First Samuel 28 this is where we're going to be taking our
study from this morning. Last week in the second
services, afternoon services, we were reading the some chapters
in first Samuel back through I think it was 10 through 15 or
something like that. We continued continued reading
and I came upon this chapter and it really intrigued me and it
kind of prompted me to, to think about it and get A and get a, a
study together about it. So that's why I decided to teach
on it First Samuel chapter 28, it says there now it happened in
those days that the Philistines gathered their armies together
for war to fight with Israel. And Akash said to David, you
surely know that you will go out with me to battle you and your
men. So David said to Akash, surely
you will know what your servant can do.
And Akash said to David, therefore I will make you one of
my chief guardians forever. Now Samuel had died, and all of
Israel had lamented for him and buried him in Rama in his own
city, and Saul had put the mediums and the Spiritists out
of the land. Then the Philistine Philistines
gathered together and came and encamped at Shunam.
So Saul gathered all Israel together, and they all, and they
encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the
Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly.
And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer
him, either by prophets, or by Urim, or by or either by dreams,
or by Urim, or by the prophets. Then Saul said to his servants,
Find me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire
of her. And his servant said to him, In
fact, there is a woman who is a medium and indoor.
So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he
went, And two men went with him, and they came to the woman by
night. And he said, Please conduct a
seance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you.
Then the woman said to him, Look, you know what Saul has
done, how he has cut off the mediums and the Spirit just from
the land. Why then do you lay a snare for
me in my life to cause me to die?
And Saul swore to her by the very by the Lord, saying, As the
Lord lives, no punishment shall come to you upon you for this
thing. Then the woman said, Whom shall
I bring up for you? And he said, Bring up Samuel for
me and woman. When the woman saw Samuel, she
cried out with a light loud voice.
And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, Why have you deceived
me, For you are Saul. And the king said to her, Do not
be afraid, what did you see? And the woman said to Saul, I
saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.
So he said to her, What is this form?
And she said, An old man is coming up, and he is covered
with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was
Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed
down. Now Samuel said to Saul, Why
have you disturbed me by bringing me up?
And Saul answered, I am deeply distressed, for the Philistines
make war against me. And God has departed from me and
does not answer me anymore, neither by prophets nor by
dreams. Therefore I have called you that
you may reveal to me what I should do.
Then Samuel said, So why do you ask me, seeing the Lord has
departed from you and has become your enemy, and the Lord has
done for himself as he spoke by me.
For the Lord has torn the Kingdom out of your hand and
given it to your neighbor David, because you did not obey the
voice of the Lord, nor execute his fierce wrath upon Amalek.
Therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day.
Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel into your, with
you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you
and your sons be will be with me.
The Lord will also deliver the army of the Israel into the hand
of the Philistines. Immediately saw Phil fell full
length onto the ground and was dreadfully afraid because of the
words of Samuel. And there was no strength in
him, for he had not eaten, no, no food all day or all night.
And the woman came to Saul and saw that he was severely
troubled, and said to him, Look, your maidservant has obeyed your
voice. And I put my life in, in my
hands and heeded the words which you spoke to me.
Now, therefore, please heed all the voice of your maidservant,
and let me set a piece of bread before you and eat, that you may
have strength when you go on your way.
But he refused and said, I will not eat.
So his servants, together with the woman, urged him, and he
heeded their voice. Then he arose from the ground
and sat on the bed. Now the woman had a fatted calf
in the house, and she hastened to kill it.
And she took flour and needed it, and baked unleavened bread
from it. So she brought it before Saul
and his servants, and they ate, and they rose and went away that
night, correctly reading. And that's the 28th chapter of
First Samuel. Very intriguing, interesting
chapter to say the least. At this time, we'll go to our
God in the word of prayer. In the 28th chapter of First
Samuel, the book switches from telling some of David's story
and switching to to the focus on King Saul.
And it's switching from the focus from David to Saul.
We're about to discover that Saul is, if you want to say,
living on a road to nowhere. This is what you could call
maybe the beginning of the end for Saul.
There is, if you know, if you were to borrow the words of
David earlier in the story, he recognizes that there's but a
step between himself and death. And the way in which the writer
provides the context for us makes a number of things clear.
Number one, first of all, that his position was absolutely
desperate. Saul's position was desperate.
There is a verse in the 4th chapter of Ecclesiastes which in
an NIV says simply there was a man all alone.
And as I study chapter 28, that particular verse and that phrase
really kind of stood out to me. There was a man all alone.
And that was Saul's certain situation.
He was absolutely overwhelmed by the sight that he sees of the
Philistine forces being assembled against him.
And he is at this point a mere shadow of the young man whom we
were introduced to when he was anointed king.
If we remember, back in Chapter 9, we were told that there was
not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he.
From his shoulders up, he was taller than any of the people.
But we look at him now and we discover him here in this
chapter. He's barely recognizable.
He may have shrunk some physically, you know, I guess
what they say, you know, you shrink a little bit when you get
older, older in age, but he would still be a tall man.
His physical stature may have been maintained, but the
structure of his bones and so on, they were the same.
But spiritually, what we're showing here, what we're
introduced here, who is a man who is actually fading away,
were introduced to a man who is dying from the inside out.
The circumstances here is they're described there in verse
3 and following are very dangerous, they're grave, and
they give an explanation of the sense of hopelessness.
And we look at verse 5, when Saul saw the army of the
Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly.
Sir, actually, when we think about his desperate
circumstances, there are three factors that considered
contributed to that factor. The first, of course, what I
just mentioned, namely, and then second was the presence of the
Philistines. And this of course was nothing
new. Back in chapter 14 and verse 52,
we're reminded that there was a hard fighting against the
Philistines, all the Deus assault.
But there are two aspects of this circumstance that add to
his sense of desperation. One, the position of in which
the Philistines now find themselves.
In previous engagements with with the armies, they had been
kind of in a hilly mountainous area, but now they've come down
into what some kind of a kind of like a plane more of a flat
area. So what it would do, it would
actually strengthen the army that they would have.
Now all their Chariots would be at full power that they could
run these Chariots as hard as they could being on flat and and
level ground. So the position is 1 aspect and
then the personnel is the other, and particularly the addition of
David and the 600 men that Saul is now going to go against.
David, we were told has already, and we see in chapter 27, verse
4, arisen and gone over. And as a result of that, when it
was told to Saul that he no longer sought him.
So first of all, the presence of the Philistines, the presence
and the personnel, and secondly, the absence of Samuel.
The third verse is simply a repetition of the obituary of
Samuel. This is quite quick, brief
obituary, of course, back in verse 25.
In the first verse, there Samuel had died and all Israel had
mourned, and they buried him in his own city.
Now, if you think about it, if you read the previous chapters,
Saul and Samuel had not been speaking to each other for quite
some time. But now that he is dead, Saul
wishes that he could talk to him.
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got
until it's gone? Of course.
And that's where Saul was with Samuel.
That was true in this case. And this little sentence here
that you find following on that end of verse 3.
And Saul has put the mediums in the necromancer's out of the
land or the spiritist. I think one couple of the
translations say which you find yourself saying, well, I wonder
why we have mention of his clearing policy.
Paul Saul had cleared out the mediums and the spiritist and
the necromancer's of the city. We'll find that out later in the
in the study. He's desperate because the
presence of the Philistines, because the absence of Samuel
and because we'll notice. Thirdly, the silence of God, the
silence of God. Saul inquired of the Lord, but
the Lord in verse 6 we see did not answer him.
Now Saul would be able to recall the beginning of his journey
when when in the presence of Samuel, at the very outset of it
all, Samuel had said to him back in Chapter 9, verse 27.
He said, stop here for a while, Saul, that I may make known to
you the word of the Lord. Well, those days were gone for
Saul. Those days had passed when his
heart was tender, when the word of the Lord was coming, when his
engagement with Samuel was meaningful.
But now he's just a a shrunken character, mediocre man.
If you want to say he's now living on a road to nowhere.
Of course, no, the Lord was not speaking.
It says the Lord did not answer him either by dreams, which was
one of the ways of Commission communication, or by Urim, which
was used in a process by the priest determining the will of
God. The Urim was actually, if you
remember the the ephod on the front of the priests had some
stones in it. One of those Thrones stones was
an Urim. And from what I understand is
that they would sometimes take these stones and cast lots and
casting lots kind of help help them to make certain decisions.
Of course, that is all he how he was.
There was no way for him to have access to that anymore because
he had butchered all the priests at Knob in previous chapters.
And at the same time he's trembling in fear on the account
that the fact that the prophet Samuel himself is now dead.
So the writer gives this to us in order that we might see this
picture that we might realize that Samuel is dead and the
voice of God is silent. The Philistines are on the
horizon. And the end is insight.
And the question is, what is he going to do about it?
What is he going to do with this point?
He's come to another crossroads in his in his life.
If you want to say interestingly in First Chronicles 10 verses 13
through 14, it says, so Saul died for his breach of faith.
He broke faith with the Lord and that he did not keep the command
of the Lord and also consulted a medium seeking guidance.
And then it says he did not seek guidance from the Lord.
And here it is says he sought guidance from the Lord.
Well, I don't think there's any contradiction here.
He sought guidance from the Lord, but it didn't look like he
was really at all. He sought it faintly.
He sought, if you would, if you want to say it was kind of
Saul's backup plan. He saw it too little and too
late. He didn't realize that what we
all need to realize and the Scripture says seek the Lord
while he may be found and he didn't.
He was desperate. In verses 7 through 14, Saul, he
we find in disguise, Saul said to his servants, here's the
crossroads, here's the answer to our questions and he's struck by
the silence of God. And So what he essentially says
to his servant, servant says, listen, if I can't get an answer
from heaven, I'm going to get my answer from hell.
That's what Saul is basically saying.
He says, find me a woman who is a medium that might, I might go
and inquire of her. If I can't hear from God, I'll
hear from somebody else. I'll go to the dark side if you
want to say. And what he's doing here is he's
actually going against his own edict.
Now we understand why the writer has given us that sense that we
saw in verse 3 is said in Saul put the mediums and the net and
the necromancer is out of the land.
And that was one of the high points actually of his rule.
He said, we're not going to tolerate all that heathen stuff
here. We're not going to we're not
going to have all that stuff going on while I'm ruling.
We're going to get rid of all that.
And so he, for he had forbidden it and he had forbidden it
because the law of God forbade it.
And we can read about that if you want to read.
And Deuteronomy got it for big forbidden the practice of
divination by means of medium or spiritus or necromancer, if you
want to say. And straightforwardly, the Lord
did not allow them to do this. And now Saul says we're going to
go ahead and do it. We're going to seek me out a
woman who is a medium that I may go and inquire of her.
Now notice how quickly his servants respond, says and the
servant said to him, Behold, there is a medium and indoor.
Well that was quick. These guys knew about it.
The servants knew what was going on.
They knew where to find what Saul was asking.
You would have thought they would have said, you know Saul,
we have no idea. Don't you remember that you
forbade all this? Now we don't know where this
these are at. But no, they knew.
They knew where the mediums were at.
So given the fact that they that there is a possibility of
information from that source, we're told that Scott Saul
disguised himself. Saul disguised himself and he
went. Now again, of course we don't
the geography of this. We don't want to get deep into
the geography of where this was all happening at the time in
order to get to end or he would have had to skirt the camp of
the Philistines. And it wouldn't be a smart move,
of course, to go walking around in his kingly robes through the
middle of the enemy. But at the same time, this
greater concern would surely be to make that nobody would ever
know that he the very one who outlawed the practices he was
now going to go ahead and participate in.
So Saul disguised himself. Hypocrisy, yes, in its finest.
Lizzie, when Lizzie and I were talking the other night, she I
was telling her what was going to teach on and and she she said
to me, she goes, what a hypocrite.
I said yeah. And she said why do we follow
people like that? Why do we read the Bible and
follow people like that? And I wish I had a better answer
at the time for her. I kind of fumble my way through
it. But my answer to her now is we
do not follow the humans and the people of the Bible.
We follow Jesus and Jesus alone. We use these people, these
people, these characters in the Bible as an examples of how to
live a Christian life, how to have a heart towards God.
They're people just like you and I, mumbling and fumbling and
messing things up as they go, just trying to get through life.
And we're exactly like them. So we don't follow these people.
We follow Jesus and Jesus alone. So allow when allow this text to
kind of soak into our mind and see him here, the king, the
rejected king sneaking off to a medium.
He's walking contradiction. He's partly truth and mainly
fiction. We look at him, we see no spear,
no cloak, no hope. And actually this is the final
divesting of his kingly identity.
The robe has been torn. He's torn Samuels robe, his own
robe is essentially in tatters. It's been cut in The Cave of Egg
Indy. His spear was captured in the
encounter of an earlier incident.
Now we look at him and then we'll see that this is what
happens. There is a way that seems right
to a man, but it's end is the way to death.
Saul relied on his own sight, his own insight.
And the Bible is clear that we are, we are to rely, to use our
insight, but we're not to rely on it.
We're not to lean on our own insight.
And he leaned on it. He said, if I can't hear from
God, I'll go somewhere else. It's a bit like somebody, you
know, who has a terminal illness, and I don't want to
make light of it or anything, but you know, somebody has an
illness, terminal illness, and they're willing to try anything
and everything that they can maybe to make the process a
little bit easier. That wouldn't be surprising of
Saul if he was at his wits end and his ropes in that he was
willing to try anything he could.
And that's what happened to him here.
There's no dreams, there's no erum, there's no word from God.
Therefore he's going only to a place he knows to go, and that
is of course to his bad place, default places to our bad place.
And so he and two of his buddies, two men says in verse
eight, came to the woman by night.
Of course they did. Of course they went by night.
His request was extremely clear. Divine for me by spirit, he
said, and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you.
Now the woman had quite the response.
How ironic is this? It says the woman said to him,
surely you know that Saul has done that.
He has cut off all the mediums and the necromancer's from the
land. She says, you know, we're not
supposed to be doing this. She tells that to Saul after
Saul's request, the king, you know, she says, you know, the
king made this into law. He had these edicts and now
you're coming to me asking about this.
I don't think we should be doing this.
And then she says, Are you sure this isn't a setup?
Are you laying a trap for me? Maybe she's thinking he's an
agent of the king and he's doing sort of a follow up to clean up
all the the the remaining mediums of the land.
If you want to say, Saul says, don't even worry about that.
He says as the Lord lives, he swore to, he swore to it by the
Lord. And as the Lord lives, no
punishment shall come to you for this thing.
He had no basis to make this statement at all, none at all.
He has no basis in which he can make that kind of pronouncement.
It's incongruent at its slightest.
And the shameful conflict of that reply as the Lord lives, no
punishment shall come to you for this.
In other words, including the Lord in his lies.
What's all the same? The Midrash for my understanding
of the Jewish writings, they capture this incongruity when
they write. Who did Saul resemble at this
moment? A woman who was with her lover
and swears by the life of her husband.
And that is the level of incongruity that Saul is dealing
with here, that he's doing that he requests for himself what he
has prohibited for others. Now the woman may have thought
to challenge his assurance in verse 10, but instead proceeds
with the divination. Whom shall I bring up to you?
He said. Bring up Samuel for me.
I want to put a word of caution out, kind of be careful if you
want to say we can come back to it a little bit.
But we want to make sure that our curiosity, when we read
passages like this, we want to make sure that they do not
destroy the clarity and the main meaning of the passage.
We'll come back to that. But we're told what happened and
what happened was that Samuel actually appeared.
Samuel appeared and when Samuel appeared, she cried out with a
loud voice. There's the more I got into some
more, I realized that there is a huge amount of information in
these, in these verses that we see and we're not going to touch
all that. But I think, I actually think
that this had never happened actually in this woman's life
before. Believe it or not, even though
she was a medium, I kind of believe that this really never
happened to her. Whether she was a charlatan or
not, we don't know. But this is it, that she, she
couldn't believe what she was seeing to say the least.
She was not sure what was going on and she had reason not to
believe. But simultaneously,
simultaneously, the woman realizes that she is actually
dealing with the king. She shouted in a loud voice, and
she said to Saul, you deceive me.
You are salt. And we're not told that we're
not. We're not told how she puts 2
into the two together. But she gets it.
She accuses him of deception. And she's absolutely right.
He had deceived her because he was salt.
And the king brushes that aside. He really kind of dismissed that
and didn't even acknowledge what she had said to him.
He wants to know. He says, what do you see?
You see, you know, really when we look at the story, who's the
righteous 1 here? The medium is at this point.
We shouldn't be doing these things.
She said we shouldn't be doing this all along.
It's you know, when we when when your world really gets upside
down, it really gets upside down when you're not listening to
God, when we're not following God.
And the woman said this all you to see me and that's true.
You did deceive her. And then she says, be afraid,
what do you see? She said, well, I see a God
coming out of the earth. This is the English standard
version. I see God coming out of the
earth. Now that word that is used here
is actually the word Elohim, which is has various forms,
plural and singular and all all that stuff that I don't fully
understand. I was reading about it's trait
translated variously through the Old Testament.
And basically, what it means here is that she's speaking as a
heathen. In other words, she realizes
that what she's encountering here is something that she
cannot use her sort of routine language to explain.
And so. Not satisfied with that one.
Notice that Saul says there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK, OK, fine. Whatever.
You know, what does he look like?
What is his appearance? In other words, could you please
be more specific on what you're seeing here?
And she said an old man coming up and wrapped in a row.
The English standard version says an old man wrapped in a
row. And Saul immediately knew who it
was, coming up right at the very beginning of Samuel's life.
Samuel's mother. Made him a little robe used to
take it and used to take it to him and how this robe had been
actually featured in the story of Samuel the prophet.
And so it appeared that that appearance of Samuel scares the
woman. But to the extent that which was
fearful, I think is minimal in comparison to the mention of the
road which brings Saul absolutely to his knees.
An old man is coming up and he is wrapped in a row.
Yeah, Saul knew the road. Saul knew exactly who it was.
He understand the significance of it.
He knew the road because actually Saul tore the robe in
chapter 15. So the very mention of that road
would take him right back to that incident.
You know this stuff. That we do early in our lives,
that we make mistakes on. And these, these, these
significant moments in our life, you know, we can't run from
those things. We can't hide from them.
Saul couldn't hide from him. No matter how old we live, we
can't run. We can't hide, we can't disguise
ourselves from the things that we've done in the past.
He disguised. Himself in his clothes, but he
can't disguise his lying heart. The Lord has.
Torn the Kingdom of Israel from you this day we see back in
chapter 15, Samuel said to him, and he's given it to a neighbor
who is greater than you. And down here for the first time
it finally comes out and that neighbor is David himself.
What a picture it is. And Saul knew that it was
Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid
homage. I want to take a.
Couple minutes to look at the two final sections here there is
plain as passage to spark our fascination and curiosity.
And so we, we want to make sure what do we do with we?
Want to make sure that. We don't do.
We have to resist. The temptation to fill in the
blanks when it comes to the Word of God.
We have to resist the. Temptation to fill in the
blanks. There's a saying that says the
main things are the plain things, and the plain things are
the main things. And it's an honest.
Acknowledgement of the fact that we're not given an explanation
of how it was Samuel that appeared.
And the reason that we have no explanation is because we're not
supposed to have the explanation.
What we know about spiritists and Medium and the occult is
absolutely is that it is absolutely forbidden.
That's what we know. The Bible is.
Clear about that? The Bible actually tells us
nothing about how these things happen, and it is an absolute
mistake to try and draw conclusions on those matters
from this chapter. You see, here's the question.
Did this woman have dark powers by which to bring Samuel back
from the dead? Did she have those powers?
The Bible doesn't say. One, Commerce said.
One commentator said this. It seems far, far more likely to
me that the Lord sent Samuel to Saul on this evening, just as on
very different occasion he sent Moses until Elijah to Jesus.
I think that's a great. Way to put this into
perspective. In other words, a sovereign God,
even in the midst of stupidity, darkness, and chaos, will still
accomplish his purpose. So he was desperate.
He's disguised and he is in verse 15 and following deserted.
He's deserted Samuel. Samuel now is now in the focused
and Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me on
bringing me up basically and I was having a good rest.
What are you bringing me up for? See, this is true to Samuel or
true to Samuel's character. Samuel was a very outspoken
prophet. I mean, he'll, he gave it to
everybody very straightly when we don't think, when he didn't
like something, he actually just said it.
He what he didn't curtail around or anything like that.
Samuel was very direct and Saul's explanation in response
is almost word for word with verse 6.
Remember back in verse 6, we're told that when Saul inquired of
the Lord, the Lord didn't answer either by dreams or by Urim or
by the prophets. Now here, this is what he says.
He says I am great distress for the Philistines are warring
against me. That was the presence of the
Philistines. God has turned away from me.
That is the silence of God. And he answers me no more,
either by prophets or by dreams. Well, there's a missing one
there. The one missing is Urim.
And why is there no Urim? Because there are no priests.
Why are there no? Priests because Saul had them
all slaughtered, we remember in previous chapters.
Now what? He's actually.
Saying to Samuel in common languages, I couldn't get a hold
of anyone else. So you're my last resort, is
what he was saying to Samuel. I'm sorry I had to wake you up.
That's what he's saying. And I'm expecting you to tell me
what to do. I'm expecting you to tell me
what to do. That's why I have summoned you.
You see, Saul still has his his big guy personality.
If you want to say, you know, he's still trying to summon
people, he's still trying to give out directions.
He thinks that he's in control actually when his life is dying
from the inside out. I have summoned you to tell me
what shall I do? And Samuel said, well, why did
you come? Ask me what are you coming to me
for? Is what Samuel said.
The Lord has turned away from me and I and I'm the prophet of the
Lord. So if the Lord has turned from
you, I'm with God. Therefore I've got.
Nothing to say to you because the prophet of the Lord cannot
be separated from the message of the Lord, and the message of the
Lord I gave to you back in chapter 15 when I told you the
Lord has toward the Kingdom from you.
I got nothing more to. Say basically what Samuel was
saying. Now once again, it's not, you
know, we need to make sure it's we're not diverted into how this
conversation could actually happen or take place.
Howie, a living human could have a conversation with a dead
spirit. If you want to say we can't, we
can't focus on that curiosity. That should not be our focus.
The one who did not complete the destruction of the Amalekites
says Samuel is about to be destroyed completely.
Verse 18 because you did not obey the voice of the Lord, you
didn't carry out this fierce war with that against Amalek.
Therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day.
In other words, Samuel, like we said before it had nothing else
to say to Saul. Put a cross reference up here
for us. Luke 23 verses 6 through 9.
You can follow it up on your own if you want, but Luke records
for us kind of a really chilling piece of engagement we have in
the relationship of Jesus and others.
It says in Luke 23 verses 6 through 9, it says when Pilate
heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean, that is
Jesus, which he discovered that he was, that he belonged to
Herod's jurisdiction, and he sent him over to Herod, who was
it was himself in Jerusalem at the time.
Now listen to what it says here. When Herod saw Jesus, he was
very glad, for he had a long desire to see him because he he
had heard about him and he was hoping to see him sign done by
him. So he questioned him at length,
but he made no answer. Jesus had nothing to say to
Harry. It had all been said.
There was no reason for Jesus to have a response to Harry because
Jesus said all he needed to say. Listen to the Spirit of God will
not always strive with us. Our hearts may not be tender or
touched by the Word of God. We may shut our ears for one
last time to the Word of God and discover that never in our life
will we ever have a sensitive moment.
For the word of God. To touch our hearts.
That's what happened to Herod. That's what happened to Saul.
Be not deceived. God is not mocked.
Galatians 6 through 7, Saul was done.
This tragic picture of this man, the utter hopelessness of this
man, painfully exposed. He's desperate, he's disguised,
he's deserted. In the verse 20 through 25, in a
sentence or two, he's done. He stood.
Head and shoulders above most of the community and is now flat on
his face, says. At once.
He fell full length to the ground.
In other words, he didn't ease himself to the ground.
He fell flat on his face to the ground, didn't catch himself
with his hands or his knees flattened, filled with fear.
Because of Samuel's words. Because of Samuel's words.
That is a very, very important phrase.
The words of Samuel, the words of the prophet, the word of God,
sharper than two edged sword, cutting into the very heart of
things. Yes.
He heard his voice and it was clear.
You and your sons are finished. You're finished and your sons
are going to be with me, IE dead.
Now somehow. Or another this lady shows up
again in verse 21 through 24 it says and she recognizing the the
predicaments of Saul that basically he had not eating, he
was dehydrated, he was in shambles, he had no strength in
him realizing he is terrified. He's got the shakes, she said.
You know your servants have obeyed you.
I've taken my. Life into my hand.
I've listened to what you had to said to me.
Now, therefore, you should obey your servant.
And she encourages him to eat. He says he doesn't want to eat.
And then she encourages the servants that he brought with
him to join in the encouragement of him to eat.
And he listens to the words. So he rose from the earth and
sat on the bed. It's really gone.
Comprehension if you can picture this story in your mind.
And not be. Unmoved, Saul began with such
promise. Everybody thought he was the
best. And now we look at him sitting
on the bed like a shriveled mess, waiting on this lady to
prepare him a meal to prepare to preparing a meal fit for a king,
for a man who wasn't fit to be king.
And sometimes we say, well, yes, it's just the drama of the
Bible. Yeah, it is drama.
There is major drama in the Bible.
And we can't. Skirt.
We can't minimize that. It's striking, but you know, one
feature of our day is actually hopelessness.
The description that Paul gives the Ephesians, which we find is
in Ephesians 2 and 12. We remember the two fellows that
were on the road to Emmaus and their whole life had collapsed.
Hopelessness because of the death of Jesus.
We says we hope that he had was going to be the 1:00.
And then, of course, Jesus spoke and their eyes were open and
they realized that in this historical reality of the
resurrection there was not only one, not only for them hope and
hope and their hopelessness, but there is hope for all time, for
all people in the one source, namely Jesus the Christ.
Do we know that? Hope if the Word of God has
touched you today, if you hear his voice, do not like Saul.
Harden our heart, act on the Word of God.
Are you here because your heart is tender for the Word of God,
tender for the love of Jesus? Or are you here just out of
routine? That's a dangerous.
Place to be if you're here out of routine.
Very, very dangerous. Let the word of.
God prick your heart every time that you read it, every time we
open it up, every time that we see an opportunity to help a
brother or sister, that's what we should be doing.
Act on where God's word are you here and you've heard the word
of God and you want to be baptized for the remission of
our sins. Of course we want you have to
believe. Believe that Jesus is who he
says he is. And that word believe is a
loaded word. It's an action word.
It causes us to do something because we believe we have to do
something about it. We repent of the.
Way we are living, we change our way of life we are now following
Jesus and and him alone we confess his name to our God the
Father and we are baptized for the remission of our sins if.
There's someone here. Who just needs the prayers of
the Church or needs to make a public confession in any way?
We ask you, please come while we stand and while we sing.