Making Connections
Sometimes people try to discredit the Bible by saying that the God in the Old Testament is not the same God we read of in the New Testament even though He claims to be the “same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Others try to use the same argument but to make almost the opposite point: that it is much easier to please God today because He is more loving now. They usually point out actions recorded in the Old Testament that seem more harsh while highlighting verses from the New Testament like 1 John 4:8 which reads, in part, “God is love.”
My son Daniel is extremely good at making connections between different sections of scripture and one he told me about recently may help us all reply to people who make the above claims. Anyone who knows Daniel well knows how much he loves the Old Testament, especially the books from 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles. If it has to do with a king, he knows it.
What Daniel shared takes a fairly well-known account involving King Saul and relates it to what God tells us in the New Testament. Saul and the Israelites had defeated the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15 and, rather than completely destroying them all, he kept the king and the best of the animals for sacrifices.
[Daniel made a side point here about the fact that Saul was more okay with killing women and children than the animals so that should give us a clue about his character.]
When Samuel confronts him, Saul argues that he did what God had asked but Samuel’s response was, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.” (1 Samuel 15:22-23)
This is truly no different that what God asks of us today when He says, “those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). He has always wanted our hearts. From Genesis 3, when Satan turned Eve’s heart away from the truth of what God said to his manipulative deception, to today when he does the same to us, God is there waiting and longing to save us. That is why He sent Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice: “so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:28).
If He truly has your heart, the rest comes with it. Make the connection.
AUTHOR: Amber Tatum