1 Samuel Lesson 47
Witch of Endor/Saul is hardened – 28:7-25
We continue in 1 Samuel 28, and it would be well for us to recall the
place 1 Samuel 28 has in the book. 1
Samuel 28 is one of those odd chapters that appears out of place because
chapter 27 deals with a problem David had; chapter 29-30 deal with a problem
David has. And chapter 31 deals with a
problem Saul has. Chapter 28
chronologically should fit some time after chapter 29. In other words, reading 1 Samuel by western tradition
you’re to come up with “there’s a conflict in the Bible.” But as I have said many times, you do not
read Scripture chronologically in the Old Testament, necessarily. You read it topically and God the Holy
Spirit, when He narrates something to you is narrating a topic and so we have
an event in chapter 27. We’re about to
have two other events in chapter 29 and 30.
Chapter 27, 29 and 30 are all in sequence. But chapter 28 is not; chapter 28 is out of
sequence. And the Holy Spirit apparently
has seen fit to put it here to warn us why certain things are going to happen
in chapter 29-30.
David is in a jam, chapter 27; he was in the jam of having played
politics with Achish, having falsified military records for some sixteen
months, he was now about to be called into an expedition to annihilate
The second point of background is Saul; Saul has shown no sign
whatsoever of genuine heart repentance.
His heart is as hard or harder than it ever was before. Saul has deliberately rejected the grace of
God at point after point; he continues to put up his self-righteous façade and
we learn from this chapter something that characterized the administration of
King Saul, a feature that his administration was known by throughout the
ancient world with a certain campaign. Many administrations had certain
campaigns, certain things that they are noted for. Saul’s administration was noted for the
annihilation of witchcraft and the occult.
He had a great crusade during his days in office against the witches and
against the occult, and it sounded like a very godly crusade because it did
line up with Deuteronomy 18. It did look
as though yes, here is an administration that is applying the Word of God in
every area. Here Saul is exercising part
of the Law that no king before him had; obviously no judge before him had. The judges, during the period of the judges,
allowed this thing to grow and grow and grow, and now King Saul as the king
comes and he destroys, he cuts off at the roots a thing which had plagued
The third thing we want to understand is that Saul has had pronounced
upon him a decree; a decree of discipline, a sovereign decree, and this
sovereign decree can never be thwarted.
It can be adjusted, it can be responded to, and God makes ways in grace
to withstand these decrees, but the decrees themselves remain because they are
sovereign declarations and Saul is about now to receive the fulfillment of this
sovereign decree.
Verse 7, “Then said Saul unto his servants,” remember last time we left
at verse 6, he couldn’t get an answer to prayer; Saul couldn’t get an answer
from God and so you would feel sorry, poor Saul. Isn’t this a man who is sincere, isn’t this a
man who in the last hours of his life is crying out to God; isn’t Saul really
concerned, isn’t he trying to contact God through the priesthood but there’s no
priest due to an unfortunate antecedent event; there are no ties to the prophet
but again through unfortunate antecedent events there are no prophets either,
and he apparently has tried dreams and God has not answered. Poor Saul, everybody feels sorry for Saul,
pass the Kleenex.
Verse 7, in the middle of this problem, Saul sends for a women who has a
familiar spirit. This is his contact
with the demonic; “the woman who has a familiar spirit” in the Hebrew is taken
from a word for “lord” that would mean the “lordess,” or we’ll just say the
Lady, with a capital “L,” indicating her rank; “the Lady of an aob,” a lady of an aob means the lady of a demon; a lady who is demon possessed, or
who is in very close contact with demon forces.
This is the one person that Saul’s campaign was noted for eliminating.
So Saul, finally in desperation in the eleventh hour of his life gets so
desperate that he goes against that for which he was publicly known. Now a self-righteous legalist like Saul is in
very, very desperate straits indeed if he is going to contradict the façade
that he has tried to convince everyone about.
And in the last hours of his life this is precisely what he’s
doing. “Then said Saul unto his
servants, Seek me a lady of an aob [woman
who is a medium], that I may go to her, and inquire of her.”
Now I want you to notice what the servants say in verse 7, “And his
servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman who has an aob [is a medium] at Endor.”
Now that’s interesting, that little remark, there’s a lady that has an aob.
How fast the underlings in Saul’s administration could locate a lady
with an aob, when the very
administration was known as the administration that purged all these people.
How come the lieutenants of Saul were so familiar and could locate a person
within several minutes, as it were.
Let’s look at the terrain; here’s the
This indicates something very interesting. It indicates that Saul is going to take a
most desperate move; Saul is going to come very close to the Philistine main
force, all alone except for a few lieutenants with him. And he’s going to go there for this apostate
purpose of seeking information from the demon forces. Now when Saul agrees to do this he is
agreeing to, essentially, abandon his position, to move over here to actually
threaten his whole life, his whole command.
But there’s something else that’s interesting here. The very fact that in this situation the
people in his administration could locate one of these people so very quickly
indicates that really this campaign, like so many political campaigns, was only
skin deep; he really hadn’t eliminated the people with the aobs; if he had, how come his administration knew where they were
located. On the other hand, if this
administration had been consistently carrying out his policies of eliminating
the occult, then if these lieutenants knew of this lady, why haven’t they
killed her before? Why do they know so
much about her. Obviously the story is
that as all self-righteous, moralistic campaigns that are built on something
other than the Word of God, they are only skin deep and the cracks begin to
show up real fast.
Verse 8, “And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he
went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, I
pray thee, divine unto me by the aob,
[as a medium],” the word “divine” is a word that we studied in Deuteronomy 18,
and it means usually divine by chance, throwing the arrow heads, the headless
arrows that I mentioned last time, but here the word takes on a larger
connotation of simply knowing what he should do. Now I want you to notice, there’s an internal
contradiction in this verse, a tremendous contradiction, a contradiction that
comes straight out of the chaos of poor Saul’s soul. The contradiction is this: if you go in
rebellion against God’s will, why are you interested in finding out what you
ought to do? Isn’t there a contradiction
there? If he hasn’t bothered in the past
of finding out what he ought to do, based on God’s authoritative Word, why in a
jam is he now concerned with trying to find out what he ought to do? Obviously he’s not interested in what he
ought to do, he’s only interested in what would be convenient to do on his
terms. Please notice that, lest you feel
sorry.
This man will fool you; he has fooled many commentators of this
book. You can read commentator after
commentator after commentator and they all at this time go to pieces; they
think God is being harsh on Saul, too harsh on Saul; King Saul is in a jam,
circumstances are compelling him at last to seek something beyond himself. Don’t be fooled, this man isn’t softening up
at all, he’s hardening his heart further because the kind of advice he wants is
an autonomous advice; an autonomous advice that will not bow before God’s
sovereign Word, before God’s decrees, before the absolute King of the universe. He wants none of that advice; he does not
want the advice on God’s terms. He wants
the advice on his terms.
Now you don’t have to be in a situation of doing too much counseling
before you realize both in your own heart and in others that ultimately when
we’re in a jam we really want the solution on our terms, not God’s terms. And therefore we’ll resist the authoritative
Word of God; we’ll do everything we can to rebel against it, no matter how much
it smarts, in order that we can save our pride.
Saul, here is engaged in a pride-saving situation. He will not relinquish one thousandth of an
inch of his pride; he must have this advice on his terms. Samuel, later on, is going to point this out
very much.
But notice then, when he goes and he says “you divine unto me by the aob,” that is by your aob, by the aob, I am buying you woman for my services. And that is the nature of this encounter, I
buy your counsel, I come to you for your service, you give me your counsel, for
my purposes. That’s not somebody in
repentance, that shows no sign of repentance whatsoever; that’s just somebody
that wants a band aid to cover up a cancer, and they’re not about to bow their
knee at all under God’s sovereign Word.
They do not want it.
Verse 8, “And Saul disguised himself,” and he said, I want to bring
someone up, and I want you to bring up whom I shall name. […”and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me
as a medium, and bring me up, whom I shall name unto thee.’] Look at the vast humility involved… Is this the sign of a man of suffering? Yes.
Is Saul in a jam? Yes. Is he in a very crucial jam? Yes, Does he hurt deep in his soul? Oh yes, very much. Is Saul suffering mentally? Oh yes, very much. Is Saul depressed? Yes.
Is Saul neurotic? Yes. Is Saul about to retreat from his pride? No. I
want whomever I call, and I want the advice on my terms. You see, you can hurt and be bleeding but you
still will not retreat from pride.
So in verse 9, “And the woman said unto him, Behold, you know what Saul
has done, how he has cut off those who that have the aobs [by the familiar spirit/are the mediums],” the word for
“familiar spirit” is aob, and aob is a demon who specializes in
speaking from the ground. Here’s the
ground and he throws his voice; actually the demon is probably up here, but if
you are in the vicinity, he throws his voice so it appears to come out of the
ground, and the Septuagint translated this by the word which means
ventriloquist; a ventriloquist is one who projects his voice and makes it
appear like it comes from some place where it’s not really coming. And so these aob demons impersonated voices from the ground; the dead are in
sheol, the dead are under the surface of the ground, and so we hear this voice,
and it’s like some of these new houses with no insulation, and you go on the
second floor and you listen, you can hear everything that’s going on on the
first floor. This is the kind of effect
that you have, the effect of the demon projecting his voice, kind of muffled as
though it’s talking out of the ground, and it really is a demon speaking.
And the demon can tell you things about the dead person that sound very
empirically valid, because no one except the dead person and maybe a few living
ones could know it. And you wonder, how
did the demon powers know this because it appears they have the power to
ransack the mind of the dead in some way, we don’t know, but they do apparently
have capabilities in this area. So the aob
speaks forth, out of the ground, and the familiar spirit is one who is a
knower, or that is, his own private spirit.
And so Saul has conducted a campaign, his administration has made it a
point of eliminating these people, so at least they would lead the public to
believe.
“Why, then, are you laying a snare for my life, to cause me to die? [10]
And Saul swore to her by the LORD, saying, As the LORD lives, there shall no
punishment happen to thee for this thing.”
Now at verse 10 you find Saul hardening his heart even more. Here’s the mark of a truly desperate man, a
man who again, with chaos in the heart, negative volition, he has darkened his
heart, he has opened it up to the doctrines of demons or human viewpoint, he
has gone on hatred toward God and all that God stands for, he is in a period of
frustration. That is Saul’s soul, those
are the stages of deterioration. And at
this point he comes out with this. What
does this really mean? Look at it again,
it’s an oath, and what is the content of the oath, if you were to summarize it
from the standpoint of God’s decrees. It
is a vow never to enforce the Word of God?
Isn’t that what it means? Doesn’t
the Word of God say that if you meet one of these people you’re to kill them
with capital punishment? Isn’t that what
the word said in Deuteronomy 18? Isn’t
that what the Word of God said in Leviticus?
And what does Saul say? Don’t
worry woman, I vow to you I will disobey the Word of God in your case. Is that the mark of a man who’s bleeding and
repenting? No, that’s the mark of a man
who’s bleeding and continuing to rebel even more. I vow, “as the LORD lives,” the most sacred
vow that a Hebrew man could ever give, I vow woman I will not enforce the Word
of God.
Now it’s interesting that when you look at this you can say well, that’s
pretty extreme. But it’s been my
experience that we can do these kind of things ourselves. Do you know how you can do this yourself; you
don’t have to say “as the Lord lives” I won’t do that. But if you are aware of God calling you to do
something, if you’re aware of, say, God’s quiet voice, the quiet urge and
that’s the way the Holy Spirit works, He doesn’t speak with a loud speaker in
stereo, He comes quietly. But you know
when He works; every man must know when the Holy Spirit calls because if you
don’t then God could never judge you for missing it. And I know from Scripture that God does judge
us for missing it; so we can only conclude that when God the Holy Spirit speaks
to us, no matter who you are, you know when God speaks. Now having heard God’s urging and urging
perhaps to get into the Word more than you are, and urging to carry something
in prayer, some request, some petition that God the Holy Spirit wants you to
pray…no, not now, I’ll do it later. That
sounds like a very harmless, very innocuous kind of rejection, after all, you
know you’re busy, circumstances intervene, we can’t always be at God’s beck and
call. Well if we can’t, why do you
suppose the Holy Spirit used that particular moment at that particular location
to ask you do something, or to tell you to do something. In fact, I don’t believe the Holy Spirit ever
asks us to do anything; I believe when the voice of God speaks He always orders
us to do something and I think that’s exactly our problem, we don’t like to be
ordered. It’s like certain people who
want to be asked to do something rather than just spontaneously seeing a need
and jumping in and taking care of the need.
We like to be asked because it flatters our pride to be asked, I’m considered
worthy and I love to be asked to do something.
And that just simply caters to pride.
Now how can we do what Saul’s doing at this point? By simply postponing it for an hour,
ultimately that’s doing the same thing.
If the God of the universe says I want you to get in the Word now, I want
you to pray, I want you to do this, I want you to stop your worry and trust Me,
I want you to relax about that problem because you are not trusting Me, I have
written these promises to you, I have promised to take care of your every need
and you are not believing Me, and I don’t like it. Now that’s the voice of the Holy Spirit and
that’s how He speaks, and if that thought, that urge, that impression on your
soul, and always we can argue back because God respects our choice. We can always argue back, no I can’t do it
just now, I’ll do it tomorrow. But every
time you do this you’re rebelling; you’re rebelling as much as if you were to
go out and commit the most flagrant sin that would be most offensive to you. Think of a sin that would be most offensive
to you, pick one or two and get it firmly in your mind, then compare that sin
with the little (quote) “innocent” one of simply saying well, Holy Spirit, I’ll
put it off until tomorrow, that’s not a sin is it?
Now Samuel clarified this issue to Saul once before. Turn to 1 Samuel 15:23 to refresh our
minds. Sin is deceitful, it’s hard to
spot, especially if you don’t want to.
What did Samuel say to Saul in 1 Samuel 15:23? He said, “Rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft and stubbornness,” or pushiness, “is as iniquity and idolatry.” Knowing what you now know that you didn’t
when we studied chapter 15, knowing what you now know of Saul’s administration,
do you see Samuel’s point? He’s saying
Saul, look, over here on your self-righteous kick you have all these sins that
to you are great major issues. To you
Saul, idolatry is intolerable, it’s awful, respectable people wouldn’t be
caught doing that. Occult involvement is
awful, respectable people aren’t caught doing that. But Samuel says Saul, look, from God’s scale
your rebellion, your putting off His Word, is just as bad as that sin that you
make a big federal case out of. It’s
just as bad.
Now back to chapter 28 and see how his sin works. After vowing in rebellion, vowing that he
would not enforce this. Now isn’t this
interesting; look what happens to self-righteousness; it’s self-destructive,
isn’t it. What is the one sin that he
doesn’t want to give up; what is the one sin that he wants to be known as a man
who never committed it, a man whose administration cleaned this sin from the
national slate. And what does he do in
the eleventh hour in depression? Commits the sin. Why? Because
basically back here he has continued his rebellion; the soft, polite, courteous
harmless appearing kind of rebellion that now shows itself for what it really
is, and let’s see what Samuel has to say about it.
Verse 11, “Then said the women, Whom shall I bring up to thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. [12] And the
woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice,” it says she screamed. “And the
woman spoke to Saul, saying, Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul.” Now there’s a lot in verse 12 that happens. Some things are happening very, very fast and
the verse just records a few things that happens. But there are four or five things that happen
in rapid succession here so we have to go through this verse very
carefully. Down through the years of the
church this verse has caused commentators many, many problems. The early fathers, Martin Luther, John Calvin,
all objected to the interpretation that Samuel actually came up from the
dead. Luther said this can’t be because
the dead believers can’t be under the beck and call of demon powers, and
therefore this must be a put-on.
But we’re going to point out that this is real in this case because God
in His sovereignty brought Samuel forward, and it has to do with this first
verb. “When the woman saw Samuel,” now
Saul did not see Samuel; whatever form Samuel is in, only the woman sees him.
We have no evidence that Saul at any point in this text actually sees Samuel.
The woman sees him alone; she’s in a trance and all of a sudden she sees and
she beholds Samuel. Now why should that
cause her to scream out? Apparently it
causes her to scream out because this is something unusual, something happened
this time that never happened before.
This woman had her signs out for people to come by and have divinations,
and every time before when people came by there would be a voice that would
speak, and the woman would hear the voice from the ground but she never saw
anything like this before. Something
unusual has happened.
Now that little point teaches you something. The thing that Luther struggled with, the
thing that Calvin struggled with, the things the early fathers struggled with,
is that you cannot speak with the dead.
And this actually is a verse that enforces that belief, not destroys
it. Why?
Because the very idea of a person coming up from the dead really shocked
even this woman. Why would she be shocked
if it were a routine thing for the dead actually, and really and truly, to
appear. The only explanation we have of
why the woman was shocked is simply because this was unusual and therefore it
teaches us something very interesting.
The attempt to contact the dead are attempts basically to encounter the
demon forces; they are solicitations to the demon forces and always are demon
forces. Any attempt to speak with the
dead is to invite contact with the powers of darkness who impersonate the dead.
Now when the woman sees, literally sees Samuel coming up out of the
ground, she screams; she has never, as a practicing necromancer, she has never
seen this before. This is something
altogether new. So “the woman saw Samuel
and she screamed out with a loud voice.
And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, Why have you deceived me? For you
are Saul.” Now how does she make the
connection between seeing Samuel come up out of the ground and turning and
saying “You’re Saul.” Two suggestions
are possible here. The reason I stop
here is because some of you may be in translations where this verse is
retranslated and they’ve got different names in here, they’ve got Saul and
Samuel different; there is alternate readings.
And they brought about and try to understand how could she get to Saul
here from seeing Samuel.
The answer, I think, is two-fold.
First of all, to whom was Samuel a key advisor? Obviously King Saul. But another way, if Henry Kissinger were to
come from the dead you’d think of Richard Nixon. In other words, the point is that this man
Samuel is known as his advisory capacity to King Saul, he’s identified; the two
are strongly identified men. The second
though, and to me a more logical explanation is that she’s clairvoyant; under
the trance and in contact with demon powers she has the capacity to read
people’s minds in a partial way. Now
there’s limitations on this, but certain minds under certain conditions can be
read and that can be proven. So in this
point she is clairvoyant, she understands Saul and this is why she really is
screaming. She’s screaming for two reasons: screaming because of the
unusualness of this thing and screaming in terror that the king, who is known
in his administration for doing away with this kind of thing is right there before
her.
Verse 13, “And the king said unto her, Be not afraid; for what did you
see?” That shows you that Saul is not
looking at Samuel; Samuel appears invisible to all except the woman; she alone
sees him. “And the woman said unto Saul,
I saw gods ascending out of the earth.”
Now that’s what scared her; let’s look at the word “gods.” Elohim, the “im” ending in the Hebrew is a
plural ending, this is why Elohim allows for the Trinity; it’s the word for God
as well as the word for gods, plural.
Now she says “I saw gods ascending out of the earth,” and the word
ascending is a participle, and as this woman sits there, probably in some kind
of a trance, Saul says what do you see, what do you see, and she says “I see
the gods coming up out of the earth,” and she uses the participle meaning that
right when she’s responding back to Saul the gods are in the process of coming
up out of the ground. This should also
tell you, incidentally, that the Bible is quite serious when it locates Sheol
under the earth.
And so she sees the gods coming up.
Now are these plural? Well, that
doesn’t fit, if you take a plural interpretation what do you do in verse 14
when Saul replies and he said unto her, “What form is he” singular “of?” So obviously in this case the Elohim can’t
mean gods, it must mean God; but does it mean the God of Israel? No.
The word “God” is used in the ancient world for the God of Israel, for
the pagan deities, for the idols, even sometimes for men who are kings. So the word “God” has to be defined in the
context. In this case, she sees
something that she has never seen before.
Maybe in all her workings with the occultic she has seen demon forces
but she has never seen anything like this, so she uses Elohim to convey there’s
something terrifying, something is out of control, to which we might just
append a footnote.
Whenever you work with any part of the creation, whether it’s in the
occult, the demonic, whether it’s in the physical forces and you don’t use
special revelation, you don’t let your mind be submissive to God’s instructions
in His Word on how to use the creation He’s made, you are dealing with
something you can’t control; you are dealing with something that’s basically
out of control. And don’t ever try to manipulate history and the creation to
suit your needs, because sooner or later you’re going to find you’re dealing
with something beyond your control. You
think you can build your life by carefully planning everything. Oh no, sooner or later God will break into
your life in some way that will teach you that you do not have control; only He
has control over the circumstances of your life. Playing with the occultic powers and the
magic forces as many young people are doing, you are tampering with something
that is tremendously threatening and very, very dangerous indeed. So she admits that something has completely
gone haywire.
Verse 14, “And he said unto her, What form is he of?” Describe him, see,
Saul still doesn’t see Samuel. “And she
said, An old man is coming up, and he covers himself with a mantle.” Now
incidentally, that shows you something else about the dead. Are they recognizable apart from their body? Yes, the Mount of Transfiguration, Elijah and
Moses didn’t have their resurrection bodies but they were identifiable. Samuel here does not have his resurrection
body but he is identifiable. What are we
to make of this? That somehow when the
spirit and soul leave the body they take on a corporeal form, they are identifiable,
and Samuel in this form is identifiable.
And he comes up and he has the mantle.
Now why do you suppose the mantle is on.
The Holy Spirit is very, very efficient in His use of words. He could have used eight different paragraphs
to explain this, He only picks out a few details, and one of those is the
mantle. Should that ring a bell with
Saul?
The mantle; what does the mantle of Samuel mean. Well, first it meant it was his badge of
authority, as a prophet he wore the mantle that only a prophet could wear. Remember the Elijah and Elisha story, how
Elisha wanted the mantle of Elijah. Why
did he want it? It was the badge of
authority and only a prophet could wear it.
But there’s something peculiar about this mantle. It doesn’t say in the text, but a thought
like this must have run through Saul’s mind.
He must have wanted to ask another question of the woman when she said,
he’s an old man and he’s wrapping a mantle around. Saul must have wanted to ask her, see lady,
if part of the mantle is torn?
[tape turns; “And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with
his face to the ground, and bowed himself.”]
That might signify that at last the man has seen the light, at last he’s
retreating from his autonomy; at last he’s going to abandon his pride in the
face of the pressure. Let’s see, verse
15, “ And Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disquieted me, to bring me
up?” And the word “disquieted” is
another thing that tells about the intermediate state of the dead, at least in
the Old Testament dispensation. It is
the word that was used to wake from sleep, when somebody wakes you, what’d you
get me up for. That’s the same word
that’s used here, Why did you wake me up; I was sleeping soundly, why did you
wake me?
So that verse apparently teaches that the intermediary state, and by
intermediate state we mean this, from the time you die until the time you’re
rejoined with a resurrection body, we call that the intermediate state; very
little in Scripture is said about the intermediate state and there’s a great
deal of discussion about it. All we know
in the New Testament is to be absent from the body is to be face to face with
the Lord. But to what degree of perception
we have in the intermediate state we do not know. Often times at funeral situations I’m asked,
do you suppose so and so can see, and there’s no Scripture, certain Scriptural
principles can be applied but no direct Scripture. All right, Samuel says that he’s been
disquieted, he’s been woken up. And it
would seem to teach that in the Old Testament the intermediate state was simply
like sleep. It was simply a time of
unconsciousness.
“And Saul answered, I am very much distressed; for the Philistines make
war against me, and God is departed from me and answers me no more, neither by
prophets, nor by dreams; therefore, I have called thee, that thou mayest make
know unto me what I shall do.” We could
translate it “what I ought to do.” Now
let’s look at what Saul says. This is a
biography, a painful biography of a man under tremendous pressure. What you are
looking at in verse 15 is no different from a person who would be, we would
call it in our society today, is seriously mentally ill. No different from that, no different
whatsoever. Look what happens; he says
“I am sore distressed,” so point 1, let’s list some of these observations of
how Saul appears when he comes to Samuel.
The first thing is that he admits that he was suffering; he does admit
that he’s suffering, he says it’s awful, it’s awful here. And this basically is category three type
suffering, though he doesn’t see it as that.
The point is that there was an admission of suffering. What else do we notice in what Saul says “for
the Philistines are making war upon me,” in other words, there is some perception
of circumstances. There’s some
perception, there are some bad circumstances.
There’s an admission of suffering, it’s because of this situation in my
life. And then the usual, and this is
always characteristic of compound carnality—God has departed from me. Now that’s more than a statement; what it is,
it’s blame, you see, one of the reasons why I’m at the end of my rope, Saul
would say, is that God has left me, God’s promises don’t work Samuel, I learned
all those promises, you taught me all those promises but I’ve been applying
them and they don’t work. God has left
me, God hates me, God has become enemy, feel sorry for me Samuel. So the third characteristic of compound carnality
is always blaming God. It is God’s
fault, not mine, God’s fault, “God has departed from me.” The word “departed” is perfect, which means
that He has departed decisively, “and He answers me no more,” therefore, and
this is the fourth characteristic, therefore, says Saul, “I have come to ask of
you what I ought to do.” And the fourth
characteristic is a demand for human viewpoint, more of it, a demand for advice
that will protect my pride; I am not going to surrender to God, I don’t care if
He has abandoned me, I don’t care if I can’t get an answer, you give me advice
that I can sympathize with my own pride and my own autonomy. That’s the advice
I want Samuel.
And Samuel sees this, and so that’s why in verse 16 what appears to all
the critics as to be a very harsh, cold-blooded answer. Not at all.
“Then said Samuel, Wherefore, then, do you ask of me, seeing the LORD is
departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?”
What are you coming to me for?
What am I? I’m a nabiim, I’m a prophet of Yahweh, I give
advice only on the divine viewpoint principle, don’t ask me for human viewpoint
advice, don’t ask me for counsel that is going to insulate your pride. Don’t come to me and ask me for something
that you can use for your purposes; the only kind of advice you’re going to get
from me, Saul, is advice that’s going to reach down into the depths of your
heart and altar your life 180 decrees, that’s the only advice I’m in the
business of giving, and if you don’t want that, go see your friendly
psychiatrist, he’s a specialist in giving human viewpoint advice. He’ll make you feel sorry because your mother
dropped you on your head when you were a baby.
He’ll give you 25 explanations of why you’re having a problem that you
haven’t heard of or thought of yet.
Moreover it’s only $50 an hour to be told human viewpoint. So in this case Samuel cuts off all
counsel. The counsel given by the
prophet is a counsel given that recognizes one principle, submission to God’s
authoritative Word, totally and completely, no matter how much it hurts. That is the only advice given. So he says I am not going to do it, why do
you come to me, if God has departed from you and become your enemy.
And then in verse 17-18 he goes back once again; this is the advice that
Samuel is going to give to cut down the pride.
“And the LORD has done to him,” now the little word “him” is one that’s
fought over, and this is just a little note to show you something, how one word
will tell you a lot about a text. See,
that doesn’t seem to fit, does it, when you read the King James, “the LORD has
done to him, as he spoke by me; for the LORD has rent the kingdom out of your
hand,” doesn’t that “him” sound out of place?
And sure enough down through history there has been people that want to
amend the text. But I don’t think it
ought to be amended. I think what’s
happened is that you’ve got a mixture here; Samuel isn’t talking directly to
Saul, he’s talking to the woman, and then you have a mix here in the
translation in that what you have narrated is part what he told the woman and
part how the woman was narrating it back to Saul. So “And the LORD has done to him, as He spoke
by me,” that’s what Samuel says to the woman, and then the woman relays that on
and she would relay it, the Lord has done unto you as He has spoken by the prophet
Samuel. And then Samuel would say, for
the Lord has “rent the kingdom out of his hand,” and the woman would say the
Lord has rent the kingdom out of your hand.
And Samuel would say “and He’s given it to thy his neighbor, to David,”
tell him that, and so the woman would turn and say he has given it to your
neighbor, David. Now that’s nothing but
a rehash of the judgment of chapter 15.
Verse 18, “Because you obeyed not the voice of the LORD, nor executed
his fierce wrath upon Amalek. Therefore has the LORD done this thing unto you
this day.” Now in verse 19 the sentence
of doom; the decree at last is coming to pass.
Now please notice this lest you go off into some deterministic
hyper-Calvinist frame of reference. Is
this a decree that had to come to pass.
Yes. It was given in 1 Samuel 15.
Was there any hope of Saul stalling it off?
No, because it was pronounced as sovereign in 1 Samuel 15. Then isn’t this cut over and cut across and
destroy the volition of Saul. No,
because as a matter of fact since chapter 15 on down to chapter 28 how has
Saul, in fact, responded to situation after situation after situation after
situation? Have you noticed any change
in his behavior? Have you noticed any
change whatever in Saul’s behavior during this time. So far we have studied 13 chapters—13 chapters! Have you noticed any change in Saul’s
volition? None. All right then, is Saul being twisted, is he
having his arm broken by God’s sovereign decree. No, God’s sovereign decree is big enough to
encompass volition. That’s the mystery of the whole thing. How it works nobody knows; all we know is the
Bible says that’s the way it is, God sovereignly says and this is the
decree.
So in verse 19 he gets this word of doom, “Moreover, the LORD will also
deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow shall
you and your sons be with me.” By the
way, that shows that Saul was a believer, just to correct some people that say
oh, no believer could do this. Oh yes he
could. “The LORD also shall deliver the
army [host] of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.”
Now verse 20, here’s what happened to the man who wants to protect his
pride. “Then Saul fell straightway all
along [immediately full length],” now you see that “all along, that is here by
the King James translators to translate the Hebrew word for height, see Saul,
his height on the ground. What do you
remember about Saul’s height? He was
head and shoulders above every man in Israel, and the commentator is looking at
this, what a tragic sight, a man who looks so great, a man who had it all going for him, a man who
was head and shoulders above everybody else, and look at him. All it means now is he takes a few more
square feet of earth when he lies down, that’s all. So he lies prostrate. When was the last time we saw him
prostate? When he was nude in Samuel’s
seminary, blabbering his mouth off like some idiot, which went on day and night
until somebody stopped. Remember how the
Holy Spirit worked this proud team down.
Where is the proud team now? On
the earth. “…on the earth, and was sore
[very much] afraid,” and the word “sore afraid” means tremendous… he’s on the
verge of what we could call catatonic schizophrenia at this point, it’s almost
a total withdrawal. People have been
known to do this; people who face certain things, when my wife was in
psychiatric nursing she saw this, a young woman just decided to tune out
reality so she did, she had to be fed intravenously. You can shout at them, do anything, they’ve
retreated; it is possible for a human being to do this.
Now look what happens, you saw his whole height on the earth, he was
sore afraid, this means he’s desperate, “and there was no strength in him,”
that is both mental and physical at this point.
Now you would think certainly Saul, how much do you need, you’ve had
Samuel telling you this again, why does this guy keep doing this? He would rather commit suicide at this point,
he would rather become schizo than just bow his knee and surrender his pride to
God’s sovereign grace. Look at the
hardness, look at the suffering, look at the horror that he is not willing to
give up because if he did he’d have to give up his pride. Do you see how deceitful the heart is. Now the demon powers are operating here but
don’t blame them. They just amplify what
his flesh is doing and his flesh simply loves itself. And even though the flesh
is being beaten, even though the flesh is pained to the extreme, when you have
a person doubled up like this on the ground, refusing to eat, because you see
this at the end of verse 20, “and there was no strength in him; for he had
eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.”
He refused to eat, that’s a symptom; he refuses to eat, he’s going to
starve himself to death, but he is not going to retreat from that last bastion
of pride. That will not go, and God says
oh yes it will, that will go, because I have decreed that you will be rendered
into moral conformity with my son, Jesus Christ. And that pride has to go and is going to
go. What you see Saul doing in verse 20
is nothing but what you see a little kid do when we call it a tantrum. That’s nothing but what it is, it’s a tantrum
against God. It’s absolute frustration.
So in verse 21, “And the woman came unto Saul, and saw that he was very
much troubled, and said unto him, Behold, thine handmaid has obeyed thy voice,
and I have put my life in my hand, and have hearkened unto thy words with thou
did speak unto me. [22] Now, therefore, I pray thee, hearken thou also unto the
voice of thine handmaid, and let me set a morsel of bread before thee; and eat,
that you may have strength, when you go on your way.” Verse 22 should also warn you about something
else. If you read the text here it
suddenly should begin to dawn on you a hard, hard, hard heart Saul has. And you already know what God’s evaluation of
this woman. You begin to think they are
completely without any (quote) “good.”
Not a tall, here is good, isn’t it?
Isn’t it good what she’s doing?
Yes. Is it given out of an
apostate motive? Yes. Therefore what kind of good is this? Human good.
And so one sinner is just helping another sinner rebel in peace, and
that’s all that human good does, it is just sinners helping each other rebel
more comfortably that they would if they didn’t give each other the aid. Remember that about human good, it’s main
function is to allow us to rebel with comfort but not to change our heart.
Verse 23, “But he refused, and said, I will not eat.” Meanwhile he’s
still lying on the ground, because he doesn’t get up off the ground until the
last of verse 23, that’s when he finally gets up, and the text would indicate
this goes on and on; apparently this is a process of time, although it consumes
only three verses in the text it probably consumed many, many hours. Here is the King of Israel before a great
battle, one woman and two guys, hey, get up, we’ve got a battle out there,
we’ve got eight or nine thousand men on the hill, the Philistines are in the
valley of Jezreel and the nation Israel is waiting on you, and he’s throwing
his tantrum on the floor.
Verse 24, “And the woman had a fat calf in the house; and she hastened,
and killed it, and took flour, and kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread of
it; [25] And she brought it before Saul, and before his servants, and they did
eat. Then they rose up, and went away
that night.”
Notice how in Scripture that “going off into the night” is always
there. Remember another familiar refrain
in the New Testament, after Jesus hands the sop to Judas Iscariot, so do your
work, and Judas walks out into the night. That phrase is just there to show
there’s no repentance, there’s no change.
Has there been emotion in the passage?
Yes. Has there been tears in the
passage? Yes. Has there been all sorts of demonstrations
physically in the passage? Yes. What’s lacking? A change of heart; is Saul’s destiny going to
change? No, no change of heart. With our heads bowed.