Take Heed Lest You Fall - I Have Performed the Commandment of the Lord

If you went into a restaurant and ordered a cheeseburger with everything on it, fries, and a coke, would you be happy with your waiter or waitress if they brought you a salad, baked potato, and an ice water? If they said to you, “Well, you ordered a burger with everything on it, and since lettuce comes on it, I assumed that you would be even HAPPIER with a salad.  And since fries are made out of potatoes, I assumed that you’d be even HAPPIER with a baked potato because you get a whole potato…and since Coke is a liquid, I assumed that water would be just as acceptable.”  Would you be happy with that? Or would you tell them that you didn’t order that food? What if they claimed that since they had brought you SOMETHING that they deserved not only to have the meal paid for, but for a very high tip?

Our society today has a lot of people who claim to be religious and act as though God ought to be pleased with whatever “service” they grace Him with.  And so, many people will ignore the commands that God actually gave to us in His word, but choose rather to claim that God ought to be happy with what they choose to do because it is “better” in some way.  They then claim that they have “performed the commandment of the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:13).  Unfortunately, such a perspective can develop even in people who have been faithful to God in the past, but lose their love of truth. 

In 1 Corinthians 10:12, Paul wrote the following warning for Christians: “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”  This warning is issued following Paul’s utilization of Israel’s history of disobeying God and the consequences that they suffered because of it.  In verse 11, Paul wrote that “all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition…” 

With Paul’s warning in mind and his observation that we are to learn from past examples, let us consider the case of King Saul, particularly in 1 Samuel 15.  In 1 Samuel 8, Israel mistakenly believe that they desire a king in order to be like “other nations” (Israel did not realize how good they had it by having God as their direct leader), and in 1 Samuel 9, Saul is chosen to fulfill that role.  Saul was a “choice and handsome” man who was “from his shoulders upward taller than any of the people” (1 Samuel 9:2), and more importantly, he was chosen directly by God to be king over Israel (1 Samuel 9:16-17, 10:24).

Unfortunately, Saul’s character begins to falter by the 1 Samuel 13 where he offers an unlawful sacrifice to God (even as king over Israel, Saul had no right to offer sacrifices to God since that task was given only to the priests).  This occurred after Saul had reigned only 2 years over Israel (1 Samuel 13:1), and so we begin to see the demise of a chosen man of God into a man who would despise the instruction and commandments of the Lord (1 Samuel 13:13-14).

By the time we get to 1 Samuel 15, we see that Saul has essentially separated himself completely from the Lord.  Perhaps Saul had become the epitome of a person who the New Testament would classify as having received a strong delusion from God because they do not love the truth, but rather have pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).  In 1 Samuel 15:1-3, God clearly commands that the Amalekites be utterly destroyed and this commandment left no room for doubt in the mind of Saul.  However, when Samuel appears after the battle (1 Samuel 15:13), Saul claims that he had performed the commandment of the Lord (note: when Saul thought that he would get away with his disobedience, he was happy to take credit).  However, Samuel asks Saul why, if he had done the commandment of the Lord, did he hear the “bleating of the sheep” and the “lowing of the oxen” (1 Samuel 15:14). 

Saul’s response to Samuel’s question truly depicts how far from God he had already departed; in most other cases in which a king or person of God will use the phrase “the Lord my God” or some such variation (Deut. 4:5; Joshua 14:7-9; 1 Kings 5:3-4, etc).  Note, however, that as Saul passes the blame onto the people, he tells Samuel that the people had spared the flocks in order to sacrifice them to “the Lord YOUR God” (1 Samuel 15:15 - emphasis mine).  This phrase, along with the context, truly shows how Saul’s view concerning God had so dramatically changed. 

Like many people today who only partially obey the commandments of God, Saul argues with Samuel that he had indeed completed God’s task.  Note that in 1 Samuel 15:19-21, Samuel asks Saul why he had not done the commandment of God, but Saul says:

But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

Somehow, in Saul’s mind, he thought that partial obedience was acceptable to God.  Likewise, many people today believe that whatever service they choose to offer to God should be accepted by God and counted as sufficient.  However, in this passage, Saul didn’t get “partial credit” for what he had done; God did not accept the partial obedience of Saul and count the task as being completed.  In fact, Samuel himself does not even count Saul’s partial obedience as being acceptable; rather he says that Saul had “rejected the word of the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:26).  Samuel didn’t say, “Well, you got it MOSTLY right and I can’t judge your heart,” nor did he say, “You only made a mistake.”  No, Samuel counted Saul’s partial obedience as a REJECTION of the commandments of God.

The downfall of Saul stands out as an example of someone who believed a lie because he had rejected obedience to God as being necessary, and Christians today need to learn from this and be admonished to greater obedience by it.  We need to remember the words and admonition of Paul who wrote to us not to become prideful, nor think that we are too strong to fall.  While some Christians think that because they have been faithful 20, 30, 40+ years that they cannot fall, they, like Saul, can become separated from God if they lose their love of truth and diligence in their obedience of God’s commandments.  Those that receive a “strong delusion” only do so because they do not have a love truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10).  If we have that love of truth and we are determined to do the will of God no matter what He requires of us, then we will not receive such a delusion, nor will we believe a lie.