April 17, 2006
Obedience & Rebellion
I Samuel 15: 22-23 (King James Version)
“And Samuel said, 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. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou has rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”
-This week we will be talking about obedience and rebellion. These two words work in opposition to each other because you can only do one or the other.
*Obedience- the action or condition of obeying authority.
*Rebellion- opposition or defiance of authority, accepted moral codes,or social conventions
(Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation).
-In I Samuel 15, God told King Saul (the first king of Israel) to go and kill the Amalekites because “that which Amalek did to Israel, how he lay wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt,” (I Samuel 15:2). He told him to “utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass,” (I Samuel 15:3). Samuel went and destroyed everything expect the king of the Amalekites and the best of their ox, sheep, and camels. When Samuel asked him why he did not obey God his answer was it was the people. They wanted to sacrifice the animals to God. That was not what God told him to do and his disobedience to God caused him to loss his crown.
-We know that God is the authority in our lives. We choose to be obedient to his word (authority) or to act in rebellion to it. When we choose to act in rebellion to God, like Saul, there will be a price to pay. God said, “to obey is better than sacrifice, and “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” Lord, help me to obey your word and show me when I am acting in rebellion to you and your word.
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