Samuel Rebukes Saul
10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from [f]following Me and has not carried out My commands.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night. 12 Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul; and it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, then turned and proceeded on [g]down to Gilgal.” 13 Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have carried out the command of the Lord.” 14 But Samuel said, “What then is this [h]bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the [i]lowing of the oxen which I hear?” 15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed.” 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Wait, and let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And he said to him, “Speak!”
17 Samuel said, “Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed you king over Israel, 18 and the Lord sent you on a [j]mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord?”
When God asks us to do something, we seem to be really good at making excuses. Moses had every excuse you could think of, and Abraham was really good at them as well.
But Saul takes it to the next level in his excuse of wanting to honor God with sacrifices rather than destroying everything as God had asked.
It’s a simple lesson, but a difficult one. When God asks, don’t argue or make excuses. He knows what is best, and all our best reasoning is just wasting time.