1 Samuel 28 Consulting the Dead

to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsex preaches from his series in 1

Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. But this text also involves a medium who consults the dead.

Now, pretty ironic that this passage falls on the week of Halloween.

Pretty spooky, right? Like, I mean, we're gonna talk about a passage where some of the translations are gonna literally say witch, and then we're gonna talk with the ghost of Samuel here.

So, kind of strange stuff going on here. Like I said, some translations call her a witch.

Some call her, use the really big word, necromancer. The ESV, she's called a medium in what we're about to read.

But no matter what she's called, she will be tricked into calling up the soul of the dead prophet, Samuel, so he can have a powwow with King Saul and tell him what he is supposed to do next.

Now, this account that we're gonna look at this morning is pretty far from our daily experiences, at least

I hope it is. I hope not many of you this week consulted with a necromancer. Probably most of us don't even know where you would find such a person.

But I do wanna point out that just down on Southwestnage, there is Madam Paula who reads palms and crystals and all kinds of things and will tell you your future.

And the interesting thing about that is just that she's got frontage on Southwestnage.

And she has for as long as I've lived here, so she must be doing okay with it, which tells you that this kind of thing isn't that far removed from our modern culture, that that kind of stuff is indeed still going on.

But the core of this text really ultimately isn't, we can get caught in the weeds because this is such a strange thing.

It's so bizarre to us that it can take all of our attention and we can miss the point of the text if we're not careful because how many of you would just agree with me that like a text that talks about witches is strange in the

Bible? Does that grab your attention? And so it grabs your attention in a way that might divert it from what really is going on here.

Really part of this, the purpose of this text is to show us how far Saul has slidden, how far down he has gone, the rabbit hole of disobedience and faithlessness to God.

And the principle we're gonna need to keep in mind throughout this text is we're gonna have a lot of questions and a lot of questions that God isn't interested in answering for us in this text.

But there is indeed something that we need to ask ourselves as we're gonna read through this text here in a minute.

And that is the simple question that I want you to be asking yourself all throughout this morning and it is this, what is my plan

B? What is my plan B? If God becomes silent in my life, where do

I turn? If he won't speak to me, what do I do? If I can't find comfort in him, then what else will

I turn to? Well in our text we're gonna see that as strange as it is,

Saul turns to something illicit to try to calm himself. He turns to an unholy means to get the satisfaction, the peace that he's longing for.

And the place that this account touches our lives is in the very fact that we do the same thing.

Now certainly I just mentioned it's very unlikely that we're turning to necromancers, but we turn to things all the time to try to bring comfort and peace when the pressures of life come against us, when we don't know which way to turn, when the

Philistines of life are pressing in on us. What is your plan B if God isn't talking?

For us it isn't consulting the dead, but we may be tempted to consult the bottom of a bottle.

Some when the pressures of life press in and relationships are broken and things don't seem to be going our way, you turn to pornography.

Or maybe literally consulting with horoscopes and checking out the fortune cookies for real.

Consulting, maybe some of us, the place that you turn is to consult with flatterers. Yes men that you've surrounded yourself who will only ever tell you what you want to hear.

There's a whole host of things, I can't even cover all of them this morning. All the potential things, but you know what it is in your life. You know where your tendency is to turn.

And so as we read this passage together, I want you to read yourself into Saul's shoes here. Put yourself into his situation and consider what you turn to when you need help, when you are terrified, when your heart is trembling with fear.

When God is silent in your life and you feel far from help, where do you turn?

So let's open your Bibles if you're not already there to 1 Samuel chapter 28. We're gonna read this text in its entirety even though I covered the first couple of verses at the end of the sermon a couple weeks ago, we're still gonna read that so that you can see kind of the flow of where we've been and where this is going.

If you don't have a Bible or a device to navigate to the Bible, then grab the Bible that's under the seat in front of you and you can turn there to 1

Samuel 28. And I want you again to just read yourself into Saul's shoes here and identify with him and think about what he's going through as he makes this really strange decision, this really strange plan

B. In those days, 1 Samuel chapter 28, in those days, the

Philistines gathered their forces for war to fight against Israel. And Akish said to David, understand that you and your men are to go out with me in the army.

David said to Akish, very well, you shall know what your servant can do. And Akish said to David, very well,

I will make you my bodyguard for life. Now Samuel had died and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, his own city.

And Saul had put the mediums and the necromancers out of the land. The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shunem and Saul gathered all

Israel and they encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly.

And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him either by dream or by Urim or by prophets.

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

And his servants said to him, behold, there's a medium at Endor. So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments and went, he and two men with him.

And they came to the woman by night and he said, divine for me, buy a spirit and bring up for me whomever

I shall name for you. The woman said to him, surely you know what

Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Why then are you laying a trap for me, for my life to bring about my death?

But Saul swore to her by the Lord, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.

Then the woman said, whom shall I bring up for you? And he said, bring up Samuel for me. When the woman saw

Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice and the woman said to Saul, why have you deceived me, you are Saul.

The king said to her, do not be afraid, what do you see? And the woman said to Saul, I see a God coming up out of the earth.

And he said to her, what is his appearance? And she said, an old man is coming up and he is wrapped in a robe.

And Saul knew that it was Samuel and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage. Then Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?

Saul answered, I am in great distress for the Philistines are warring against me and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams.

Therefore, I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do. And Samuel said, why then do you ask me? Since the

Lord has turned from you and become your enemy. The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me. For the

Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David because you did not obey the voice of the

Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek. Therefore, the Lord has done this thing to you today.

Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines and tomorrow you and your son shall be with me.

The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul fell at once, full length on the ground, filled with fear because of the words of Samuel.

And there was no strength in him for he had eaten nothing all day and all night. And the woman came to Saul and when she saw that he was terrified, she said to him, behold, your servant has obeyed you.

I have taken my life in my hand and have listened to what you have said to me. Now therefore, you also obey your servant.

Let me set a morsel of bread before you and eat that you may have strength when you go out, when you go on your way.

He refused and said, I will not eat. But his servants together with the woman urged him and he listened to their words.

So he arose from the earth and sat on the bed. Now the woman had a fattened calf in the house and she quickly killed it.

And she took flour and kneaded it and baked unleavened bread of it. And she put it before Saul and his servant and they ate.

And they rose and went away that night. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word that identifies for us by example, the history in the past and the way that you have worked with people, people in history, but people just like us.

People who respond in ways that are unholy and are unrighteous and are sinful.

And Father, that's the reality of every heart here, whether we would confess it, admit it, or we would think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

Father, all of us would turn to illicit means to try to get the things that we want.

And so Father, that's why we celebrate all the more your salvation that you provided through your son, that we have an opportunity to rejoice and to sing songs of praise before you because we know that it is not us that we celebrate, but it is you and your work in our lives that has given us hope.

That you have redeemed fallen people like us. And so Father, I pray that from that reality, we would rejoice, our voices would be lifted up before you now as Dave and the band leads us.

Father, I know it's their desire to fade into the background and allow you to be lifted high and you to be worshiped. And Father, I pray that that would be reality in our midst this morning, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship. I encourage you to get comfortable and keep your Bibles open to 1

Samuel chapter 28. If you lost your place, you can turn over there because I'm gonna be referencing that. And then you're not gonna distract me if you need to get up and use the restrooms out the barn doors, down the hallway on the left.

And then if you need any more coffee, I think we might have already polished off all the donuts back there.

But there is more juice and more coffee if you need that. And then again, keep your

Bibles open. Verses one and two of our text here in chapter 28 remind us that where we left off last time, two weeks ago, was a cliffhanger.

And it remains a cliffhanger throughout chapter 28. David fled to the Philistines from Israel, running from King Saul.

Saul was chasing him, trying to kill him. And he's now living, as we're here in chapter 28, he is living among the sworn enemies of God's people, serving one of their kings,

King Akish. So when King Akish, here at the start of our text, decides to go to war against Israel, not a skirmish, not a battle, all out war, he asks

David to march out against the very people who David has been anointed to eventually become king over.

And so, can you see the dilemma? We're left with a little bit of a cliffhanger. David is being asked to go out to war against his own people and he has lied and deceived the king of the

Philistines into thinking that he would do such a thing, that he has actually been attacking Israel all along, all the time that he's lived there, for a year and four months.

And so the Philistines in our text are mustering for war and David is caught here at the start.

Will he bow his, or will he blow his cover and fight on behalf of Israel? Is he gonna blow his cover with the

Philistines and fight against them? Will he fight against Israel on behalf of the Philistines? We don't know.

Verse two leaves us wondering what will happen as Akish falsely shows complete trust in David's loyalty.

But verses three through five is where we kinda jump into the change, the shift happens in verse three.

And we jump ahead to an account of the battle lines. They've already been drawn up. Well, we were talking about the battle lines being drawn up before and now we fast forward to a different point of view.

And we're told that the prophet Samuel has died. He's no longer around for Saul to consult with.

And further, Saul has put out all the mediums and necromancers from the land. Now that's gonna be a fact that comes up here in just a minute.

But it's obvious that at some point in Saul's past, he was opposed to the use of divination and consulting the dead.

In Deuteronomy 18, nine through 22, I don't wanna ask you to turn over there, but maybe jot that reference down.

Deuteronomy 18, verses nine through 22. We have this long passage that talks about this type of stuff.

Fortune tellers, divination, necromancers, mediums, sorcerers, witches, all of that kind of notion all wrapped up in the first half of that passage in Deuteronomy 18, prohibiting turning to those as sources of comfort, prohibiting going to those places for telling the future, none of that being allowed.

And then the second half of that passage, instead saying where you should turn when you're pressed, where you should turn for advice.

You see, Saul's desire to rid the nation of evil in this context is good. But ridding ourselves of evil is never quite enough.

We need to replace the evil things with good. To use Bill's testimony there, Bill said that he was struggling with alcohol, he was struggling with drugs, and then when he came to Christ, he gave that up.

Well, I'm confident that he could share that God replaced that with the church, he replaced that with good in his life, and good influences, and good places for him to turn with his time, and we need to contemplate and consider what that looks like.

Saul, in our context, in our text here, doesn't backfill the absence of spiritism as he should with the worship of God through going to the priests, going to the prophets, but instead, according to the book of 1

Samuel, he took war to those fortune tellers, to those mediums, and he also took war to those prophets and priests.

He went against both of them. He didn't, what he was supposed to do was to replace the mediums and the necromancers with the blessings of the priests and the prophets who

God had given to him. So another way of thinking this in our lives is the issue of pushing out the bad media that we take in, and what would be an example of something that God could give us to take up some of that time?

The word of God, right? We have good here, we have something that is a blessing, something that is a benefit to us, but Saul refuses to do so.

He consistently disobeys throughout his lifetime the prophets who are calling him to return to God, and he slaughtered the priests.

So now Saul finds himself in a pickle. He's got nowhere to turn for advice. War is coming to his nation, and he doesn't know where to turn.

The Philistines have brought out an intimidating force, and they've drawn up the battle lines at Shunem. So Saul rallies his troops about 10 miles to the south at a place called

Gilboa, and according to verse five, Saul was terrified, like pee -your -pants kind of terrified.

His heart was trembling as he probably from some vantage point took in the massive forces of the

Philistine encampment against him. This is not a battle or a skirmish, but an all -out war that the

Philistines are bringing to his people. So Saul's first step seems like a noble and a good thing in verse six, and I think it kind of is in one sense.

I mean, he turns to the right place. It says in verse six, surprisingly, if you've been walking through this series with us all the way through, it should shock you as much as it does me that the phrase of Saul stated here, he inquired of the

Lord. Anybody surprised by that, what you know of Saul so far? It's like, whoa, he's gonna inquire of the

Lord. He's gonna ask God, what do you think I should do? What are your thoughts? Well, the funny thing is, all throughout his life, he has refused to listen to the

Lord when the Lord speaks, and now when he's in a pickle, now when he's in a crisis, he's gonna inquire of the

Lord. He's routinely disobeyed clear instructions from God through his prophets, but when it fits his desires, then he would obey.

But hear me carefully, recast. There are times when God decides to remain silent.

He's not a machine to give us answers. He has a will and a desire and a mind of his own, and there are times when he chooses to remain silent.

And in this text, very chilling words, he did not answer

Saul, he did not reply. He did not give him any dreams, a method that would have been expected at that time for God to communicate to people.

He did not speak to him through the Urim, which is a fancy word for the priestly lots that were in the ephod, the front plate that was worn by every priest during that time, had some lots that were in it, probably some stone tiles with names written on them that he could pull out and use to determine the will of God.

Of course, he's already kicked the priest out and literally killed most of them, and so the only priest that we know of that even has a

Urim, the only one that we know that possesses lots, is over in David's camp now. So he's kicked them out.

I mean, I think that he's kind of saying God wouldn't respond to him by lots because he didn't have any. He'd killed all the priests who used him.

Further, God won't communicate to Saul through the prophets whom he spurned at every turn. Every time that God speaks to Saul through a prophet,

Saul says, nah, I can't take half of that. I'll do what fits my agenda. So Saul seeks

God, and God refuses to answer him. So put yourself in his shoes, contemplate and consider how you respond when you ask

God for advice, when you ask his direction, and he does not answer. Well, first of all, just fundamentally, we might ask the question, is this fair?

Is God being fair to King Saul? Does this seem loving? Does this seem consistent with the

God that we love and serve and talk about? Well, I wanna just point out that in a purely technical way, in our era, what we might be thinking now is much less concern for Saul and much more concern for ourselves, right?

I mean, Saul's dead and gone, and that's old history, but at the end of the day, what are real questions about this fairness of God when he remains silent is what about me, right?

How many of you would just admit, confess, that that's your primary concern here today? It's like, how is God communicating with me, and how does that work?

Well, I just wanna comfort you in this, in a purely technical way, I'm gonna get to the personal way, but in a technical way, we never need to endure the silence of God.

You heard me right, you never need to endure the silence of God. A lot of it is self -inflicted because we refuse to read what he's written for us.

Do you hear what I'm saying? You can always hear from God as long as you have access to this, as long as the government doesn't take this away, as long as you have the freedom to own one of these things, as long as these things are being published, you have the opportunity to hear from God every day.

How many of you, that just gives me chills, I mean, I'm excited about this, not just because I'm a pastor and I get to stand up here and teach this to you, but because the reality of the glory, the beauty of the way that God has worked progressively through history, he's given us a written word, a written word that we can turn to all of the time.

We need never sit in Saul's predicament here in this text, longing to hear from God, but not able.

But I know that there's something technical about that that isn't quite fair, because on a personal level, on a personal level, we sometimes do experience distance and silence from God.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Where you might even get into the word, you might even dig in, you might even be reading it and it just feels like there's a wall up between you and the word.

Have you ever experienced that in your life? I know I have. Four of us, really? Go ahead and raise your hand if you've ever experienced that kind of distance between you and God that's there.

I think all of us have. And there are times when we would like to know what our next steps should be and nothing seems to be breaking through.

There are times when even his written word doesn't seem to break through into our hearts and minds with the feelings or the insight that we're longing for.

And what do we do when God seems silent? What do you do in those times when he seems distant or far off from you?

Where do you turn? Well, wicked King Saul has no qualms, ironically, strangely, bizarrely, he's kicked all of the necromancers and the mediums and the sorcerers out of Israel, but he has no qualms reversing his earlier commands to remove all the mediums.

And instead, he now says, can somebody get me one of those? Can somebody bring me somebody who can tell the future here?

Because God's not answering. God's not with me on this. God's not here for me. And so let's go ahead and get, so he asks, and in the presence of all of his servants, can you imagine being a servant?

Like, is this a trick question, Saul? Because like, I mean, your command was to remove them all. Are you gonna, is it gonna be, is this spear thing coming?

Because you know, he always had a spear in his hand. So he's there with a spear in his hand. Now, if I answer right, which one's the right answer?

If I tell you, is that good? Or if I tell you, is that bad? But I think it's really interesting that right off the bat, it's even a bit disconcerting that one of his servants right off the bat, oh, there's a medium in Endor.

She just lives down the road here. Like, I mean, he knew where she was. She's supposed to be kicked out.

She's supposed to have been removed from the nation. But Endor is well within the boundaries of Israel. And not going to Endor outside, this is not, by the way, the, some people are getting confused.

This is not the forest moon of Endor from Star Wars. That's a different place, okay? This is the witch queen of Endor or something, but it's different.

Did anybody get that? Okay, more got that than were willing earlier to admit to your own, you know, issues or whatever.

But yeah, perfect, Star Wars, good. But the servant pipes up right away and knows the answer.

Does anybody find that interesting that somebody serving on the council of King Saul right away can spit out, yeah.

Was he visiting her regularly? Was he getting his palm read? We don't know. But Saul knows that no self -respecting necromancer or witch is gonna put their life on the line to help him out when he's obviously shown himself to be opposed to them.

So he sets up a ruse. He disguises himself and dresses down, gets rid of the royal robes, takes his crown off his head, whatever, and he is gonna try to fool somebody who claims clairvoyance.

Okay, that's kind of an interesting thing. Right off the bat, it's kind of like, yeah, just figure this out.

So Saul took two men and went off into the night to consult with the dead through a medium because all spooky things happen at night, right?

Like, that's when spooky stuff happens and so in the night and everything is in the night and it's in the darkness and it's intentional, but that's what happened historically.

And I wanna note that this seems pretty far out there for our modern world. I kind of said that in an introduction. But ask yourself, what kind of people would seek this?

Well, I mentioned that Madam Paula down on Southwestern, she seems to be doing a pretty decent business there.

That's probably prime real estate. Southwestern, prime real estate. She seems to be making the payments. But, so someone's going there.

But I also wanna point out that we've had some pretty crazy stuff in our political leadership down through the ages.

It was not that long ago that Nancy Reagan was consulting with astrologers in the White House to try to determine what the future was gonna hold.

So some of our presidents have become engaged in astrology to try to figure out in leadership. On the dark side,

Hitler and his propaganda minister, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, both used astrology to determine that the victory was gonna be theirs late

April, 1945. They said they were gonna have some setbacks in early April when the Americans got involved, but you know what?

We're gonna roll through and this is all gonna be fine for us. And it was a prediction that was obviously false when they both took their lives in early

May of that same year. But people, you know, lest we think that this is an ancient tradition, that this is just something that those way back, you know, wackos back in ancient times, they thought things like this.

I mean, something that C .S. Lewis would call chronological snobbery, where we think we're so much more enlightened than all of those in history.

We've got some wack out things that we do all the time here and it's not that far off from us.

So Saul's request of the medium, he goes into a presence, he's dressed up, he's probably got, I'm just picturing dark shrouded cowl over his face, you know, bring me up somebody so I can bring up the dead so I can talk with them in this dark kind of seance like atmosphere in her house with probably skulls and like, you know, all kinds of vials with stuff, potions,

I don't know. But he says to her, you know, call up a spirit of my choosing so I can consult with them.

To divine is to try to figure out and determine the future from some, you know, spirit or something like that.

That's what it means in the text when it says divine. So he says, bring me up the spirit, I'm gonna tell you a name of a dead person.

You bring them up and I'm gonna talk with them. She's like, nuh -uh, not so fast.

I'm not falling for that trick. I know, I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to entrap me so that you can have me put to death.

I know that. She's like, the next thing you know, people are gonna be wondering if I weigh the same as a duck, right?

And then I'm made out of wood and if I'm wood, I float, and if I float, then I'm a witch and I'm dead. So, a couple of you getting that.

But that's basically what she says here, isn't it? She says, I know you're gonna put me on trial. I know you're gonna put me to death for being a medium.

I know that, so I'm not falling for your trick. But Saul's false piety continues text after text throughout the book of 1

Samuel to sink to all new lows. We're here in our text, standing before a medium that he's previously kicked out, that's against everything in the

Old Testament law. He invokes the name of the Lord in an oath that he will spare her life.

As the Lord lives, you shall not die, he says. Saul's life is one of a long, tragic fall like the raindrops outside.

Saul's a religious man. I think that you have to understand that. Saul made sacrifices before the assembly of God.

Saul was a man who talked the right talk. He had the words of God on his lips.

He spoke Yahweh regularly in the gathering of his people. Saul was a religious man who never had a genuine relationship with his creator.

A religious man who never fully engaged in the love of God and in abandonment to him.

Saul has developed an appetite for his own power, his own authority, and I think fundamentally, most importantly, he's developed an appetite for self -preservation of his own throne.

Power has gone to his head. He has become paranoid. Staying alive and keeping his throne has become all -consuming to King Saul.

So the medium, with her fears for her life, taken care of by Saul's oath, she goes on to her business.

She says, who do you want to consult? And he says, bring up for me Samuel. He isn't playing around.

He wants to interrupt the rest of one of God's most powerful holy prophets. He says, bring him.

I want to talk to him. Now we know nothing of the seance. I even did a little bit of historical research and there's so much variety in the way that these kinds of things would go.

Some of it quite gruesome and maybe with intention, the Bible doesn't include some of those ancient rituals to us, but it's unclear exactly what the dark magic might have entailed, but it's clear in this text that it worked.

And the woman cried out with a loud voice when she saw the spirit of Samuel rising up from the netherworld, from the other side.

And it's unclear if this woman was a charlatan. Some people immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was a fake and a fraud and expected to just kind of make something up on the fly and she actually, when she saw the spirit, she freaked, right?

You see in the text, she shrieked and screamed with a loud voice. What was her expectation of this event?

It's a little bit unclear whether it was that she was a fake and seeing the spirit made her cry out or it was the revelation and the realization that it was indeed

King Saul. But the fact of the matter is both of those things happened at the same time. She's given the revelation some kind of insight, some kind of clear voice, this is

Saul, whether or not he took his hood off when he heard that the spirit had arrived or something.

But she identifies this is indeed King Saul and she freaks out. So again,

Saul assured her that she was not in danger and she describes Samuel, she describes him in strange terms to our ears.

She says he's like a god coming up out of the earth. It's quite possible that Samuel was granted some semblance of glory that she would call him a god.

It could have something to do with their ancient traditions of their understanding of the afterlife and different things. But he appears to be an old man wrapped in a robe, probably bright and shiny.

And something about his general appearance immediately gives Saul confidence that he is having an audience with the prophet

Samuel. Samuel himself and Saul bowed to the ground paying respect for this dead prophet.

Now Samuel shows, interestingly, I mean the very first words of Samuel, not exactly what I wouldn't expect from him.

What I would expect from him in the presence of King Saul, they had a bit of a rocky ending to their relationship in this life.

And so he immediately shows displeasure at being brought back. And it's worth noting because it may seem very confusing to consider where Samuel has been.

Where did he come from to show up like this? Where did he come from? And how many of you have some personal interest in understanding where in the world was

Samuel prior to these events? Because we have a little bit of interest in this thing called death. Where do we go after that?

Where did he come from? His arrival is shown as a disturbance.

He says, why have you disturbed me? And just that word alone indicates an existence outside of this life.

Do you get that? To be disturbed now, it's not like somebody's saying, well you're disturbed from sleep. No, you can be disturbed from cleaning your house, right?

I mean you can be disturbed from worshiping God. And so it doesn't necessarily have the connotation that he was asleep and got woken up.

I believe fully that Samuel was in the presence of the Lord and was sent here for this very last message to King Saul.

I think the image that you need to have is that Samuel is there in the presence of the Almighty and God says, hold on everybody.

I know you're singing, but could you keep it down for just a second because I need to have a conversation with Samuel here.

Samuel, I need you to go do me one last favor here. I need you to run back down there. I've got a message for King Saul.

He's calling for you right now. I'm gonna send you. So we have a record, by the way.

As strange as this scenario seems, it seemed kind of strange for a holy prophet to be coming back in this form in Saul to speak.

It does, but that's happened two other times in scripture. This is not a unique one -off event demonstrating somebody coming back from the other side to speak.

And I'm not talking about Jesus Christ. I'm not talking about the resurrection that was bodily, that was physical, that's a totally different thing. But we have the record of Elijah and Moses coming down to hang out with Jesus on the

Mount of Transfiguration. Two guys who were dead, not resurrected, not in bodily form, but in spirit present when

Jesus unveiled his glory there before John and James and Peter.

So the forces of evil, by the way, I wanna point this out. This is fundamental to understanding what's going on here. The forces of evil have no power over the child of God.

And yet there is indeed a real power that is being conveyed in this text. Satan does indeed have real power.

His real power rests in this, his ability to go before the throne of God and make a request. That's where the power of Satan rests.

His ability to go before God and say, hey, have you considered, I mean, have you, let me do what I want to Job and then he won't worship you anymore.

That's the kind of power that Satan has. Many have tried to explain this text away as a fake.

That's why I'm talking like this. Even some scholars would suggest that this wasn't really Samuel, but it was a demon pretending to be

Samuel because the notion that God would allow this demonic ritual to actually produce anything wouldn't be like him or something like that.

But the message that the spirit of Samuel gives, this is a very consistent

Samuel -like message. It sounds like Samuel. It's the stuff that he said. It's him identifying himself.

But the most telling thing is that the text itself identifies this spirit as Samuel. So I'm gonna take it for what it says.

The text tells us this is Samuel, his soul, and so I'm gonna run with that.

Clearly demonic forces, I believe, couldn't conjure up a dead prophet without God's approval. And so I read into this text that I believe,

I believe that there is indeed God's approval over this situation. But in verse 15, Saul explains the pickle he finds himself in.

I mean, he's standing there. I don't think, by the way, that you need to picture him seeing this ghost, this apparition.

That's the nature of the word medium, means a mediator between that side and this side. So she is probably interacting with the spirit and then interacting with Saul and going back and forth.

That's the image that you should have. He had to ask for a description from her of what he looked like.

That indicates he's not seeing, but he is indeed talking. Even when he bowed, he probably bowed in the general direction of where he thought the spirit might be.

But he explains in this dialogue, this pickle he's in, the

Philistines are bringing war. God won't answer any of my calls, he says, and I'm kind of ready to pee my pants out of fear, so I came to see you.

So you're here, could you just tell me what I should do, Samuel? And I picture a little ghostly laugh.

I don't know. Samuel says, do you think, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but do you think

I would give you something that the Lord won't? Did you think that by calling me here,

I'd be able to say something other than my Lord and my King? Am I gonna be inconsistent with him? What did you think you were gonna get out of this?

Why did you even send for me? Come on, we didn't even get along that well. We didn't get along that well in life.

I've already told you everything that I need to tell you, and Samuel has for Saul, all that he has for him is to reconfirm his previous prophecies.

He's gonna just restate those, and he's gonna give him a more clear timeline, a timeline that probably would've, it doesn't make a difference in Saul's life, because at the end of the day, it probably is information he would rather not know.

But he tells Saul, I already told you, I've already told you clearly that God is tearing the throne from you for your disobedience, and he is giving it to your neighbor,

David. And that's because you refused to heed the voice of the Lord. The Lord, through his prophet, the

Lord, through Samuel speaking, the Lord, through me, told you definitively what to do in the case of the

Amalekites, to go and eradicate them, and you refused. And in your refusal, you disobeyed the very voice of God.

In essence, Samuel is diagnosing the reason God has not responded to Saul's request.

He says this, when God gives you clear instructions, you don't obey anyways, so now, when you're afraid, you turned to him for advice.

But he is done with your reign, King Saul. And further, further, here's the only new information given.

Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow is the day, Saul. Both you and Israel will be given into the hand of the

Philistines, and tomorrow, you and your sons will be on the dead side of life, just like me, says

Samuel. How would you feel, Rick asks, seriously, personalize this for a second.

How would you feel if you knew today was your last day? If you knew that, how would you feel?

Well, Saul fell flat on the ground lengthwise, just full out on his face, felled like a tree.

He had no strength due to the stress and lack of food, the text tells us about, and that lack of food, by the way, may well have been something to do with his pagan seance.

That's what many scholars think is the reason he hasn't eaten a day and a night, has something to do with the method and the way that they would go about obtaining information from the dead.

The text goes into great detail to show the medium in verses 21 through 25, giving

Saul his last supper. Saul has to be talked into eating it, but she lays out a feast, and after his servants, the two servants that are with him, finally convince him, bro, you need to eat something.

So Saul and his two men rose, ate, and then went out into the night.

Now, there are three applications that stuck out to me from this text, as we walk through, strange text, you guys agree, pretty strange text, pretty different than what we're used to, a little bit.

But there are three things that stuck out to me, and I would just encourage you, as we're gonna kind of go away from just looking in and dissecting and analyzing the text to trying to apply it to our everyday lives,

I would encourage you to open your heart to whatever the Spirit of God might be communicating to you this morning from this.

You know, I might not hit on your issue, and that's one of the things that always stresses me out a little bit as a pastor. Like, I get up here, and then

I give you these applications, I give you three at the end, and the fact of the matter is, you might walk out of here unconvicted because these three didn't touch your heart.

And maybe somebody in the room is literally into astrology, and you need to stop it. Now, that wasn't one of my three applications.

That's not something that really hits me straight where I live, but if that's you, give it up, like, stop it. If you're into the fortune cookies, and you're seriously eating those fortune cookies, expecting that fortune to mean something to you, cut it out, like, give that up.

I mean, you can still eat at Chin Chin's, just say no fortune cookies, please. I mean, I don't know. Maybe you're so far into it that you have to give up Chin Chin's for a while.

Sorry, but I mean, that would be really bad, but whatever it is for you. I don't mean to make a joke out of it either because obviously, and I say this with all sincerity, like,

I mean, Rusty brought this up as he was kind of going through my sermon, but that Madam Paula's place, that just really just kind of gets stuck in the back of my mind, because it's successful.

It works, so some people in our community are consulting that kind of stuff. So I don't mean to make light of it because there's a reality that some of you may, that may literally be your plan

B. My hunch is that our applications for the majority of us are gonna be more subtle than that, but no less powerful, no less potentially life -changing because we've encountered

God and his word and what he desires of us. The first application that struck my heart this week, if you're taking notes, write these down.

Every time we are against something, we must in turn be for something.

That's the way that this should go in our lives. You see, Saul began in our text in a good standing.

He began with a good decision. The first thing that's mentioned of him in this text is he pushed out all the necromancers, the mediums, the sorcerers.

He kicked them all out. How many of you think that's a good choice? That's a good move. That's obedience to God and his law.

It's obedience to the straight, clear instructions of Deuteronomy chapter 18. Great decision,

Saul. Good job. He honored God by doing that. But wherever God tells us to remove something, hear me carefully, wherever he tells us to remove something, there is a good and right thing that should fill in that gap.

For Israel, they were not to consult with witches and mediums because they were instead supposed to consult with prophets and priests.

They were to seek out God's word. And Saul had all but obliterated the prophets and the priests.

He did not replace that which was illicit with that which was good and blessed. So in our lives, we need to be careful that we are never satisfied with just not doing bad.

A lot of times, that's maybe the message that we caught from our childhood is as long as you don't do the bad thing, you're okay.

Far from true. God's plan for his people is that we would primarily be a people recast in this community that is known for what we are for, not what we are against.

Did you hear that? We should be known in our workplaces by what we are for.

Man, that's probably convicting. It's convicting to me, it should be convicting to all of us to contemplate and consider.

Would people in your workplace be like, oh, he's for this, she's for this, or would they be more prone to tell very quickly what you are against?

I fear that too often, we're satisfied as a church and the church of Christ here in America being against things.

It's a legitimate application of this text to consider what you should get rid of. That's legitimate, you should think that through.

Just like Saul removing the medians. But that's not the end. Be sure that you pause to consider that for everything that God wants you to give up, he graciously gives us something else to put in its place.

He's a good and gracious God. So ask yourself this this morning in application, what does he want you to give up and what has he given you to replace that?

The second application is keep turning to God, keep turning to God, keep turning to God even when he is silent.

Even when you feel distant, that is the answer. Necromancy, consulting with mediums, consulting with witches was plan

B for King Saul. He had a good plan A, go to God, but when God was silent, he gave up pretty quick.

He had a really strange plan B, right? One that we don't necessarily relate to so we could let ourselves off the hook.

Well, at least I don't consult with Madam Paula, at least I don't do that. But when, you see, when

Saul couldn't get God to talk to him, he decided a dead guy could fill in fine for the absence of God's voice.

And I want you to consider, how many of you have read a psalm, at least one psalm?

Maybe you've done some studies in the psalms or something like that. The psalms are just full. They're chocked full of David and others crying out in the midst of the silence of God, wrestling with his absence, wrestling with the wall that they feel between them and their maker.

And I wanna just ask you, when we encounter that silence, when we encounter that wall, when we come up against it, and we're maybe even still having our quiet time, maybe you're even digging in more and you're still not getting there, and it's like,

I just don't feel anything, God, and I'm not really hearing from you. It's kind of like in one ear and out the other, and I'm just not able to focus very well.

What do you do? Where do you turn? How does a follower of Jesus deal with God's silence?

Well, I believe that it can be summarized in one word. The way that you and I are meant to deal with the silence of God all comes down to this one very important word, persistence.

Persistence. We have no plan B. We have plan

A, and we go back to plan A, and we go back to plan A, and we stick with plan

A, and we keep consulting God, even when we don't feel it, even when the answers aren't forthcoming.

We have all of our hope in that one basket. Look at David in Psalm 13.

I love this, because we are meant, by the way, all throughout this passage, all throughout 1

Samuel, we are meant to have an increasing contrast between David, the imperfect, in love with God, and Saul, the imperfect, who has animosity towards God.

We are supposed to be contrasting these two lives all throughout, and David wrote Psalm 13, and this is what he says.

Think about it. Think about where Saul was. Listen to David's cry. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me,

O Lord, my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.

It's not Saul, it's David. That's David feeling alone, not talking to a necromancer, not talking to a medium, feeling like God is distant, and who's he crying out to?

Answer me, church. Who's he calling out to? God. He's like,

I got no other place to turn. I got nowhere else to go. So I will be here, bringing my fears to you, bringing my loneliness to you, bringing my depression to you, because I got nowhere else to go.

How long, O Lord? And the phrase, even, I love the way that the phrase how long implies that he has an anticipation that that will come to an end.

How long's it gonna be? Because I know that we're gonna get all right here eventually. I know that we're gonna bring this around.

I know that it's gonna come back to me, worshiping you in joy and fervor again. I believe that, and I believe that's the hope for every one of us in this life who belong to Jesus Christ.

We know that there's a day coming around where we will feel it, because we will stand in his presence face -to -face.

And so even now, if you're in a stage of coldness, you're in a stage of distance, there's a day coming. There's a day coming if you belong to Christ, that the fire will be in your heart again.

David felt the same things that Saul did, but David had no plan B, and he's frustrated with the silence of God, but in persistence keeps talking to God about it.

There was one day, I'm gonna be wrapping things up here pretty quick, but there was one day in the life of Jesus speaking to a crowd like this.

Half of them hated what he said, got up and turned around and walked out. Jesus, wouldn't blame you if you did that to me, but Jesus, and he literally lost, it says a big portion of his crowd walked away on him that day, and he turns to the front row where his 12 are sitting,

I don't know how it actually worked, it probably wasn't this format, but he turns to his disciples, the 12, and he says, are you gonna leave too?

Rough day for the Messiah, right? I mean, I mean, you think that just he, well, man, everybody just listened to him and loved him, and just everything that he said was golden, and the masses just followed him, no, not all the time.

He says, are you gonna turn too? And Simon Peter answers this, thinking in terms of our plan

B, listen to Peter's plan B. Lord, Lord, who could we turn to?

To whom shall we go? You, you have the words of eternal life.

You're the only place we can go. Where else would we go? You see the disciples here, at least 11 of them had no plan

B. They acknowledged that there was nowhere else to turn. And I believe that if we seek him with all our hearts, he will be found.

See, Saul never sought God with his whole heart. You gotta keep that, you gotta keep that in the forefront of your mind as you're following the life of King Saul.

He never sought him with his whole heart. He dabbled with religiosity when it was to his benefit.

He dipped his feet in the water of the Lord, but he is unwilling to jump off the dock and plunge headfirst and go all in and all under and surrender to the

Lord. So ask yourself this morning, are you all in?

Am I all in? If you have an answer to the question, if I could ask you, what is your plan

B in case God lets you down regarding hope? Or if I ask you the question, what does your plan

B for help? And you have an answer, or what does your plan B for purpose in your life? Let me encourage you to let go of all of those other plans and run to the arms of Jesus Christ.

Throw yourself completely on his mercy, put all your trust in him, in him alone. God doesn't want to be one among many helps in your life.

Saving faith looks like putting all of your eggs in one basket. And lastly,

I want us all to remember that there is a tomorrow coming for us. We're gonna bring this into a landing here.

In our text, the tomorrow for Saul will be the day of his demise. All that Saul fears is coming to pass tomorrow.

And all of us will have a day and our relationship to God determines what kind of a day that will be. See, the reality is

I try to live my life based on this truth. I brought absolutely nothing here.

I didn't even ask to come here and here I am. I didn't ask to be born. I didn't have any say in the matter and I brought absolutely nothing in my hands.

I have nothing here to lose. I didn't bring it. I didn't make it. I didn't create it.

But in Christ, hear me carefully church, in Christ I have everything to gain.

In him is everything. This life is truly not the point. So reminding ourselves of that truth has the power to set us free from the pettiness of materialism, the things that we clamor for, the fame, the lottery tickets, the pixels of skin on a computer screen or even broken human relationships.

All of the messes, the good, the bad, the ugly in our lives should point us and bring us back to the reality that we are finite, we are mortal and in this

I'm merely calling us all to a humility to trust in God for that day. And we ought to let the reality of that day impact the way we live our lives today.

We ought to be living out the love of Jesus, trusting in him and leaning on his word to show us how to live.

So as we come to communion this morning, I'd encourage any of you to come to the tables if you believe, carefully listen, if you believe that Jesus is your rightful

Lord, you've asked him to be your king, you've asked him to save you, then you're welcome to come to the tables in the back and take communion.

It's a symbolic ceremony. We remember his body broken for us by taking a cracker. We remember his blood shed for us by taking the juice.

And in this each week we remember the one who gave his life to cover our sins so that his righteousness is now ours.

And let me encourage all of you here who belong to Jesus to go out from this place with a solid trust in him and him alone.

Refuse to consult with the dead things of this world, but instead keep seeking the

Lord and his word day by day. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and your mercy.

I thank you for your communication with us through your word. And Father, I pray that if there's anybody here who's in that moment of silence, is in that era of their lives where they feel pressed in and they feel your silence, they feel like you just are not answering them.

Father, I pray that you would grant this word persistence to them. And Father, that you would break through in powerful and mighty ways teaching them what you desire for them to learn through the silence as well.

Father, I pray that you would meet us in this communion, this opportunity that we have as your body together to reflect our neediness before you.

As the lines form around these tables, everybody standing there is reflecting that we couldn't save ourselves, we needed you.

So Father, I pray that you would go with us with power and with your authority to shun all plan