Today's reading: 1 Samuel 13: Romans 15
What was so bad about Saul making the offering in 1 Samuel 13? When Samuel confronts him about it his response is that he felt it was necessary to seek the favor of the Lord before going to battle, but Samuel had not shown up yet, so he took the initiative himself. Certainly this is good and right, to seek the Lord's favor before leading His people to battle, isn't it? And yet, despite this good sounding motivation, the result is that the throne is stripped from Saul's lineage and given to another. So what gives??
What gives is that Saul was treating God more like a talisman or a good luck charm than like God.
We can tell this both from the context and from his actions. To begin with, and this is the really telling point, Saul was not a priest, and was therefore not authorized by God to make these offerings. Offerings to the Lord could not freely be made by just anyone in Israel, but only by the priests. Only the descendants of Aaron could bring offerings before the Lord, and Saul isn't even from the tribe of Levi, let alone from the line of Aaron. So if Saul's concern is truly the favor of the Lord, why would he go about trying to get that favor in a way directly opposed to the Lord's instructions?
The author also tells us that before Saul's offering the people were terrified, so much so that they were scattering from Saul and hiding themselves from the Philistines. For Saul, this was a rallying point to try to stir up and encourage his remaining troops before they fled. So one of two things is true at this point, either Saul was more concerned about losing his troops than he was with the Lord's will, or he didn't see God as being any different from the gods of the nations, just looking for a sacrifice to compensate Him for His actions on behalf of Israel. Either way, this not only fails to honor God, but is incredibly dishonoring of Him. This kind of active disobedience to the word of God, coming from the king himself, sets a precedent for the rest of the nation to follow.
This is why Samuel tells Saul that God is going to seek a king after His own heart. Saul is more concerned about himself and his own kingdom than he is about the Lord and His kingdom, and that is not the kind of king Israel needs. The fact of the matter is that God has always delivered His people on the basis of their faith, not on the basis of their offerings. Plus, He has already shown Himself capable of delivering Israel with only a handful of soldiers, as He did with Gideon and 300 men, so if Saul really had faith in the Lord, he had no need to be concerned about how many soldiers fled from him.
It would have been good and right for Saul to seek the favor of the Lord, but that's not what Saul was doing. Saul was acting in disobedience to make a show for his men and/or to try to coerce God into action, and neither of those behaviors befits the king of Israel.
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