Saul tried to compensate for disobedience with an offering to God.
The Lord, through his prophet Samuel, commanded King Saul to lead the Israelites to battle against the Amalekites. He specifically included the instruction to kill the animals owned by the enemy: “ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Samuel 15:3). Apparently, Saul and his people had no problem with killing every Amalekite except the king, but they saved “the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good” (1 Samuel 15:9). Why did they do this? Certainly not out of compassion. Perhaps they felt entitled to some of the spoils of battle and assumed that the Lord would excuse a little modification to His instructions.
When Samuel arrived after the battle, Saul disingenuously reported exact obedience: “I have performed the commandment of the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:13). Notice the first person singular. Saul was prepared to take credit for a job well done. But when Samuel challenged him, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” (1 Samuel 15:14), Saul quickly shifted to plural. “They have brought them from the Amalekites: for 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” (1 Samuel 15:15). The actions which were contrary to God’s instructions were performed by “they,” while the portion which God did command was now associated with “we.”
But Samuel wouldn’t have it. “Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?” (1 Samuel 15:19). Saul tried to put a positive spin on the disobedience, still blaming it on the people but attributing it to a righteous motive: “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 Gilgal” (1 Samuel 15:21).
Samuel’s rejection of this justification was unequivocal:
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 than the fat of rams.
1 Samuel 15:22
Saul’s successor, David, would later invoke this principle as he expressed remorse for a serious sin. “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity,” he wrote, “for I acknowledge my transgressions” (Psalm 51:2-3). Then he added:
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
Psalm 51:16-17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Jesus would later echo this psalm as He ended the practice of animal sacrifice among the Nephites:
Ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings.
3 Nephi 9:19-20
And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not.
The converted Lamanites had received the blessing by instinctive obedience to the underlying commandment: contrition and humility. In contrast, Saul and his people thought that they could compensate for selective obedience through scrupulous performance of a religious ceremony. The Savior explained that the ceremony was never the point. The whole purpose of the ceremony was to achieve the faith and humility exemplified by those Lamanites, which Saul and his people had stubbornly rejected.
Neal A. Maxwell taught:
Real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed!
“Deny Yourselves of All Ungodliness,” April 1995 general conference
No wonder the Book of Mormon prophet Amaleki, who lived more than a hundred years before Christ, urged his readers, “Come unto Christ, … and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him” (Omni 1:26). Even under the “performances and ordinances” of the law of Moses (2 Nephi 25:30; 4 Nephi 1:12), those ordinances were always intended as a facilitator, not as a substitute, for personal growth and sanctification. To use them as a substitute for humbly following God was to distort their meaning and nullify their purpose.
Today, I will strive for the effortless discipleship of the Lamanites. I will approach God with a willingness to follow Him, not with a desire to justify my actions or set the terms of my own discipleship.
Leave a Reply