Saul
disobeys God and Rejected as King in free Bible art and free Bible lessons all ages. Beautifully visual Bible
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What Came Before:
Saul gathered together an army that included his son
Jonathan to lead in battle against the Philistines. Before the battle, Saul grew
impatient waiting on Samuel to arrive to offer a sacrifice to the Lord, and
though Saul was not a priest, he offered the sacrifice himself, thus breaking a
commandment of the Lord.
Saul continued to make mistakes by vowing that none of the fighting men should
eat food before the sun goes down. The men in his camp who heard the vow became
weak in battle, but Jonathan had not heard the vow and did eat and was made
strong and his men defeated the Philistines.
On that night Saul found that Jonathan had broken his command, though he knew it
not at the time. He said, " I have taken an oath before the Lord, and now,
Jonathan, you must die, though you are my own son."
But the people would not allow Jonathan to be put to death, even to keep Saul's
oath. They said, " Shall Jonathan die, after he has done such a great deed, and
won the victory, and saved the people? Not a hair of his head shall fall, for he
has done God's work this day!"
And they rescued Jonathan from the hand of the king and set him free. A great
victory had been won, but Saul had already shown that he was not fit to rule,
because he was too hasty in his acts and his words, and because he was not
careful to obey God's command.
The Philistines after this battle stayed for a time in their own land beside the
Great Sea, and did not trouble the Israelites upon the mountains...
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SAUL REJECTED AS KING
I Samuel 15
AFTER the great victory over the Philistines, Saul led his men against the
enemies of Israel on every side of the land. He drove back the Moabites to their
country east of the Dead Sea, and the Ammonites to the desert regions across the
Jordan. He fought the Edomites on the south and the kings of Zobah in the far
north. For a time the land of Israel was free from its oppressors. On the south
of the land, in the desert where the Israelites had journeyed for forty years,
were living the wild and wandering Amalekites, a people who had sought to harm
the Israelites soon after they came out of Egypt, and had killed many of their
people when they were helpless on their journey. For this God had said
that Israel should have war against the Amalekites until they were destroyed.
The time had now come for God's word against the Amalekites to be fulfilled, and
Samuel said to Saul, "Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, go down and make war
against the Amalekites, and destroy them utterly."
Then Saul called out the men of war in all the tribes, and they marched
southward into the desert where many years before their fathers had lived for
forty years. There Saul made war on the Amalekites, and took their city and
destroyed it. But he did not do what God had commanded him. He brought Agag, the
king of the Amalekites, and many of his people as prisoners, and a great train
of their sheep and oxen, intending to keep them.
Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, " It would have been better
never to have chosen Saul as king, for he does not obey my commands."
All that night Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the next day he went to meet Saul.
When Saul saw him, he said, "May the blessing of the Lord be upon you. I have
done what the Lord commanded me to do."
Then said Samuel, "If you have obeyed God's command and destroyed all the
Amalekites and all that they possessed, what is the meaning of this bleating of
the sheep and the bellowing of the oxen which I hear?"
"They have bought them from the Amalekites," answered Saul, "for the people
spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to offer in sacrifice to the Lord
your God. All the rest we have utterly destroyed." This he said to excuse his
wrongdoing and to put the blame for his disobedience to God's command on the
people.
Then Samuel said, "I will tell you what God said to me last night. When you were
humble in your own sight, God chose you to be king over Israel. He sent you on a
long journey to the southward into the desert and said to you, 'Go and utterly
destroy the Amalekites and leave nothing of them.' Why did you not obey God's
word but did seize their oxen and sheep and save many of their people alive,
disobeying God's voice?"
And Saul said, "I have done as God commanded, and have destroyed the Amalekites.
But the people took some things that should have been destroyed, to offer in
sacrifice to the Lord."
And Samuel said, "Is the Lord as well pleased with offerings as he is with
obeying his words? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen to God's word
is more precious than to place offerings on his altar. To disobey God's word is
as evil as to worship idols. You have refused to obey the voice of the Lord, and
the Lord will take away your kingdom from you."
Saul saw now how great was the harm that he had done, and he said, "I have
sinned in not obeying God's word; but I was afraid of the people, and yielded to
them. Now forgive me, sir. Come with me, and I will worship the Lord."
"No," said Samuel, "I will not go with you, for God will refuse you as king."
As Samuel turned away, Saul took hold of his garment, and it tore in his hand.
And Samuel said, "Even so has God torn the kingdom away from you; and he will
give it to a man that is better than you are. And God is not like a man, to say
one thing and do another. What God has said shall surely come to pass."
Saul begged Samuel so hard not to leave him, but to give him honor in presence
of the people, that Samuel went with Saul, and Saul worshipped the Lord with
Samuel.
After this Samuel went to his house at Ramah, and he never again met Saul as
long as he lived; but he mourned and wept for Saul, because he had disobeyed the
Lord, and the Lord had rejected him as king.
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