1 Samuel 28-31 (The Witch of Endor / Death of King Saul)

Moore's Corner Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

1 Samuel 28-31 (The Witch of Endor / Death of King Saul)

00:00

All right, let's turn to 1 Samuel chapter 28. 1 Samuel 28, and this chapter is titled,

00:08

Saul consults a medium. And of course, today we call them psychics or spiritualists or psychic mediums, but it's really all under the larger banner of witchcraft or divination.

00:26

But this is what the occult is. It's seeking spiritual power apart from God or in the age we live in, it's seeking spiritual power to use that, exercise that power that is not sanctioned by the

00:42

Christian church or more specifically by scripture. So more on that in a moment, but last time we left off with David, you remember he seemingly was a lot allied with the

00:55

Philistines. Of course, that really wasn't the case. One of the princes of the

01:00

Philistine Kings, a man named Achish, he had given David and his men a city and he did that because he believed that David had turned traitor and that he was actually raiding

01:13

Israelite villages. But was that actually what David was doing though? That's just what he told the man so he could get safe haven from Saul.

01:23

So this is where we pick up. Let's begin reading 1 Samuel 28. We'll read verses one through seven to start.

01:32

Says, now it happened in those days that the Philistines gathered their armies together for war to fight with Israel and Achish said to David, you assuredly know that you will go out with me to battle you and your men.

01:49

So David said to Achish, surely you know what your servant can do.

01:55

And Achish said to David, therefore I will make you one of my chief guardians forever.

02:03

Now, Samuel had died and all Israel had lamented for him and buried him in Ramah in his own city.

02:12

And Saul had put the mediums and the spiritists out of the land.

02:18

Then the Philistines gathered together and came and encamped at Shunem.

02:24

So Saul gathered all Israel together and they encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the

02:31

Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly. And when

02:37

Saul inquired of the Lord, guess what? The Lord did not answer him either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets.

02:48

Then Saul said to his servants, find me a woman who is a medium that I may go to her and inquire of her.

02:56

And his servants said to him, in fact, there is a woman who is a medium at Endor.

03:03

Okay, so we'll come back to David and his situation in a few minutes.

03:09

But first we get this reminder in verse three that Samuel is dead.

03:14

So this happened back in chapter 25. Remember, there's just like two verses that, oh, by the way,

03:21

Samuel died and it kind of moved on. So that's in chapter 25. And this is significant because Saul can no longer seek

03:30

Samuel to discern God's will. If Samuel was still alive, Saul could go to him and Samuel could inquire of the

03:37

Lord. Of course, God still might not answer him through Samuel, but Samuel, that's one possibility that is no longer.

03:45

And then what's the other thing that Saul did that we looked at last time? He killed all the priests, right?

03:52

So he can't go to a Himalak because he's dead. And the one priest that survived

03:58

Abiathar is now with David. So Saul basically is cut off from God.

04:05

So in a moment of desperation, because God is no longer speaking to him, he turns and seeks out a witch.

04:13

So this chapter is often referred to as Saul and the witch of Endor.

04:20

But this is gonna be a little tricky because verse three says that Saul had done what? Well, he had put the mediums out of the land.

04:30

What does that mean? Saul has basically either killed the witches, which actually the book of Exodus calls for that.

04:38

He either killed the witches, drove them out of the land and those who remain. I mean, this is an illegal practice.

04:46

So divination is now illegal in Israel. Is that a good thing?

04:52

Is that a biblical thing? What do you think? Should divination be outlawed in the

04:59

United States? If we were actually obeying God as a nation, it would be outlawed here as well.

05:08

You know, I noticed that when you go to tourist towns and in the beach, these are the places where you'll see this little hole in the wall shop where there's palm readings and crystal balls and all of that's divination and it's perfectly legal here.

05:25

But at least at this point in Israel's history, it is strictly forbidden.

05:31

And this is part of the Mosaic law. But whether or not it gets enforced is another matter.

05:37

We have laws on the books that technically things are illegal, but the people in power, they tell the police don't enforce the law or whatever.

05:49

Like all the pot shops that are showing up everywhere in every town, like technically it's against the law.

05:56

It's against federal law to sell drugs, but well, people just don't enforce the law.

06:01

Here's the thing about Saul. You have to give Saul some credit for all the bad things that Saul has done.

06:08

He's actually upholding the word of God here and he has made the practice illegal.

06:15

So good for him on that. But at the same time, we know that Saul is what? A double -minded man who is unstable in all his ways.

06:23

So he makes it illegal on the one hand, but now he's seeking out a witch. So he did something good and now he's kind of undoing it.

06:32

So as we've talked about this before, seems like I've covered this subject more than once over the past year.

06:42

We did the series on the cults and the occult. So I feel like I've talked about witchcraft a lot over the past, whatever, six, eight, 10 months.

06:54

But what is this? It's basically a form, I don't know, you could rightly call it a form of Satanism, I think.

07:03

It's demonic activity. So people who practice witchcraft, sorcery, there's basically two types of people.

07:11

There are con artists who are not in contact with any spirits at all, they just pretend to be.

07:18

And then there are people, and I do believe this, that there are some people who do contact spirits.

07:25

We'll try to discern in a moment whether or not the witch at Endor was the real deal or was she a phony.

07:32

What do you think up front? Real deal. You think she was the real deal, okay. I mean, it's a debatable point,

07:39

I suppose. But I would just add this, that today, really, all witches and mediums and psychics, today they're really all con artists in the sense that some of them are not, yeah, they're not contacting spirits, it's all a show, sleight of hand, whatever.

07:56

But even the ones that are in contact with spirits, they're lying as well because they say that they're contacting your great -grandfather or your deceased loved one, but that's not true.

08:09

That's a lie. They're actually, if they are in contact with a spirit, they're in contact with what?

08:16

An evil spirit, an unclean spirit, aka a demon.

08:22

But that's not really much of the selling point. Hey, come to my little shop and we'll contact demons together like that.

08:29

They're not gonna get as many people to pay up for that, although I'm sure some would.

08:35

So there's fakes and frauds and people doing all sorts of things, but we're gonna see what this woman does.

08:41

I think most of us know the story. Something actually does happen. So with that information in mind, that raises a question.

08:52

Does the witch actually bring up Samuel or is this a different spirit?

09:00

Let's read the story. 1 Samuel 28, starting in verse eight. So Saul, he disguised himself and he put on other clothes.

09:09

He doesn't want anyone recognizing him. He's not supposed to be doing this. And he went and two men with him and they came to the woman by night.

09:19

And he said, please conduct what? A seance for me and bring up for me the one

09:26

I shall name to you. I don't think he actually gets that far, does he?

09:31

Well, verse nine, then the woman said to him, look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land.

09:39

Why do you then lay a snare for my life to cause me to die? Like, how do

09:45

I know this isn't a trap? How do I know you're not some government agent, you know, doing a sting operation?

09:51

Because they are government agents. But this is no sting. Verse 10, they give their word that she will not face any penalty.

10:00

So she feels comfortable. But notice they're asking her to perform a seance, okay?

10:07

That's what witches do. Witches, warlocks, witch

10:14

I guess is the female version, wizards and warlocks are the male version of this.

10:19

For whatever reason, it does seem to be a little more common among women. And that's not, you know, any reflection on women.

10:25

It just seems to be just the way it is. But make no mistake about it. This is the occult, okay?

10:33

So witchcraft today, a lot of people, when they think witchcraft, they think of, you know, the cartoon stuff and Harry Potter and it all seems harmless and whatever.

10:43

But this is stuff you don't wanna mess around with.

10:48

The scripture in Leviticus, if you take notes, you can just write this down. Leviticus 19 .31

10:54

is one place where it's forbidden under the law of Moses. Exodus 22 .18

11:01

actually says, you shall not allow a witch to live. Now again, whether that was enforced and witches were actually put to death is another matter.

11:12

But that's what God's law says. So it just kind of gives you an idea of how God feels about all of this.

11:20

Today, when, what do we have? People sell or, you know, Target and some of these large retailers, they sell

11:28

Ouija boards, right? And Ouija boards, the whole point of the board is to hold a seance.

11:34

So now kids can hold a seance too, but I'm sure there's people who have played with a

11:39

Ouija board. It doesn't make them a witch. But again, it's just something that we should stay away from, seeing how

11:46

God makes it clear in his word. This is a very, it's like a capital crime or it is a capital crime.

11:53

So look at verse 11. The woman says to Saul, whom shall I bring up for you?

11:59

And he said, bring up Samuel for me. Okay, so he does request

12:04

Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, what did she do? Yeah, she cried out with a loud voice and the woman spoke to Saul saying, why have you deceived me?

12:17

For you are Saul. I don't know how she figured out it was Saul. Does anyone have a theory on that?

12:25

Spirit told her. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It doesn't tell us, but somehow she figured this out real quick.

12:32

Yeah, maybe the spirit told her. Verse 13, and the king said to her,

12:38

Saul did, do not be afraid. What did you see? And the woman said to Saul, I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.

12:48

Okay, so I don't know how all Bible translations render this, but at least in the

12:54

King James Version and the New King James Version, when you see the word cry, when we use the word cry, you know, we talk about weeping.

13:04

You know, there's that verse, Jesus wept. So when we hear cry, we think of crying, but cry or cried out means she's, yeah, she yelled.

13:12

She screamed, which indicates that what? She's afraid. She wasn't expecting this.

13:19

So this tells us either number one, she was a fraud and that this is the first time the seance ever worked.

13:27

Okay, that's one possibility. Or, and I tend to think this might be the case.

13:33

This spirit is unlike the spirits that she's accustomed to seeing.

13:39

So which one is it? I don't know, but we can say for certain that this was unexpected.

13:46

So Saul asked her about the spirit in verse 14. He said to her, what is his form?

13:53

And she said, an old man is coming up and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was

14:01

Samuel. And he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down.

14:06

Now Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?

14:12

And Saul answered, I am deeply distressed for the Philistines make war against me.

14:19

And God has departed from me and does not answer me anymore, neither by prophets nor by dreams.

14:26

Therefore, I have called you that you may reveal to me what

14:31

I should do. Here's what Matthew Henry writes about this passage.

14:36

He says, while Samuel was living, we never read of Saul's going to advise with him in any difficulties.

14:45

It had been well for him if he had, but now he is dead. And Saul says, bring me up Samuel.

14:53

Many who despise and persecute God's saints and ministers when living would be glad to have them again when they are gone.

15:02

Of course, this is how people treat the prophets, right? When the prophets are alive, they get upset because what the prophets are preached.

15:11

People don't like the prophets while they're alive, but once they're dead, kind of wish you had them back.

15:18

And once they're dead, you build monuments to them and all the rest. So yeah, do you ever remember

15:23

Saul going to Samuel and asking for his advice? Now, what you see is Samuel telling

15:29

Saul what to do. And Saul just doesn't listen and he always just does his own thing. But now that he's in this pinch, now he's willing to listen to God or he's willing to listen to Samuel.

15:42

But guess what? It's too late. What does that tell you? There could come a time for somebody where they go so far in their rebellion that it's just too late.

15:52

God's not going to respond anymore. Well, that's the situation for him.

15:59

Now, as for the question, whether or not this is Samuel, who thinks this is actually Samuel that he's talking to?

16:05

Raise your hand if you think it's Samuel. One, two, three.

16:12

Who thinks it's not Samuel? It's a different spirit. One and a half.

16:19

Okay, some of you aren't voting. That's okay. No, my issue is this disturbing when

16:25

Scripture does say, then Samuel said. This is Scripture, so it's authoritative.

16:32

And it's speaking as if this is Samuel. But it's not my belief.

16:41

Okay. I think it is a debated point. I've heard good people on both sides.

16:49

Let me present my case, okay? I believe it is Samuel, personally.

16:55

Not because the witch has the ability to pull Samuel up out of Sheol. It is

17:01

Samuel's spirit, you're saying? Yeah, it is Samuel's spirit, yes.

17:06

Here's why I think that. Not because Saul perceived that it's Samuel, because Saul could be wrong.

17:13

Like people in the Bible say things that are not true. So just because somebody in the

17:19

Bible says it, doesn't automatically make it so. But if you notice the narrator of Scripture, if I can put it that way, the narrator of Scripture says it's

17:31

Samuel. So the narrator of Scripture, this is all inspired by the

17:36

Holy Spirit. Notice what it says in verse 16. The narrator of the

17:42

Bible says, then Samuel said. So all I have to go on, is this is what

17:49

Scripture seems to be telling us, that it was in fact Samuel. Now that does raise a whole bunch of questions.

17:56

I understand that. But that's what it says, yes. Yes, but the Bible is full of miraculous events.

18:04

People argue about Jonah wasn't swallowed by a whale because a whale, a man can't fit.

18:12

Well, that was obviously a miraculous event, and this could be a miraculous event too.

18:19

Doesn't mean it is the norm, or that it happens all the time. Well, I think it's safe to say it's definitely a supernatural event.

18:27

But like I said, I think it is Samuel. I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I believe it is.

18:32

Here's another question. If it's actually Samuel, does that prove that mediums do indeed have the power to raise up deceased loved ones from paradise or Hades?

18:47

Because that might seem like a logical conclusion for someone, she did it, therefore mediums really do have this power.

18:55

I think human beings have this power. You open the door, you invite them in.

19:03

I did have an experience with a woman that I believe was a witch. It was one of my best elementary school buddies, relatives, and she had a

19:14

Ouija board and was really making it work. And so these things are real.

19:20

That people can encounter spirits. Yeah, you start messing around with Ouija boards and hallucinogenic drugs and calling on, opening yourself, you can open yourself up.

19:36

Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that because in the New Testament, okay, so we see that witchcraft, sorcery, divination, all of this is strictly forbidden under the law of Moses.

19:49

Now, does that change? Now that we're in the New Testament, we're not under law. So now we can do it. No, I mean, obviously, right?

19:56

But if you read about, so what are some New Testament passages that talk about witchcraft? There's that word, what, pharmakia?

20:05

So witchcraft in the New Testament, there's like a connection with drugs that will change your mind, change your consciousness.

20:14

And that's how people actually encounter. That might've been all part of the trick with some people to get people hallucinating, to think that they're seeing something that they're not.

20:24

But in the New Testament, you do see a connection with drugs and witchcraft. So that's just throwing that in there for free.

20:31

But anyways, I get that. It's my personal view that it's

20:37

Samuel. Does that prove that mediums have the ability to bring up deceased loved ones?

20:45

No, here's the consensus of most Bible teachers that this was a unique one -time situation where the

20:53

Lord allowed this one time for her to, and did she really bring up Samuel?

20:59

It's more like God brought him up just for this one time, but she didn't really have that power.

21:05

That's - That's why she got scared. Yeah, that's why she screamed. That seems to be the consensus. Okay, Matthew Henry writes again, the woman's surprise and terror proved that it was an unusual and unexpected appearance.

21:21

Saul had despised Samuel's solemn warnings in his lifetime, yet now that he had hoped as in defiance of God to obtain some counsel and encouragement from him, might not

21:35

God permit the soul of his departed prophet to appear to Saul to confirm his former sentence and denounce his doom?

21:43

That's a rhetorical question. Like, yeah, that's what Matthew Henry thinks is happening. So it's a unique one -time event.

21:50

Okay, so that's making sense to me. Look at verse 16.

21:56

Then Samuel said, so why do you ask me, seeing the

22:02

Lord has departed from you and has become your enemy? And the Lord has done for himself as he spoke by me, like we've -

22:12

Saul, haven't we already settled this? You know what's gonna happen, for the

22:17

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

22:25

Lord nor execute his fierce wrath upon Amalek. Therefore, the

22:31

Lord has done this thing to you this day. Moreover, the Lord will also deliver

22:36

Israel with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me, and the

22:43

Lord will also deliver the army of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. And of course, that's exactly what happens the next day.

22:53

Just one comment about this statement of verse 19, where he tells Saul, tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.

23:02

What's he saying? Okay, so that's the plain reading, right?

23:07

You're gonna die tomorrow. I don't think we should read into this.

23:13

It's like you could read into a lot of things that when Samuel comes up, he's an old man. Say, well, see, you know, in heaven or whatever, in the afterlife, whatever age you died, that's the form you'll be in.

23:25

Well, I don't know that that's the point. Like, I don't think we should read into this. Some people have, and they think that Samuel or that Saul was actually saved.

23:36

And the proof that some people will point to is that Samuel says, you'll be with me, you and your sons, and Jonathan was a righteous man.

23:45

And presumably, Samuel is in paradise, and tomorrow you'll be with me. Like Jesus said, thou shalt be with me in paradise.

23:54

Again, I think that's reading into the text a little bit, but it is a possibility.

24:01

Who thinks Saul was saved? Who's pretty convinced Saul was not saved?

24:07

I think I said six or seven or eight lessons ago that I had thought

24:13

Saul might have, I think I'm changing my mind. I don't know. I mean, I've gone back and forth with that, but I mean, both are possible, but seeing how wicked he became and how much

24:27

God rejected him, I'm probably leaning more in the other direction now. So yeah, I think he's simply saying, tomorrow you're gonna die.

24:35

And of course, that's exactly what happens. All right, any comments on that?

24:42

The end of verse 16, Samuel was saying that the Lord has departed from you and has become your enemy.

24:51

And so God is his enemy. Right. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty strong argument right there, that Saul wasn't a believer.

25:01

Okay, so back to the story. When Saul hears all this news, verse 20, immediately Saul fell full length on the ground and was dreadfully afraid because of the words of Samuel.

25:14

Okay, so before we move on to the next chapter, as I said, the application for Christians is just stay away from all of this stuff.

25:24

Have nothing to do with spiritual mediums. Some people think it's harmless and it's fun.

25:30

I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna see what they say. Well, we saw what happened with Saul.

25:36

That probably isn't gonna happen if you do it, but you never know. It's best to stay away from it.

25:43

Yes. We're told not to give them a foothold or they will come in and create a stronghold.

25:49

Yeah, Larry. In Acts, these seven sons of Sceva were running around casting out evil spirits and one of the spirits jumped on them and it said that they all fled out of the house naked.

26:13

So not only did they get pounded by this evil spirit, he ripped their clothes off of them as well and then they ran out of the house.

26:24

So yeah, don't mess with them. Right. I have a pastor friend who was asked by a woman, can you come to my house and perform an exorcism?

26:33

I think my house is haunted. And he's like, I don't want anything to do with that. I saw something like that at UMass, but I guess they were just streaking.

26:42

Yeah. Okay. So shouldn't mess around with this stuff.

26:50

The second application. Yeah, don't seek out medium. People should seek out who?

26:56

People should seek God. Isaiah 8, 19 says, and when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter, should not the people seek their

27:07

God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? And obviously the answer's no.

27:14

We should seek the living God. On top of that, there are consequences for dabbling in the occult.

27:23

Just several people have told me, given me their testimony of how years ago, they started dabbling in this stuff and weird things started to happen.

27:34

One or two people arguably sort of lost their mind, at least to some degree.

27:41

This is serious stuff. As Romans 1 explains, people can be given over to a debased mind that no longer functions.

27:53

But think about Saul. He still claimed, if you had asked him, would Saul have said that he worshiped the

28:00

Lord or that he believed in the Lord? Yeah. So somehow claiming that, well,

28:05

I believe in God, but I'm still gonna go out and mess around with this stuff. Just, you might find this interesting.

28:12

I know I do. Because again, there's people who kind of blend the occult and Christianity.

28:18

And I think one, to me, a very clear example of that is Mormonism. The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, I think we might've talked about this on a

28:28

Wednesday night, 10 months ago, whenever it was, is very well established, Joseph Smith was into divination.

28:37

He used, you can look this up yourself. He called, he used what are called seer stones.

28:43

So you'd have like a top hat and you'd fill it with either water, put a stone in there and just like gaze into it.

28:51

And he was trying to see visions and get revelations. He claimed, and then

28:57

Joseph Smith, after doing that, he claimed that spiritual beings appeared to him out in the woods and in his bedroom.

29:05

Now he says it was God, the Father and Jesus and all the rest. But we know what Paul says in Galatians one, that if anyone comes to you, even an angel from heaven, even if an angel comes to you and preaches any other gospel, let him be accursed.

29:18

So you have the 1800s, man who is dabbling in the occult and all of a sudden spiritual beings, angels, are showing up in his bedroom, according to him, giving him the

29:28

Mormon gospel. make of that what you will.

29:34

But I do believe, whether or not that story is true, I do believe some of this stuff happens and is real.

29:42

Okay. So let's move on to the next chapter. Chapter 29.

29:49

This is a short chapter. So I'll just give a brief overview and then we'll kind of get back to the story of Saul.

29:56

David and his men join the Philistines as they go out to battle. Remember, David says he's on their side.

30:03

He's lying to them. But now they're like, okay, David, you and your men, you're gonna come out, you're gonna fight with us.

30:10

So David is in the Philistine army. Probably never thought he would be there. But what happens?

30:17

As soon as the kings of the Philistines notice, they're like, hey, what's this?

30:23

What are these Hebrews doing here? All the troops, they all get together and David and his men are at the back.

30:30

So the Philistine king, why is David here? Isn't this the one they sang? Saul has killed his thousands and why is he here?

30:38

So long story short, the Philistine lords or kings, they do not trust

30:44

David. They do not want him and his men going out to battle, which is probably a good idea that they don't trust him because who knows what would have happened.

30:52

So David now, him and his men depart from the Philistines.

30:58

That relationship seems to be broken. That leads us to chapter 30, where David, let's just read verses one through eight.

31:06

First Samuel 30, starting in verse one. Now it happened when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day that the

31:15

Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag and attacked Ziklag and burned it with fire and had taken captive the women and those who were there from small to great, but they did not kill anyone, but they carried them away and went their way.

31:31

So David and his men came to the city and there it was burned with fire, right?

31:38

This is the base of their operations, right? Where they were living. So the city was burned with fire and their wives, their sons and their daughters had been taken captive.

31:48

Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.

31:56

And David's two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelites and Abigail, the widow of Nabal the

32:03

Carmelite, they had been taken captive. Now David was greatly distressed. Why?

32:09

Because the people spoke of stoning him. So they're about ready to, you know, there's a mutiny here.

32:16

And because of the soul of all the people was grieved, he prayed every man for his sons and his daughters.

32:22

But what did David do? And I like this verse. It says, David strengthened himself in the

32:29

Lord, his God. Then verse seven, David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech's son, please bring the ephod here to me.

32:38

And Abiathar brought the ephod to David. So David inquired of the Lord saying, shall

32:44

I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.

32:56

So you notice the contrast when Saul wants to inquire of God, nothing, no answer.

33:02

David inquires of God and what does the Lord do? He gives him an answer. And of course this comes to pass.

33:09

So David ends up defeating his enemy and he rescues everyone, including his wives who were taken captive.

33:16

But this is a really important statement in verse six, how David strengthened himself in the

33:22

Lord, his God, or as the King James Version puts it, that David, what, encouraged himself in the

33:29

Lord. So I did a podcast on this a little while back, just the importance of encouragement.

33:37

You know, when you read the Bible, I don't know if you've picked up on this or maybe it's just me, but sometimes you can read the

33:44

Bible, like there's a lot of negative things. I mean, just the way 1 Samuel ends, it ends on a pretty sour note.

33:54

We need encouragement and we need to search out those passages that apply to us that can really lift us up because there's, and just living in this world and all the things that happen, you can kind of, it's easy to focus on the negative,

34:10

I guess is what I'm saying. So we need to encourage ourselves in the

34:16

Lord. We saw how David did it. He went, he got a Biathar, Biathar had the ephod, he could inquire of God.

34:22

How would we encourage ourselves in the Lord? How would you do that? Yes. By renewing your mind.

34:31

Okay. That's why we go to the scriptures because it's the only place where you're really gonna get some really good news.

34:40

Right. Right. And anyone else? Yep. Read the scripture, just going to church and having fellowship.

34:53

Proverbs 27, 17 says, as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

35:01

So you remember last time, Jonathan, he visited David and it says, he strengthened

35:07

David's hand in the Lord. So presumably Jonathan was reminding David of God's promise and God's goodness.

35:14

So we need to be around spiritual people because if we spend our time with worldly people all the time, nine times out of 10, that's gonna make us more, what?

35:26

More worldly. So we need to spend time around spiritual people that can remind us of God's goodness.

35:32

So prayer, Bible reading, singing the hymns, whatever it is, all these different ways, we can encourage ourselves.

35:39

And again, we need it because even with this study, the way 1 Samuel ends, it really does end on a somber note.

35:48

Of course, I should point out when 1 and 2 Samuel were originally written, it was only one book, right?

35:56

So technically, the original autograph, as they say, the end would be 2

36:03

Samuel. But anyways, we have it in our Bible split into two books because chapter 31 ends with what?

36:10

Well, what the witch of Endor predicted or what Samuel predicted that Saul would die.

36:17

All right, look at chapter 31, verses one through six. It says, now the

36:24

Philistines fought against Israel and the men of Israel fled from before the

36:29

Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. Then the Philistines followed hard after Saul and his sons and the

36:39

Philistines killed Jonathan Abinadab and I'm not even gonna try to pronounce that.

36:45

Does anyone know how to pronounce that? Malekishua. Malekishua, okay, thank you,

36:50

Saul's sons. And the battle became fierce against Saul and the archers hit him and he was severely wounded by the archers.

37:01

Then Saul said to his armor bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it lest these uncircumcised men come and thrust me through and abuse me.

37:12

But his armor bearer would not for he was greatly afraid. Therefore, Saul took a sword and he fell on it.

37:21

In other words, Saul committed suicide. And when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died with him.

37:33

So Saul, his three sons, his armor bearer and all his men died together that same day.

37:42

Now, I wanna bring this up even though we're not starting 2

37:47

Samuel but some of you are probably aware of this that there's a seeming, some people would say a seeming contradiction with how 1

37:58

Samuel ends and how 2 Samuel begins. But remember, they're originally one book.

38:03

So whoever compiled this would have known that this is not a contradiction. You remember what the supposed contradiction is?

38:11

So how did Saul die? Yeah, he fell on his sword. That's what the narrator of scripture tells us.

38:18

That's what actually happened. Saul fell on a sword, he committed suicide. But if you read 2

38:24

Samuel 1, there's some young guy who says that he comes to David and he says, well,

38:31

I saw Saul and he was wounded and I killed him. So it's like people say, see, there's two different stories.

38:38

Well, guess what? That young man was lying. He was just trying to curry favor with David. He thought, well,

38:44

David and Saul are enemies. If I tell David that I killed Saul, that's gonna get me in good with David.

38:50

Now, does that get him in good? No, it gets him dead is what it does. Good and dead.

38:57

Good and dead. So in conclusion, when David finds out, when he finds out

39:05

Saul is dead, says he mourns as does all Israel. So as evil as Saul became, this still is a very sad story.

39:16

But thankfully, the story doesn't end here. This dark time in Israel's history is now over and it gives way to what has been called

39:26

Israel's golden age, the reign of David, God's anointed king, the man,

39:33

David, who would become the ultimate type and foreshadow of the anointed of God, the

39:39

Lord Jesus Christ. So the book of 1 Samuel ends with verses 11 through 13.

39:45

It says, now when the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul because they did end up abusing his body, all the valiant men arose and traveled all night and they took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth -sham and they came to Jabesh and burned them there.

40:08

Then they took the bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh and they fasted seven days.