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True Obedience

“But Samuel replied: ‘Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.’” (1 Sam. 15:22-23)

I really wish you would open your Bible right now and read 1 Samuel 15.

Have you read it? Notice why Saul spared the animals (vv. 21, 24). Notice also that God was grieved because of Saul’s disobedience. God did not call it partial obedience. Saul tried to say that he had obeyed the Lord while all around was evidence of his disobedience: bleating sheep and lowing cattle. Saul called his “partial obedience” obedience. God called it disobedience.

Then God called disobedience rebellion, and rebellion He likened to witchcraft. He also said stubbornness was like iniquity and idolatry. If there is anything more anti-God in the Bible than witchcraft and idolatry, I’m not sure what it is. God hates witchcraft and idolatry.

God has another name for what some Christians call “obedience.” Unless we get God’s view of obedience, we will stumble along with compromises: “But we love each other,” “The government wastes money anyway,” “But I found it,” and “Everyone does it.” To the Samuels in this world, the compromises sound like bleating sheep, and to God they look like idolatry and witchcraft.

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