Why was it wrong for Saul to offer a sacrifice?

The difficult circumstances he was passing through remind Saul of the necessity of following Samuel's directions. At the end of two years he remembers the prophet's injunction. Saul, we are told, “waited seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed.” The flesh can imitate faith up to a certain point, but no further; the flesh draws back from the consequences of its own inactivity; nothing is more difficult or more impossible for the flesh than to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Its patience is often impressive and may even impress Christians, but it ends at the moment when faith is required, the faith that does not reckon with difficulties or impossibilities, for faith cleaves to God who is above all these things. The natural man can walk a long time in a path of patience and in appearance act according to this principle, but he does not realize his own weakness and incapacity and, lacking a relationship with God, he cannot seek resources other than in himself when he is really put to the test.

After the seven days Samuel had not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from Saul (v. 8). The people did not find sufficient authority to guard them and defend them in the man who had gathered them through tactics of fear. Then Saul loses patience; he does not know the patience of faith which is “strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory.” His patience stops where faith should begin. When the people scatter, when man's support fails him, everything fails this poor king. His flesh, driven to action, immediately usurps the place which belongs to the prophet, reversing and trampling under foot the order established by God. Saul says: “Bring hither to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And he offered up the burnt offering. And it came to pass, as soon as he had ended offering up the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came” (vv. 9-10).

God's help arrives at the moment when the flesh has just attempted to come to its own rescue. What use is this help to him therefore? Saul is not an unbeliever and does not openly despise Israel's God; he knows that a sacrifice is necessary in order to approach Him; far from despising the prophet, he “went out to meet him, that he might salute him” (v. 10). But being a man according to the flesh, he was absolutely unable to act otherwise than he had done. Nevertheless, he is extremely responsible. “What hast thou done?” Samuel asks him — the same question that God had addressed to Cain! As always, the flesh has excellent reasons for acting, and consequently for disobeying: “Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou didst not come not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines were assembled at Michmash” (v. 11). The flesh has an excuse, even a pious excuse, for its disobedience; “The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to Jehovah” (v. 12).

And Samuel tells Saul: “Thou hast done foolishly.” Man's wisdom, reasonings, counsels, and decisions are foolishness to God, because they are disobedience. “Thou hast not kept the commandment of Jehovah thy God, which He commanded thee” (v. 13). Obedience is the first, the only characteristic of faith. Without it there is no faith. It is allied to dependence. Who could offer a sacrifice well-pleasing to God but Samuel, here a type of Christ?

Samuel had told Saul to wait for him at Gilgal for seven days -- "till I come down unto thee, to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings" (ch.10:8). Saul waited just the seven days, then instead of depending on the word of Samuel, took matters into his own hands and offered a burnt offering. Samuel arrived just as he had finished sacrificing.

Samuel's question, "What hast thou done?" seems to indicate that he realized something was amiss. Saul's answer, however, is prefaced by rationalistic excuses. He was alarmed because the people were being scattered while the Philistines were gathering ready for battle, and that Samuel had not arrived more quickly. He realized that if the Philistines attacked he would need the help of God; but instead of simply asking God's direction as to this matter, he says, "I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering." He ignored any thought of HEART DEPENDENCE on God, but forced himself to resort to the outward formality of worshipping God, as though that would be of some magical value. Such is man in the flesh: he recognizes nothing but formalism in the worship of God and thinks he is honoring God while disobeying His plain word.

The reason is not hard to explain, nor without its importance. "And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead." They had left the ground of God; they had forfeited that precious name. They might possess it really; but they had abandoned the ground of faith; and the consequence is that the Holy Spirit shows His own sense of the wrong that was done to Jehovah. At a critical time when the enemy was intruding in force into the land, and got into a place that menaced all there, some of the Israelites left God's land, and got into an utterly false position. Thus on both sides a great dishonour was done to the Lord. There were Philistines that had possessed themselves of God's land, more or less, and there were Israelites who had left it. Which was the more sorrowful it might be hard to say. "As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal." This is another remarkable lesson for our souls. Always must patience have its perfect work; but this was what Saul could not afford. He had hoped, no doubt, that Samuel would come in good time. He waited and waited, and it seemed as if it was all but complete; but there was precisely the point of trial where he broke down. The time was not yet run out, and the flesh can never wait it out. It seemed all but expired, and the king would wait no more; for the first man never does become perfect. He may make a fair show, but perfection there is not thus. Not only does the law make nothing perfect, but the flesh never attains it either. Thus "he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him."

No doubt therefore it seemed to the king necessary that there should be no more scattering for the people. Necessary? There is nothing necessary except the will of God. The people might have been scattered ever so fast but God was able to gather them back again. God's word was plain. Saul knew it perfectly well, but he had no faith in Him. At last then, fairly tired out and frightened at the people leaving him, says Saul, "Bring hither a burnt-offering to me, and peace-offerings. And he offered the burnt-offering. And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt-offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him. And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash; therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to Jehovah: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt-offering." It is no uncommon thing to hear good reasons for a bad thing. The course he took sounded fair. The grand fault of it was that God was not in the matter. It was Saul's policy and this because of Saul's fears. Faith always looks to God, and does His will. Little did Saul know the fatal consequence of his unbelief. The prophet lets him hear "Samuel said to Saul" — and this was a severe word for the prophet to say to the king of Israel — "Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of Jehovah thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would Jehovah have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: Jehovah has sought him a man after his own heart, and Jehovah has commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which Jehovah commanded thee." But mark this. The same Jehovah that showed His own sovereignty, as if independent of circumstances in choosing Saul before the lot was cast, and anointing him, even that same Jehovah would not express His choice of another man until Saul had fairly exposed his unfitness for the kingdom over His people. So "Samuel arose, and get him up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people that were present with him, about six hundred men. And Saul, and Jonathan his son, and the people that were present with them, abode in Gibeah of Benjamin."

Saul falls still more deeply, unable to stand the test to which he was being exposed. He knew that divine guidance and blessing were with the prophet, but unable quietly to wait on God, and, governed by his circumstances and fears, he sought to bring God in by a self-willed act of devotion. As if the offering of a sacrifice could be a substitute in the time of need for confidence in, and waiting on, the Lord. The prophet came on the scene, rebuked the foolish king, and announced that his kingdom had been forfeited through his disobedience. The rest of the chapter shows us Israel despoiled by the Philistines, and even dependent upon them for means to sharpen their shares, their coulters, their axes, and their mattocks. To the outward eye they were unarmed and defenceless, at the mercy of the foe.

Samuel said to him, "thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal; and behold, I will come down unto thee to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice peace offerings; seven days shalt thou tarry till I come to thee and show thee what thou shalt do." The place of Samuel before God, as well as his relation to the people was to be respected, nor is another to intermeddle therewith, though this other be the king of Israel. The Lord had early called Samuel to Himself, and had used him as the reprover of Eli the high priest, in the days when the ark was taken captive by the Philistines and the glory was departed. At Mizpeh be had gathered all Israel together, and Samuel prayed for them to the Lord. And as he was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon them, and discomfited them, and they were smitten. So when Saul and his servant were directed by the young maidens of the city to the high place that they might find Samuel, and ask the seer about the lost asses, they were told "the people will not eat until he come, because he doth bless the sacrifice: and afterwards they eat that be bidden." What pertained to Samuel was made plain and clear to Saul; and the less had been anointed and blessed by the greater. He was to tarry seven days at Gilgal, till "Samuel came to sacrifice to the Lord."

"And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling." "And he tarried seven days … but Samuel came not, and the people were scattered from him." Here is the moment of trial for Saul: can he own the real link between Jehovah and Israel to be in Samuel; and leave all his new anxieties and cares there — or will he step out of his own place by intruding into Samuel's, and incur the displeasure of God? How easily is the line of individual responsibility traversed! "Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them? and Jesus said, ye know not what spirit ye are of." "And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings: and he offered the burnt offering. And it came to pass that as soon as he had made an end, behold, Samuel came and said, What hast thou done?" Saul attempts to give a good reason for doing a bad thing; and this in truth is what disobedience always demands where the thing in question is not confessed as a sin. He excuses himself upon the ground which fallen nature must take (the seeing of the eye), and regards only the people, his misgivings respecting Samuel, and his fears concerning the Philistines: and these are the three things which carry him away from God. "Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down upon me to Gilgal;" and this is the conclusion of the natural heart when guided by its own fears. Another thing comes to light, which accompanies such a condition of soul, "I have not intreated the face of the Lord: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering." What is this lesson to us, but a proof that the active restlessness of human nature, whether by the reasonings of the mind or the hopes and unbelief of the heart, unsettle faith, and prevent Saul from waiting upon the God of Israel, as the newly appointed king, in the hour of danger; or waiting for Samuel to offer the sacrifices appointed between Jehovah and his people? Then "Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever."

How often the hour for the establishment of the proffered blessing is lost through inadvertence, and becomes the moment of forfeiture and defeat, and of Satan's power! At this very point it is, when the kingdom and the king were about to be confirmed by burnt offerings and peace offerings for ever, that Saul breaks down; and like the first man Adam, who gave place to the last Adam, so the first king must be set aside to make room for the Second or true David. Sorrowful words follow from the lips of Samuel, who (instead of being in the place of offering, and blessing the sacrifices, and the people, and their king) becomes the prophet of woe to Saul: "but now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee."

We have thus an example in Saul of a man who though little in his own sight at the onset, allowed his nature to turn everything round, which should have glorified God to his heart and conscience (and faith too, if he had it), for his own advantage and self-importance. The illustrious spots in this world's history, along which the Lord had led him, from Bethel to Gilgal, and the transformation which, by the power and grace of God, had already passed upon him, to the astonishment of the people, so that they said "what is this that has come to the son of Kish?" should have made him truly great by keeping him "less than the least" in his own eyes. But it was otherwise; and Saul, ceasing to be this, does what is right in his own eyes, and is again as one of the common people. Nor let us fail to remember the way in which he accounts for his degradation to Samuel: I had "not made supplication unto the Lord; and I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering."

Saul offers, as man has ever done, a vain excuse: "The people were scattered from me," he says; and then he wickedly attempts to saddle the blame of his transgression onto Samuel: "Thou earnest not within the days appointed." This was false; all the worse for being uttered under the guise of truth. Samuel did appear before the seventh day had closed. Saul, in his unfaithfulness would not wait for this, but in the course of the day, perhaps towards its close, took his case out of the hands of God, and undertook for himself. Hypocritically, he tries to inject an appearance of piety into his daring act of disobedience, saying, he feared the Philistines would come down upon him before he had "made supplication unto the Lord." Under this cover he says, "I forced myself." But faith never has to "force" itself; it can always trust God's word, depend upon His promise, and await patiently its sure performance. But to this Saul is an utter stranger, and has to hear, from the very lips that had made the promise and given the command, the consequences of his disobedience.

And lastly, the Philistines were gathering together in great numbers. Not a word, we notice, of the Lord. Now, however, he says the enemy will come down to attack him (a most unlikely thing for an enemy to do in such a place as Gilgal) and he must make supplication unto the Lord. At last the Lord is brought in, but we notice that it is only in this feeble way. Really what filled the foreground of the king's vision was the melting of the people, the menace of the enemy's attack, and the absence of the human prop in Samuel. So he says: "I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt-offering." How many have fallen in the same way! His words are a confession that he knew he had disobeyed God in offering the sacrifices. It was contrary, he would have Samuel believe, to his own inclinations. He had to do it in spite of his convictions and desires. All the more, then, did it fully manifest the unbelief which will not cling to God, at all costs, in obedience. How much is excused in the same way! Human expedients are condoned, fleshly activity is encouraged, fellowship with the world is allowed, all under the plea of expediency. The reluctant conscience has to be forced, for it knows that these things are contrary to God; but force itself it will, if not subject to God in living faith.

Now came the test for the unhappy King. Samuel had promised to come within seven days. As the seventh day wore away, and the prophet did not arrive, Saul's patience utterly gave way. Poor flesh, ever restless, unbelieving and turbulent. Saul recalled how Samuel offered a burnt-offering on an earlier occasion in Gilgal (1 Sam 10:8); he would now do the same. But Saul was not Melchizedek! What place had the burnt-offering in his mind that he should act thus? It could have been little else than a talisman, as the ark was to the people in the day of Hophni and Phinehas (1 Sam 4:6). Brethren, it is GOD that counts, and if the outward and visible things of His own ordinances are suffered to displace Him in our minds, they become positively mischievous in our carnal hands.

What were Saul's fears? These are expressed in his string of excuses to Samuel who came upon the scene as the offering was concluded. First, "I saw that the people were scattered from me." He dreaded being left alone. But what was the value of men who had no faith? The Tachmonite lifted up his spear with success against eight hundred (2 Sam. 23:8), and Jonathan and his armour-bearer assaulted the whole host of the Philistines. Do we fear to be left alone, forsaken, it may be, in our service and testimony for God? Second, Saul said, "I saw … that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash." His eye was thus upon the might of the foe. Third, "I saw … that thou camest not within the days appointed." He thus had confidence in Samuel, but alas! the human prop was not there. But GOD was there: The poor king thus saw the defection of the people, the power of the enemy, and the absence of the man upon whom he leaned, but he saw not God. By way of contrast, listen to Paul in 2 Timothy 4:16-17, "At my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." The brave old veteran could moreover face the possibilities of the future thus, "and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me to His heavenly kingdom: to Whom be glory for ever and ever. — Amen." What a contrast between these two men of the same nation, of the same tribe, and bearing the same name.

Samuel's reply is startlingly frank. Saul has done foolishly. He does not attempt to take up his reasons in detail. The people may have been scattered. He does not refer to that. The enemy may be threatening. He does not even explain his own tarrying, though its purpose was manifest. One thing he has to say to the king: "Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God which He commanded thee." How all his paltry excuses are scattered to the winds by that solemn arraignment! What excuse can there be for disobedience? Then, too, as to the consequences of this they were not temporary, nor would they be immediately manifested, but this act had shown him to be utterly incapable of rule, to be certainly not the man after God's heart. If indeed he had stood this test, his kingdom would have been established, for it would have been seen that he was a man of genuine faith. One thing he lacked, and that one thing was absolutely needful. It was really everything. It was faith in God. Everything else may be present, but where this is wanting, one cannot be used of Him.

He is now in the position of which Samuel had forewarned him before his anointing, (chap. 10:8,) and in obedience to his injunction he waits till near the close of the seventh day, — till it has advanced so far, indeed, that it seems as if there was now no hope of Samuel's coming. The people are being scattered from him. His mind, sensitive as to external ordinances just in proportion to his inability to see beneath them, can only realize the failure (which was not his) in the matter of the sacrifice. In open disobedience he offers (or causes to be offered) the burnt-offering; and he has hardly done this before Samuel comes.

(5) It was a plain breach of positive command. Saul might and does urge the scattering of the people, the failure of Samuel (too quickly assumed that), the gathered Philistines. With all this he had nothing at all to do. The king of Israel was but the representative of the heavenly King, whose people Israel really was, and whose will alone was absolute throughout all circumstances that might arise. How good, in fact, to have it so! How entirely at rest might a king be so governing! As to any lack of understanding of that will, there was given the utmost liberty of appeal to Him through known and readily available channels of communication. With consequences he had nothing whatever to do. Were ever any king's shoulders so entirely relieved of strain as those of the obedient king of such a kingdom?