Evening, October 18
Go To Morning Reading
“Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.”
1 Samuel 15:22
Saul had been commanded to slay utterly all the Amalekites and their
cattle. Instead of doing so, he preserved the king, and suffered his
people to take the best of the oxen and of the sheep. When called
to account for this, he declared that he did it with a view of offering
sacrifice to God; but Samuel met him at once with the assurance that
sacrifices were no excuse for an act of direct rebellion. The sentence
before us is worthy to be printed in letters of gold, and to be hung
up before the eyes of the present idolatrous generation, who are very
fond of the fineries of will-worship, but utterly neglect the laws
of God. Be it ever in your remembrance, that to keep strictly in the
path of your Saviour’s command is better than any outward form of religion; and to hearken
to his precept with an attentive ear is better than to bring the fat
of rams, or any other precious thing to lay upon his altar. If you
are failing to keep the least of Christ’s commands to his disciples, I pray you be disobedient no longer.
All the pretensions you make of attachment to your Master, and all
the devout actions which you may perform, are no recompense for disobedience.
“To obey,” even in the slightest and smallest thing, “is better than sacrifice,” however pompous. Talk not of Gregorian chants, sumptuous robes, incense,
and banners; the first thing which God requires of his child is obedience;
and though you should give your body to be burned, and all your goods
to feed the poor, yet if you do not hearken to the Lord’s precepts, all your formalities shall profit you nothing. It is a
blessed thing to be teachable as a little child, but it is a much
more blessed thing when one has been taught the lesson, to carry it
out to the letter. How many adorn their temples and decorate their
priests, but refuse to obey the word of the Lord! My soul, come not
thou into their secret.