Saul's Halloween

Intro: God has given Saul so much grace, so many attempts to convince him to trust God and rule as the sort of King that honors God and receives his blessing. He started by showering Saul with an abundance of proof that God was with him. By so many clear signs when God anointed him, he showed Saul that all he had to do was trust him and do what was right and he would be blessed. Saul did worship Yahweh, but he never put his complete trust in the Lord. There was never a time that Saul relied on the Lord’s promises over his own strength. He only won battles when he had reasonable human odds in his favor.

That lack of trust meant that under pressure Saul consistently chose what was politically expedient over what was right. It started rather small - choosing to sacrifice to get his army back instead of waiting until Samuel showed up. Then he allowed the army to violate the ban on the Amalekites and preserve the animals - this was to avoid the backlash of denying them the spoils of war. God had not cut him off completely at first. He continued to affirm Saul’s reign, even after Saul lost the right to pass on that kingdom to his son. After Saul refused to step down when God declared him finished, Saul spiraled into madness and greater evil.

Rather than trusting God and helping to train the man God had chosen to be the next king, he selfishly held on to his power. But God’s purposes cannot be thwarted by anyone, king included. As David inevitably rose to power, Saul became increasingly desperate in his fight against God himself. He has made himself worthy of death a dozen times over - He tried to kill the innocent David six ways from Sunday; He murdered a whole town of priests just because they accidentally got in his way. Yet God allowed him to continue, giving him even more time to repent long after every human in existence had decided that Saul was beyond help. Only God has enough patience to wait while Saul’s insane fight against God leads to further and further suffering for the people around him, and as Saul’s evil deeds brings more and more disgrace to God’s name for the watching nations.

But God’s longsuffering does have an end. He must punish sin eventually. What surprises me is not that Saul has exhausted God’s patience. It’s just how much evil he had to commit before God has had enough. Saul’s final evil act was the most wicked thing he could have done - he consulted a medium. Yet even here God proves himself gracious, giving Saul one last warning of judgment. But how could Saul go this far, when he knew better?

I. Saul’s Dedication

We find new positive information about Saul that we did not know previously. He had made spiritism and practicing the occult a capital crime. Ex 22:18; Lev 19:31; 20:27; Deut 18:10-11

Exodus 22:18 NKJV

“You shall not permit a sorceress to live.

Leviticus 19:31 NKJV

‘Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 20:27 NKJV

‘A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.’ ”

Deuteronomy 18:10–11 NKJV

There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.

Now there is only two possibilities about spiritism - either it works or it is a fake. If it’s a fake, then you are being deceived, and making decisions based on a lie. If it works, that’s actually worse. For treating your dead relatives as advisors was to make them into rival gods. The reason spiritism carried such huge penalties was because it was idolatry.

Idolatry, remember was the subject of the first two of the ten commandments, and the object of the Great Shema. Idolatry, not murder or homosexuality, is the worst sin you can commit. To violate it was to merit death to the highest degree.

But this brings a question. This act by Saul, celebrated as being faithful to God’s Law, is quite obviously different than the prevailing law of our land - religious liberty. So how can we as Americans and as Christians still uphold the freedom of religion?

The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

America’s early settlers came from a variety of religious backgrounds: Puritans predominated in New England; Anglicans predominated in the South; Quakers and Lutherans flocked especially to Pennsylvania; Roman Catholics settled mostly in Maryland; Presbyterians were most numerous in the middle colonies; and there were Jewish congregations in five cities.

The compromise of the Church of England had been the law of the land. In the 16th century, the church swung wildly from Puritan to Catholic. One generation the King would be pro-puritan, and Catholics would be hunted and killed for their faith; the next generation masses of protestants would be hunted and burned for heresy. This kind of instability was not good for the country, and whichever side you happened to be on, it became clear that this was not sustainable. It is better to allow falsehood to propagate with the same freedom as the truth, than to risk the threat of having the truth persecuted due to the changing winds of politics.

Finally, state churches are supported by taxes, and in the colonies, people were required to attend services or risk fines. This is not a biblical model for financing the work of the Lord. Rather than taxes, which are required, voluntary offerings are the Biblical model. Taxes do not allow you the credit of supporting a good work, even if you do support it. If you give freely, however, God will recognize your good deeds, and reward you in the resurrection of the just.

Still, we recognize that the freedom of religion isn’t a perfect system. It’s a compromise because political leaders die. One generation might uphold the truth, but the next might persecute it. Since the truth is stronger than falsehood, let both try to persuade those they can, and freedom for error means greater freedom for truth. Allowing idolatry and falsehood to continue in this country does great harm to the spiritual, moral, and ultimately the prosperity of our nation. But risking persecution of the truth does a great deal more harm.

Someday, when Jesus returns, this will no longer be an issue. Jesus, and all the Christians who reign under him, will be immortal. Since they cannot die, Jesus can guarantee that whoever holds political office will always hold it. They will therefore always uphold the truth and will never persecute it. So the freedom of religion will be unnecessary, and will not be practiced. And that will be good for the world, for men will be protected from false teachers who destroy their souls. In the meantime, let us have freedom that the gospel may have free reign and that we may have peace.

Spiritism certainly isn’t dead, but the greatest threat to basic Christianity isn’t Catholicism, or even the cults. It’s the atheistic orthodoxy that works to destroy our basic value system. This false system has its adherents in the church itself, both in churches that in fact deny the Lord Jesus, and even among some that actually do believe the gospel. In our current world, it is wise to allow them the same freedom of worship we enjoy; but we should not make peace with it. Our war is not a war of guns and bullets, but a war of words, a spiritual war against the forces of evil. Let us never tire of fighting to destroy the Lord’s Enemies by persuasion; let us never surrender to fear of slander and attack; let us always respond with grace.

but let us continue our story. If Saul was so dedicated in destroying spiritism, what made him desperate enough to consult a medium?

II. Saul’s Desperation

In a word, Saul’s persistent disobedience has cut him off from every other option

Samuel is dead, so no advice there

The Philistines had gathered at Shunem, and he could see this battle was humanly unwinnable. [map] How desperate he was can be seen in that he had to sneak past the Philistine army to get to the Witch of Endor

The Lord refused to answer him by any available means - Dreams, Urim, Prophets. Earlier he had correctly deduced that the Lord’s failure to answer is a stern indication of his disapproval. Amos 8:11

Amos 8:11 NKJV

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord.

His only real good option at this point is to recognize that he is worthy of death and accept it. He cannot be reconciled with David, as David no longer has any reason to trust him. He has made himself worthy of death by a dozen ways, so if God wishes to kill him, he should accept it. David recognized this later 2 Sam 15:25-26. Doing this would still bring blessing, for he would at least have peace in his last hours instead of the turmoil and evil.

2 Samuel 15:25–26 NKJV

Then the king said to Zadok, “Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me back and show me both it and His dwelling place. But if He says thus: ‘I have no delight in you,’ here I am, let Him do to me as seems good to Him.”

But recognizing that he is worthy of death would mean repenting of his actions and seeking to serve the Lord in his last hours. Something he has not been doing for many years. He has been fighting God, and the thing about fighting God, is that the longer you do it, the harder it is to stop doing it. So he is no longer willing to consider this option, placing it impossibly out of reach.

It is obvious that God has placed Saul in this desperate situation. But this is one last attempt to leave Saul with repentance as the only option; however, Saul goes the opposite way. He chooses to seek a spiritist to get counsel from his old mentor, Samuel.

If you are running from God, you my friend are in danger. The most gracious thing God can do to you is to put you into more and more desperate situations; If he does not, that’s even worse, for that means you are not his child. If you refuse him, you will find yourself moving irrevocably toward evils that you never imagined yourself committing Heb 12:5-8

So how far to evil does Saul go?

III. Saul’s Disguise

The measure of Saul’s desperation is in the lengths he goes to to contact this medium. He must creep past the Philistine camp to get there [map]. that partly explains his disguise, but he clearly also doesn’t want the woman to know who he is. Saul recognizes the hypocrisy of the situation, therefore his secrecy. Those who know they do evil hide what they are doing John 3:19-21

Not only does his disguise show his full recognition of the evil he is committing, but he even has the gall to bring the Lord into it! He invokes God’s name to promise a woman that he will protect her idolatrous practices. But Peter knows what it’s like to end up bringing God’s name into evil because you’re cornered. When he denied the Lord 3x (a serious offence, but not as bad as what Saul was doing, but still), his last time he began to curse and swear on God’s Name that he did not know Jesus. Now Peter did repent, so he had a much better end than Saul. But it’s a similar kind of blasphemy.

If you are running from God, if God pursues you he will put you into desperate situations. If you refuse him, you will choose to do evil you never imagined you would commit. But it’s actually worse than that. the longer you continue on that path, the greater evils you will commit.

But perhaps the most amazing thing about Saul’s evil choice to call for a medium, is that it actually works.

IV. Samuel for Real?!?

Yes. Samuel predicts Saul’s death the next day, something the woman most assuredly wouldn’t invent. Predicting the death of a king is a great way of ending up dead.

The woman doesn’t seem to have any time to do her usual arcane rituals. Samuel appears immediately. that’s also how she discovers Saul’s identity. Samuel hasn’t said anything yet, so she didn’t learn it from him. She concludes that only a really important person would produce this effect, and Saul is the most important person connected with Samuel, thus, the disguised visitor must be Saul.

Her reaction is quite genuine - she wasn’t expecting it to work so clearly and so quickly; as well as she is terrified because the one who had ordered her death was now in her house and knew her secret.

Her description of Samuel is odd - lit. “I see gods coming out of the earth.” The word translated “spirit” is not רְוֻחַ but אֶלְוֹהִמ. And that word is paired with a plural verb, meaning that she describes Samuel as one of the pagan gods. That’s her pagan worldview coming through. What she saw was Samuel, dressed in his usual attire. She believes that dead ancestors become gods to be worshipped, so when she sees a man coming out of the earth, she thinks its a god since he is clearly the dead Samuel she was looking for.

She sees him coming out of the earth because that is where Saul would have expected him to come from. The doctrine of heaven and hell is a New Testament teaching - Saul doesn’t know about it. He only knows that dead people get buried in a grave, so he would expect Samuel to come from the grave. That’s the last place he was seen, after all.

But that vague description confuses Saul, so he asks for a clarification. He doesn’t believe that ancestors become gods, because he still worships Yahweh. When the description fits what Samuel would have been wearing, he knows that this is who he is looking for, and bows in respect, not worship.

So why did God allow this evil plan to work?

He proves that he is superior to spiritism - the woman has no time to act

He demonstrates that there is life after death - Samuel can’t be brought up unless he consciously exists somewhere. Even Old Testament saints knew that there was life after death. that’s why Saul thought he might be able to bring up Samuel this way.

For the third reason, we need to look at what Samuel actually said.

V. Samuel’s Final Word

The final depth of God’s displeasure - Saul went from just his kingdom not continuing, to losing his own legitimacy as king, and now finally, his evil choices have made God his enemy. What exactly did Saul think would happen?

A rehearsal of what we already know, what Samuel already told him in his lifetime.

A new prophecy - Israel will be defeated, and Saul and his three oldest sons would die tomorrow.

He gives Samuel one more word of judgment against Saul. Now God’s words of judgment are hard to hear, but they are actually instances of God’s grace. If he really wants to kill you, he doesn’t have to warn you. So when he does warn of judgment, its really a final appeal to repent, to avoid at least a portion of the threatened curse. Jonah knew that very well.

So if God’s Word applied to you is tough to hear - don’t reject it. He is appealing to you because he wants to help you and bless you. But he can’t do that unless you repent.

VI. Saul’s Pain

The way of the transgressor is hard. You feel bad for Saul. He has chosen the way of pain and death, and it hit him emotionally here. He has in the midst of his emotional turmoil, has also not been taking care of himself. He hasn’t eaten, and he is so hopeless he won’t eat.

Now our narrator makes it clear that this woman is a medium, and therefore Saul’s original command to put her to death is just. Yet here she looks quite sympathetic. The Bible doesn’t caricature people. Even the enemies are not cardboard cutouts of people. They have compassion too. That doesn’t make her any less guilty of the greatest crime in Israel - promoting idolatry.

Conclusion

If you are already living for God, then remember we are at war; do not shrink from attack by the enemy, but welcome it.

If you are running from God, heed his call today. The longer you wait, the harder your life will get, the more limited the blessing God can shower on you. The best thing God can do for you is to make your life more and more desperate. The longer you resist, the harder it gets to change your mind. But as long as you are alive, returning to God will always bring you blessing.

Many of you have children who are running from God; if not, then you probably have a relative or coworker you know who is running from God. We’ve seen a lot in Samuel about the benefits of persuasive wisdom - so pick the right time and place; get your attitude right; and if you’ve already made an appeal, remember not to cast your pearls before swine. But if you haven’t brought it up, if they listen to you it might be the best thing you could ever do for them.