was supposed to wait in Gilgal for seven days until Samuel showed up to tell him what God wanted him to do. But Saul grew tired of waiting, all the people were getting a little worried, so Saul took it upon himself to offer a sacrifice to God. Sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? God loves a good sacrifice, right?
Nope. When Samuel finally shows up, immediately, and conveniently, as soon as the sacrifice had been offered, he blasts Saul. Saul's excuse is that the people were scattering, the Philistines were knocking on the door, and he figured he had not sought God's favor so he'd present a burnt offering to God. In our way of thinking, that seems like what we'd do. "I'm not feeling God right now so I'll just do a little something for Him to brown-nose a little bit." We do love to pamper God, don't we?
But Samuel tells him he has acted foolishly by not keeping the commands of the Lord. And what's worse, Samuel tells Saul that if only he'd obeyed, God would have established his kingdom forever. But now, his kingdom shall not continue.
A few chapters further (this is all in 1 Samuel 9-15), Saul again disobeys by sparing King Agag and some livestock after God had instructed him to kill all the Amalekites and their animals. And, again, he offers an excuse that he was sparing the finest animals to make a sacrifice to God. He always credits his disobedience to doing what he thinks God would be pleased with.
I'm always amazed at what God said next. He tells Samuel that, "I regret that I have made Saul king." Ouch! That had to hurt. So Samuel tells the king that because he rejected God, God will reject him from being king. (FYI, since Saul didn't kill King Agag like he was supposed to, Samuel hacked him to pieces). But pay close attention to what Samuel says of God:
"Has the Lord great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." --1 Samuel 15:22
And also, "For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry." --15:23
Wow. God just wants us to obey. He doesn't care about what sacrifices we might make thinking that we are pleasing Him. Obedience to Him is what He really wants; listening to His voice and doing what He says. It isn't about coming up with things that we think He would like, it's about doing what He says He likes.
Divination is defined as, "the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers." God says that when we rebel against what He commands, we might as well be using sorcery or witchcraft. Disobeying God is the same as looking to Satan to achieve our goals.
The Bible then says that presumption is the same as idolatry. Presuming to know what God wants is the same as worshipping a false god; that false god being ourselves because we presume to know the mind of God.
When I look at my own life and when I watch the lives around me, I can see a lot of presuming going on. "God wants us to do this", or "God would approve of that", and so on and so forth. I think the biggest example of this is when people wrongly say, "This is God's will." We seem to have a lot of trouble in humbling ourselves and just following. Maybe it's the world we live in that teaches us to be strong, ambitious leaders who always have the answers. Maybe we actually have been programmed to make a decision and stick with it no matter what. I know for myself that the coming year needs to be one of listening and following instead of making decisions based on what I think God should, or would want.
Presumption, by the way, is "an attitude or belief dictated by probability." God is alive and guiding our every step. We don't have to deal in probabilities because He is right here with us to tell us what He wants. No guesswork involved. Isn't that the most amazing thing you've ever heard?
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