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Saul the Sorcerer

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1 Samuel 15:18-21

18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’
19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?”
20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction.
21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

Saul has a horrible case of “Hear-what-I-want-itis” when he talks to Samuel here.

What Samuel Says What Saul Says
Kill everything We killed only the diseased and worthless
Leave nothing alive We brought the best animals back alive
God doesn't need your sacrifices Won't God love these sacrifices?

And of course God doesn’t like it at all when people do their own thing and say that is what “God” wanted them to do.

22 And Samuel said,
“Has 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 listen than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”

Do you see what he said there? Rebellion, in this case religiousness is like being a witch or a sorcerer. How is that? Well, the main problem with sorcery is that the wizard is putting himself in a position to control supernatural powers. When a person does a religious act to force God’s hand, that’s just like trying to be a wizard.

Saul is trying to make God like him, or to earn something from God. What God wants is to be who He is, ruler of the galaxy. He doesn’t need the religious activities nor is He swayed by them.

v. 24-25
Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.”

Oh man! Do you see what he did there?! I’m sorry for being overly religious, now forgive me so I can keep being religious! Look at how pious I am as I seek forgiveness for my piety!

This whole idea of doing what we want to do and saying that it’s what God wants us to do is really striking to me. I wonder if we have become so trained to do our own thing, to follow our own will, that we don’t even know what it feels like to be led by God. I’ve experienced several things this summer where somebody was making a horrible decision, but they said that God was leading them to make it.

I think I would have believed it if they hadn’t hidden those decisions behind so much piety!

May we be thankful for the works that Jesus’ death freed us from, and may we take hold of the simple, submissive life He has given us! No magicians here, just servants!

Verge13 Notes via Evernote

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Here are my notes from the Verge13 conference. I took copious hand-written notes and then captured them with the notebook feature on Evernote for the iPad. If you scroll to the end, you can save them to your own Evernote account.

Some of it is more detailed than other parts, so fire away if you have any questions.

[Edit: Evernote is secure only, so even though this used to be an iframe, it is now a link to the Evernote bits.]

Commandments to Fear

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Isaiah 29:13-14

And the Lord said:
"Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
therefore, behold, I will again
do wonderful things with this people,
with wonder upon wonder;
and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden."

"Their fear of me is a commandment taught by men" really gets to me because that has been the point of religious teaching for so long.

"Fear The Lord, repent!" Was something Jesus preached sometimes, but not with as much emphasis on fear as much as He emphasized a salvation. I’m thinking of Jonathan Edwards through to modern college campus street preachers. I’m thinking of the holiness movement and legalism and people that don’t cuss around preachers.

Wisdom and discernment will leave us if we are not sincere on the inside about what we profess and teach on the outside. If our relationship with God is done by rules, He Himself will lead us away from that so that we’ll hopefully meet the real God. If our reverence, honor, piety, etc. are activities that are measurable, calculated, and choreographed, He will confound us to abandon that and follow Him. We can trust in that.

Obedience in Mediocrity vs. Sacrifice in Action

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Hosea 6:6 NET

6 For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice;
I delight in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings.

I’ve been learning this in an unhappily repetitive way lately. It’s come in the form of eager children and eager adults. People tend to really like to please you or really get your approval when it comes to doing things that they enjoy.

The bummer is when we have to do something for others that we don’t really enjoy, we aren’t so eager to serve them!

Take me and my timecard at work, for instance. (I’m throwing myself under the bus here, because the more I think of other people teaching me this, I realize I need to see how I am doing this myself!) It’s easy for me to come up with all kinds of cool new ways of doing stuff, of innovating new processes and thinking about how we can improve our systems.

But I can’t fill out my timecard.

It’s simple! It’s easy! It’s something I need to do FAITHFULLY!

But day in and day out, it’s easier for me to sacrifice and do all kinds of things that are above and beyond the call of duty than it is to be faithful in the little things that my work needs me to do and just fill out my ^&%#@! timecard.

This is where Hosea was. The Jewish people went out of their way to improve their burnt offerings and their festivals and their sacrifices. They probably had banners that said, “Torah 2.0: Commitment, Caring, and Charisma” or some such thing.

But they sucked at the tiny tasks that required daily faithfulness.

It’s just not exciting to do the small and simple things.
It’s just not exciting to go after a mediocre calling of being close to God in secret.
It’s just not exciting to walk in simple obedience to God without having an amazing sacrifice to show for it.

The thing is, God loves ME more than any sacrifice I bring. He knows me inside and out, with my twisted motives, my lazy-butt motivations and my desire for attention and glamour. I might as well come clean and not try to impress Him with any fancy sacrifices but just do the simple & mediocre things He calls me to do.

Because God’s mediocrity is greater than man’s excitement.