What Does I Samuel 15:9 Mean?

Saul reaches the total depth of his rebellion target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Saul's catastrophic rebellion is exposed as the text details the significant, coordinated greed of the entire Israelite camp. Moving far beyond mere political vanity, the king and his army redefine the holy command of God based on their own pragmatic, economic evaluation. If an animal was worthless, they "obeyed" God and killed it; if it was highly valuable, they ignored God and fully packed it into their own significant treasury.

The ultimate, sickening symptom of a apostate church is its fierce, arrogant assumption that it possesses the Lord right to edit the explicit commands of Scripture based on what is culturally or economically "good." We attempt to spare the highly profitable attractive elements of the secular world - incorporating them directly into our ministries - while loudly declaring our "holiness" by vocally denouncing the sins that our specific culture already finds "vile and despised." We must repent of this significant, hypocritical cafeteria-style obedience recognizing that keeping the "best" of Babylon is an act of total treason against heaven.

The calculated pragmatic greed of Saul's army provides the ultimate contrast to the significant, and self-emptying of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Savior did not examine the fallen, corrupt world and choose to spare the "best" components for His own immediate, economic enhancement; He voluntarily abandoned the infinite riches of supreme glory making Himself of no reputation so that through His terrible, crushing poverty, His rebellious people might finally become eternally rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Christ is the Lord who fully sacrifices everything to obey the Father.