Sermon Tone Analysis

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

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

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.

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