Read Exodus 17:5-7 Numbers 20:7-13 I Samuel chapter 15 Acts 21:4 Acts 21:10-13 (KJB)
The above verses tell the stories of the disobedience of three great men of God, not because of their willfulness, but because of carelessness; because of inatentiveness and wrong assumptions. These stories indicate the important need for every believer to pay very close attention to the exact wording of God's Word when they read it.
The inner weaknesses of every believer causes us to bring the pressures of the teachings of our denomination, custom and tradition, and our own personal preferences into consideration whenever we read the Word of God. This condition causes us sometimes to read into the Word of God ideas which it does not state, and to ignore teachings which it does state. In other words, outside influences and inner preferences sometimes cause believers to misread the Word of God. Inner preferences sometimes cause us to read into the Word of God that which we we want it to teach, as well as sometimes to ignore that which it does teach, instead of that which it actually teaches. This condition partly accounts for the large number of denominations within the realm of Christendom.
These three great men disobeyed God because they failed to heed the exact instructions of God's Word, and not because of any willful desire to do so.
Moses simply assumed that because God had told him to strike the rock with his rod the first time, then that made it all right to strike it the second time. Because of his carelessness and inatentiveness to the exact Words of God, he failed to speak to the rock as God had instructed him. As a result of his disobedience, God punished him by not allowing him to enter the Promised Land with the rest of God's people. Neither Moses' greatness nor God's love for him were diminished in the least because of his disobedience. God's moral for this story was simply that error can occur if one fails to pay very close attention to God's exact Words.
King Saul disobeyed God because of his carelessness, his pride, and his weakness for giving in to the whims of his people. God had instructed Saul through His prophet Samuel to destroy the Amalekites and all that they possessed completely. But when Saul's soldiers began to spare some of the sheep and cattle for future sacrifices to God, Saul deferred to their wishes, no doubt rationalizing that they should have their sacrifices because the sheep and cattle would be killed in either case. Saul also spared the life of the king of the Amalekites probably as a trophy to his pride so that he could personally kill him later before the people in a ritualistic manner. Thus, Saul disobeyed God because of his indulgence and pride.
When Samuel arrived later and found that Saul had disobeyed God, Samuel gave Saul his strongest remonstration. Saul had proven that he was not the kind of leader that God needed. When Samuel told Saul in verse 22: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice....," he meant that sacrifice is useless when obedience is not exact. One of the lessons of life is that often success in some project requires an exact attention to every detail and a willingness to get all aspects of one's project right. Man's disobedience cannot thwart God's will, but disobedience can cause God to reject one person's service and choose another who will accomplish His will. But this condition causes grief to God when He must reject and punish one of His servant, and choose another.
The great Apostle Paul disobeyed God toward the end of his ministry when he was determined to go to Jerusalem when God had told him to go directly to Rome. We know that God had instructed Paul to go directly to Rome from his mission field by that which Paul wrote in Romans 15, and by the instructions of the Holy Spirit through the church to him in Acts 21. But Paul revealed his attitude in Acts 21:13 when he said that he was willing to die in Jerusalem for the cause of Christ. Apparently, Paul had allowed a little pride to enter into his thinking because he had forgotten that he was not allowed to decide where he would be martyred, but that was God's decision.
On the other hand, God knew that Paul desired to go to Jerusalem because of his great love for his fellow Jews. More than anything, the Apostle Paul desired to win his fellow Jews to faith in Christ. Perhaps, Paul thought that if his fellow Jews should kill him, then his martyrdom might be the catalyst that would cause his fellow Jews to turn to Christ. He should have known better since the martyrdom of the deacon Stephen and other fellow Christians had not turned his nation to Christ.
Despite his disobedience, God did not harshly punish Paul. God simply made sure that He would turn Paul around and send him back in the direction of Rome. Nevertheless, Paul had unnecessarily to suffer a beating, imprisonment and shipwreck before he got to Rome. But God did not replace the Apostle Paul with another Apostle because God honored the fact that Paul was at least partly motivated by his great love for his fellow Jews. By so doing, God honored His own Word in Proverbs 10:12. God verifies His own Word when He mitigates the punishment of those who are partly motivated by love when they sin. But no man is capable of being wholly motivated by love when he sins. Always, the weakness of original sin causes pride or some other sinful motivation to vitiate the motivation of love as in the case with Paul. However, God's punishment for sins at least partly motivated by love is usually fairly light.
The message of the stories of these three great men of God is that God's people must pay very close attention to the exact Words of God so that they may believe it and obey it exactly. One must pray fervently for the guidance of the Holy Spirit when one reads the Word of God, and strive mightily to put aside all outside influences and inner preferences.
The best example for why "obedience is better than sacrifice" adheres to the life of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus always exactly obeyed His Father in every detail of everything His Father told Him to do. For this reason, Jesus led an absolutely perfect life. If Jesus had not done so, His sacrifice on the cross for the salvation of mankind would not have worked. If Jesus had ever failed to obey His Father, even in the smallest detail, He would have died for His own sins and not for others. His sinless perfection caused his sacrifice to effect the salvation of mankind because as the innocent Lamb of God He could die in the place of the guilty, taking their sin upon Himself and cleansing them with His holy shed blood.
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