Sacrifice of Fools

Read this as my on-going Bible study notes. Please feel free to share your experience, contribute your opinion, correct my misconceptions, etc.

Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. Ecc 5:1

I’ve always wondered what a “sacrifice of fools” is. (ok, actually, I assumed it refered only to foolishly promising to do things for God.) Today’s passage (1 Sam 8) shed a bit more light on the subject.

Was reading about Saul, whom as the first king of Israel, was being threatened by Philistines. So Saul was waiting for Samuel, and he waited 7 days, as told by Samuel. But Samuel was late (traffic jam? hehe), and Saul got worried because his army was deserting him.

So Saul decides to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings to God (v8-12). “How bad can that be? It’s a good thing to offer sacrifices to God…”

But that’s exactly the problem. He wasn’t supposed to. The Law at that time, was that only prophets were to offer sacrifices to God. (uh… theology check?). While Saul had a pretty solid justification (1. Samuel was late; 2. Sacrifices are a Good Thing; 3. Come on, dude, he was the KING!), but still at the core was the fact that he disobeyed a clear, simple command of God: Only those with a priestly office are to offer sacrifices.

Fast forward about a chapter (14:33), we see Saul’s army doing the same. These guys, fresh out of a miraculous victory in war, fresh out of a sworn fast, were so hungry they ate the spoils of war – fresh steak from bulls. So fresh, it was dripping with blood. Well, it’s a bit gross, but how bad can it be? They were in a war! They were hungry! They fasted and they won… uh.. Right?

Well sin is sin. And God’s command was clear: No eating meat with blood.

My trigger is in 13:13, with regards to Saul’s sacrifices…

And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you…

Perhaps this is a form of a foolish sacrifice – when we try to justify our actions with all the noble, true, biblical principles when it’s clearly against the commandments given.

This is most dangerous to Christians. I recently struggled with “balancing” my tithes and the church’s Buy-A-Seat program. I kinda wanted to “contra” my tithes with the BAS. It seems right.. I’d give even more to BAS than I normally give for tithes. Sounds good eh? Or how many times we hear Christians dating non-Christians, “I’m bringing her to church…”

Man! How easy it is to make up excuses, to make our actions sound so “holy”, twisting biblical principals for our selfish reason. We know in our hearts, and it’s written simply and clearly in the Bible, what the right thing to do is.

God’s Word remains true forever, He’s not going to make exceptions to His laws so that He can enjoy our “sacrifices”. He doesn’t need our sacrifices!

So I do hope to learn to ask God to “search my heart, know my thoughts”. Let each sacrifice be made from a pure, obedient heart.