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I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments (1 Samuel 15:11, ESV).
We know the phrase “lost and found” and hope that when we leave our mobile phone in a restaurant and then frantically return a few hours later, that “lost and found” will describe us!!
Saul was anointed by the prophet Samuel (under God’s direction) to be king of Israel …
Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies” (1 Samuel 10:1).
Between chapters 10 and 15 in 1 Samuel, something happened. Saul was anointed as King in chapter 10, and then God regretted the decision in chapter 15. The intervening chapters describe something twisted in Saul — a tendency to do “his own thing” at the expense of God’s commands.
First, in chapter 11, Saul confronts a mustered Philistine army, and he doesn’t wait for the prophet Samuel to offer the sacrifice to God (a required tradition for God’s blessing), a sacrifice that only Samuel was authorized by God to perform.
Samuel appeared soon after the illegitimate sacrifice, challenged Saul, and Saul replied …
“When I saw I was losing my army from under me, and that you hadn’t come when you said you would, and that the Philistines were poised at Micmash, I said, ‘The Philistines are about to come down on me in Gilgal, and I haven’t yet come before God asking for his help.’ So I took things into my own hands and sacrificed the burnt offering” (1 Samuel 13:11-12, MSG).
HHHHMMMHHM … losing his army, the enemy poised to attack, and Samuel not there for the offering. So Saul, with fleshly reasoning, did his own thing.
The prophet Samuel didn’t buy it and answered …
“That was a fool thing to do,” Samuel said to Saul. “If you had kept the appointment that your God commanded, by now God would have set a firm and lasting foundation under your kingly rule over Israel” (1 Samuel 11:13).
Lost and not found again!
Second, after blowing it with the sacrifice, Samuel gives Saul a second chance: “Saul, go and destroy the Amalekites, and totally destroy all their possessions and all living things.” After Saul defeated the Amalekites, Samuel encountered him on the way back from his victory, and he said to him, “What am I hearing — this bleating of sheep, the mooing of calves?” (1 Samuel 15:14)
To which Saul explained …
The soldiers saved back a few of the choice cattle and sheep to offer up in sacrifice to God. But everything else we destroyed under the holy ban. I did obey God. I did the job God set for me. The soldiers just saved a few choice sheep and cattle (1 Samuel 15:21, OGV Abbreviated*)
HHHHMMMHHM … some of the soldiers, a few of the cattle, and we are doing it for God. Saul did “his own thing,” being mostly obedient to God.
And Samuel said …
Enough! Why didn’t you obey God with God’s eyes on you all the time? Don’t you know that God desires complete obedience rather than partial sacrifices? (1 Samuel 15:17-24)
Anointing lost and not found!
King Saul bargained away God’s commands and made light of them because of his own fears and lustful desires, and blamed others for his messes.
When I read this story of King Saul in 1 Samuel, I think of Romans 12:1 …
God help me present myself a sacrifice to you with all my heart, mind, and soul, without compromise, willing because I love to obey your Word (OGV, Heart Felt**)
With our salvation secure (by God’s grace), let’s not lose our anointing (blessing in our current actions).
*Old Guy Version Abbreviated from many verses to a few.
** Old Guy Version Heart Felt, what the OG feels when reading Scripture.