(with 1 Timothy 1:16)
King Saul had been expressly charged to await the coming of the prophet to offer an offering in Gilgal. It was a trial of fidelity and obedience. If Saul really believed that the direction was from God, and if he was really anxious to obey God, he would have waited. The seven days ran their course, and there was no sign of Samuel's approach. The king's resolution gave way. He offered the burnt offering, and scarcely had he done so when Samuel came.
I. Saul fell on this occasion through the operation of a principle which is natural to all of us the principle of impatience.
How many errors, faults, and sins in our lives spring out of this source. We scarcely ever do a thing in a hurry without having afterwards to regret it. Impatience is always a waste of time; it almost always has to be made up for; sometimes, too often and this is far worse it cannot be made up for. Sometimes out of a little momentary act of haste springs a misunderstanding never to be cleared up, a quarrel never to be reconciled, an injustice never to be repaired.
II. Most of all is this working of the mind seen, as it was seen in King Saul, when there is not only a lurking imprudence, but also a lurking disobedience. Saul showed the strength of his impatience by letting it interfere with and overbear a plain command of God. In the hurry and eagerness, the impatience and the fretfulness, which too often drive us on, the sense of right is easily put aside and suppressed.
III. If Christ were like us in this prevailing habit of impatience, what would become of us? What a temptation there would be to close our day of grace, which, alas! for so many of us is rather a day of mischief! If He dealt with us as the very best of us deal with one another, there is not a man upon earth who would live to grow up. But the patience of Christ still calls us to repentance. Seeing Him as He is, we shall gradually become like Him, till at last the impatience of man is lost in the longsuffering of Christ.
C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays,p. 397.