Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 686
Delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
1 Samuel 15:2.
SAUL had been commanded to utterly slay 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 such sacrifices were no excuse for an act of direct rebellion. In so doing he altered his sentence, which is worthy to be printed in letters of gold and to be hung up before the eyes of the present generation: “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
I think that in this verse—and here I shall dwell mainly—there is, first, a voice to professing Christians, and then, secondly, to unconverted persons.
I. First, I will speak to you, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus, you who have made a PROFESSION of your faith in Him. Be it ever in your remembrance, that to obey, to keep strictly in the path of your Savior’s command, is better than any outward form of religion. And to hearken to His precepts with an attentive ear is better than to bring the fat of rams or anything else which you may wish to lay upon His altar. Probably there are some of you here tonight who may be living in the neglect of some known duty. It is no new thing for Christians to know their duty—to have their conscience enlightened about it—and yet to neglect it.
If you are failing to keep the least of one of Christ’s commands to His disciples, I pray you, Brethren, be disobedient no longer. I know, for instance, that some of you can see it to be your duty, as Believers, to be baptized. If you did not think it to be your duty, I would not bring this text to bear upon you. But if you feel it is right, and you do it not, let me say to you that all the pretensions you make of attachment to your Master and all the other actions which you may perform, are as nothing compared with the neglect of this! “To obey,” even in the slightest and smallest thing, “is better than sacrifice,” and to hearken diligently to the Lord’s commands is better than the fat of rams.
It may be that some of you, though you are professed Christians, are living in the prosecution of some evil trade, and your conscience has often said, “Get out of it.” You are not in the position that a Christian ought to be in—but then you hope that you will be able to make a little money—and you will retire and do a world of good with it. Ah, God cares nothing for this rams’ fat of yours! He asks not for these sacrifices which you intend to make. “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
Perhaps you are in connection with a Christian church in which you may see much that is wrong and you know that you ought not to tolerate it, but still you do so. You say, “I have a position of usefulness, and if I come out I shall not be so useful as I am now.” My Brother, your usefulness is but as the fat of rams, and “to obey is better than” it all. The right way for a Christian to walk in is to do what his Master bids him, leaving all consequences to the Almighty. You have nothing to do with your own usefulness further than to keep your Master’s commands at all hazards and under all risks. “I counsel you to keep the King’s commandments,” and, “whatever He said unto you, do it.” Sit at His feet with Mary and learn of Him! And when you rise up from that reverent posture, let it be with the prayer—
“Help me to run in Your commands, ‘Tis a delightful road. Nor let my head, nor heart, nor hands, Offend against my God.”
Possibly, too, dear Brother, there may be some evil habit in which you are indulging and which you excuse by the reflection, “Well, I am always at the Prayer Meeting. I am constantly at communion, and I give so much of my substance to the support of the Lord’s work.” I am glad that you do these things, but oh, I pray you give up that sin! I pray you cut it to pieces and cast it away, for if you do not, all your show of sacrifice will be but an abomination! The first thing which God requires of you as His beloved is obedience! And though you should preach with the tongue of men and of angels, though you should give your body to be burned and your goods to feed the poor, yet if you do not hearken to your Lord and are not obedient to His will, all besides shall profit you nothing.
It is a blessed thing to be teachable as a little child, and to be willing to be taught of God. But it is a much more blessed thing, still, when one has been taught to go at once and carry out the lesson which the Master has whispered in his ear. How many excellent Christians there are who sacrifice a goodly flock of sheep so as to replenish the altar of our God who, nevertheless, are faulty because they obey not the Word of the Lord? Look at our Missionary Society’s list of subscribers, and ask yourself the question, Do all these help the spread of the Gospel by obedience to the precept, “Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature”?