Samuel Condemns Saul

If you have your Bible, turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 15. 1 Samuel chapter 15, and we're going to see Samuel confronting Saul again And it's never easy to do that, but it is a privilege of Samuel, the judge of Israel, to be able to be used by God in Saul's life And it's never easy to confront someone, especially if he's the king Ask John the Baptist, who confronted Herod and he lost his head But yet, if you're going to fulfill your biblical responsibility as a believer in the Lord Jesus, it's your responsibility to deal with those people who live in continual sin

And of course, Saul was one of those People And so Samuel would confront him because this was his call by God upon his life And Saul had been given another opportunity to live for God, another unique opportunity to honor God And yet he fails He was too busy wanting to look good before man instead of live good before his God And he was consumed with what people thought of him, so much so that he feared what people would do if he did not follow their Whims and wishes So let me read to you 1 Samuel chapter 15, these 35 verses, and then we'll spend some time looking at them together this evening

Then Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over his people over Israel Now, therefore, listen to the words of the Lord Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that he has and do not spare him, but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel, and Donke Then Samuel summoned the people and numbered them in Tal, two hundred thousand foot soldiers, ten thousand men of Judah

Saul came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley Saul said to the Ken, Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites So that I do not destroy you with them, for you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt So the Ken departed from among the Amalekites So Saul defeated the Amalekites from Hav as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt He captured Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive And utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword

But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good And we're not willing to destroy them utterly, but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, I regret that I have made Saul king. for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my commands And Samuel was distressed, and cried out to the Lord all night

Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, and it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, then turned and proceeded on down to Gilgal Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord. I have carried out the command of the Lord But Samuel said, What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites

For the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, excuse me, but the rest we have utterly destroyed Then Samuel said to Saul, Wait, and let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night And he said to him, Speak Samuel said, Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed you king over Israel And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated

Why, then, did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but rushed upon the spoil, and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord? Then Saul said to Samuel, I did obey the voice of the Lord, and went on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag the king of Amalek And have utterly destroyed the Amalekites But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction Sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal

Samuel said, Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offering and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams For rebellion is as a sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry Because you have rejected the word of the Lord He has also rejected you from being king Then Samuel, or Saul, said to Samuel, I have sinned. I have indeed transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice

Now, therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord But Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel As Samuel turned to go, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore So Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today And has given it to your neighbor who is better than you Also, the glory of Israel will not lie or change his mind, for he is not a man that he should change his mind

Then he said, I have sinned, but please honor me now before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord your God So Samuel went back following Saul, and Saul worshipped the Lord Then Samuel said, Bring me Agag, the king of the Amalekites And Agag came to him cheerfully And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past But Samuel said, As your sword has made women childless, So shall your mother be childless among women, and Samuel hooed ag to pieces before the Lord of Gilgal

Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his house at Gab of Saul Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death For Sham grieved over Saul, and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel Now you read that and for the most part we understand the story It's probably the most familiar story surrounding Saul in all the scripture And so we have read the story It's pretty self-explanatory, except there are some things in here that Once understood, will help you understand exactly what was going on in Saul's life as well as in Samuel's life

So let's look at this together and look at just three simple points The first one deals with the specific command To Saul It was a specific command that Saul was given It wasn't a difficult assignment It was a command from God through Samuel to Saul that he him was to obe And Saul is the leader of Israel And of all the people to obey the commands of God, the leader must obey the commands Because if he disobeys the commands, then he sets an example for the people to disobey the commands So Samuel comes in verse 1 and says, Listen to the wor of the Lord. I wish that we could

Get the people of the church to listen to the words of the Lord We hear the words, but we don't listen to the words And to listen to them is very important because the story is about listening to what God says and following through on what God says If you don't follow through, you haven't listened You might have heard some things, but you didn't listen to what God said Because if you understood what he had said, you would have obeyed And Saul was one who heard the words, but was un to obey the words of the Lord So the command was very simple It was not difficult to grasp

First of all, you got to destroy the Amalekites, because the Amalekites, by the way, who were descendants of Esau, came against Israel when they came out of Egypt And as you recall, Joshua would go to battle with the Amalekites Moses would be on top of the hill and be praying for Joshua, and Joshua would defeat them And God said to Moses that they would have war with Amalek and the Amalekites for a long time And yet, through Balaam's prophecy, Am was told that the Amalekites would be destroyed Well, the time has come to destroy them

And so God says to Samuel, tell Saul, his job is to go and to kill everybody Kill the king, kill the women, the men, all their children, all the livestock Don't leave anything. A lot And you think about that, you, wow, that's just kind of excess, isn't it? Kind of over the top for the Lord God of Israel to say, slaughter children Slaughter women Why would God do that? Isn't God a God of love and compassion and mercy? Oh, absolutely In fact, he has shown his long su over the last 400 plus years while Israel has been in the Promised Land under the direction of the judges

And the Amalekites have seen and understood the power of the living God And God has been more than long-suffering with the Amalekites He could have easily destroyed them under the direction of Moses and Joshua, but he did not Because he allowed them more and more opportunities to see the Lord God of Israel and repent But they did not We say, well, children? Women? Yes Does God ever give a command that's unrighteous? Or unjust? No He doesn't In fact, this demonstrates his faithfulness to his word

Because in Genesis 12, God told Abraham, I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse those who curse you. I will come against those who come against you, Abraham, but I will bless those who honor you And God is true to his word And because Amalek had a desire to destroy the nation of Israel And if God would allow them to fight Israel and destroy them, then what about the plan of redemption that would come through Israel and the promised seed that would come through Israel? You see? They were coming against God, not just Israel They had defied the living God

You cannot defy the living God and expect to live But they did So, God shows his character He's been long-suffer He 's been patient He 's been merciful He has demonstrated his grace He has demonstrated his love He 's al But as we saw in the book of Genesis, that God's patience doesn't last forever Time run out on man who rejects God And so, sure enough, it was time for God to be faithful to his word that he promised Abraham to curse those who have come against Israel Oh, by the way, the Ken, who are descendants of the Midianites, they were blessed because they honored Israel

God spared them because God is faithful to his word Those who honor me, those who bless you, Abraham, and your seed, I will bless, I will honor God spared them Because God, of course, is true to his word And that's exactly what he did So he gives the command through Samuel to Saul, you go, destroy everything Very plain command There's nothing difficult about what God said There was nothing which said, you know, I need a translation here for me

Would you translate exactly what you mean by everything? Does everything mean everything? Does all mean all? Does everyone mean everyone? Or are there exceptions to the rule? There's no translation needed God says, kill them all, get rid of them, destroy them So Saul goes to war, but he spares the king, King Agag He spares the king He allows him to live On top of that, the people choose What they would consider to be the best of the spoils The problem with that is, if God says to destroy it, it can't be that good anyway

Yet they chose to disobey the word of the Lord and to keep some of the choice animals and spoils for themselves, in order that they might do good with it, to sacrifice to The Lord God gave a command Saul chose how he would obey that command And that obedience was not a complete and total obedience, but it was a partial ob He picked And he ch the part of God's command that he wanted to obey You ever done that? Of course, you have We do it every day We pick and choose portions of scripture we want to obey, and the other ones we like, well, you know what? I'm not sure we're going do that one

We do it all the time And then we say, well, you know, God doesn't care that much It's going to be okay with God because He's so merciful and kind and graceful anyway But this story should help us see the severity of partial obedience because part obedience is total re of God Total rejection Not only that, the Bible tells us in verse number 12 That in Saul's disobedience, he builds a monument to himself for the victory Now, if he was alive today, he would probably use his cell phone, take a selfie, and post it on social media so everybody could see his victorious efforts

But because he didn't have a cell phone, he couldn't do that So, what did he do instead? He built a monument to himself because his pr is so great He builds a monument to himself so everybody will know that he was the victorious warrior That's what he does So you move from the specific comm giving to Saul to number two, the sorrowful concern of Samuel Okay? So when you go to verse number 10, the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not carried out my commands

Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night Now think about that This is the sorrowful concern of Samuel, based on two things The relenting or the repenting of God and the rebellion Of Saul So, this becomes one of those passages of scripture you must explain Because the Bible says in verse 11, God says, I regret, or I repent, or I relent, or I am sorry That I have made Saul k People ask, well

Why is it now that God is going to change his mind that he has made Saul king over Israel? Because to repent means to change your mind, and if that's exactly what is said here, how can an immutable God, an immutable Unchangeable God change? Good question He never changes Malachi 3:6 says, I am the Lord, I change not The immutability of God is one of the great, great descriptions of the character and nature of God that He never changes It's similar to what is said in Genesis chapter 6 when God says that he was sorry or that he repented that he had made man

And so he destroys man except for Noah and his family Did God actually change his mind that he made man? Did God actually change his mind that he had put Saul as king over Israel, or in the book of Jonah, second chapter, tenth verse, where he says, I The Lord, or because of Nineveh's rep to the preaching of Jonah It says that God rel or God rep and did not destroy the Ninev So, what is going on here? It's not that difficult It's what theologians call an anthropomorphic statement. A statement said about God in human terms so that we will come to better understand the true and living God

Let me say it to you this way, and maybe you'll understand this The Bible says in John 3 that the wrath of God abides on those who do not belie And yet, when you repent, the wrath of God no longer would abide on you But the grace and mercy and love of God would overwhelm you And therefore you would no longer come under condemnation Because your judgment was paid for at Calvary's cross Did God change or did you ch? God created man in Genesis chapter 2 to have dominion over the earth Everything he created was absolutely perfect It was good He created man perfect to do the right thing

To honor him, but man sinned Who changed God Or man Man did God never changes The Nine were to be judged by God because of their sin, but He sent Jonah to preach And when they repented, God repented God relented of his judgment and did not kill the Nine Who changed, God or the Nine? The Nine did You cannot blame the sun, the S-U-N, if it hardens the clay and melts the wax Can you? Because the sun that melts the wax is the same sun that hardens the clay But it's not the Son's fault It's the substance of the two objects And therefore

When man repents of his sin, God rel, removes his judgment, and blesses man So God never changes Did Saul change? Yes Did God give him a changed heart? Yes Did God bring his Spirit upon him? Yes, he did But Saul rebelled against all that And Saul turned from God, having all the opportunity, all the privilege All the position, all the power given to him by God, he rebelled against it And because he changed Not God God is always faithful to his character Always He's never unfaithful to who he is He's always true to who he is And God has always rewarded obedience And punished disobedience

And sure enough, that's exactly what's happening here And Samuel was distressed It's the word used nine times in the Old Testament Eight times It's used to describe anger, one time to describe sorrow Here, it's sorrow But both are true Is it not true that because of God's holiness and God's character? We have a holy indignation again sin And Samuel was that way Oh, he was torn in his spirit because Saul had rebelled against God and not carried out the command of God But at the same time, he was angry in his spirit Because God had been dishonored And God's word had been disobeyed

And Samuel and Saul had rebelled against the word of God through Samuel And that angered him, as it should everybody Who sees people engaged in rebellion against God? You can't truly be distressed and grieved Over sin, unless you are first of all angry at what sin does And sure enough, that was Samuel Oh, he was distressed He was up all night And what did he do? He prayed What else does Samuel do? He prays, he confronts He prays, he confronts He prays, he confronts That's what he does That's what his ministry cons So he goes to prayer He was conceived in prayer He was raised on prayer

He lived a life of prayer So what does he do? He goes and communes with his God because what else is he going to do? He needs to seek the Lord so that he knows exactly how to respond and what to do And that's exactly how he comes to the Lord He begins to pray And then, point number three, you see the sovereign condemning of Saul You see, first of all, the specific command to Saul The sorrowful concern of Samuel, and now the sovereign condemning of Saul Look what it says Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord. I have carried out the command of the Lord

Saul is one self-deceived man Because in his own mind he has obeyed the Lord In his own mind, he has served the Lord Never mind the fact that he's built a monument to himself Never a monument to God and the glory of God, but a monument to himself To show you how self-deceived he is, that it was his own self that he thought was the victorious warrior, not the God of Israel And so he goes to Gilgal Remember Gilgal was a place of commemoration It was a place of celebration It was a place of veneration But for Saul, it was a place of confrontation and condemnation

Because that's where he would be confronted on his sin, as we saw last time, and now condemned because of his sin, this time at a place that was very special In the hearts and minds of the nation of Israel And so he sees Samuel coming And he goes to Samuel and says, Blessed are you Oh, Samuel, so good to see you. I have carried out, I have done exactly what you told me to do But Samuel said, I hear something. I hear, what is this? I hear about the bleeding of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle What is that? Oh, that's okay That's not a big deal, Saul says

They, who's they? The people, have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen Remember what God said in Isaiah chapter 5? Woe to him who calls evil good and good evil Cursed is the man who calls that which is evil good and that which is good evil And Saul says, hey, they spared the best to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we have utterly destroyed Then Samuel said to Saul, Wait! Stop! Be quiet! Stop talking! Because as long as Saul is talking, he can't hear what God has to say to him So Samuel says, stop No more talking

And let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night Samuel said, speak Seamus said, Is it not true that you were little in your own eyes? He goes back and talks about his abase As small as he was, as humble as he was, as lowly as he was You were little in your own eyes, and you were made the head of the tribes of Israel You were nothing, Saul You were a zero Saul, and God made you head of Israel And the Lord anointed you king over all He talks about his abase and then he talks about his anointing You went from nothing to everything

Not because of anything that you did, not because of your education, not because of your athletic prowess, not because of your intellect, not because of your family, not because of anything you yourself did God did this You were zero You were zilts You were not a You were nothing And God anointed you king over Israel And then he says, And the Lord sent you on a mission, not only Was there an anointing? There was an app God sent you on a mission to do for Him And said, Go un destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated

Now, it doesn't get any clearer than that When you talk about extermination, that is the complete annihilation of everybody involved This was your appointment Wasn't hard to follow After all, you were nothing You became something because of the Lord God of Israel And now He gives you Just one job to do Just one thing You're the king of Israel You're the king of the most powerful nation in the history of the world And all you have to do is fulfill your responsibility That's it Not a big deal Verse 19

Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord and rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord? You see, they thought it was good in the sight of the Lord The nation of Israel thought this was okay But from the evaluation of God's perspective, it wasn't okay It was evil in the sight of the Lord But they would rush upon it They were eager to go and take the spoils from the Amalekites They wanted to do that because They were sinners themselves, and they disobeyed the word of the Lord

And Saul said to Samuel. I did obey the voice of the Lord. I mean, I've never seen anybody so ignorant in my entire life as King Saul Really? You did obey the voice of the Lord? Yeah And I went on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and I brought back Agag, king of Abbot Did God say to do that? God never said do that And have utterly destroyed the Amalekites, but the people Oh, it's the people Not me, it's them! They took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, choices of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice Very careful to the Lord your God at Gilgal Not the Lord my God

The Lord your God That's a very telling statement Because you see, Saul didn't have the same God that Samuel had Oh, Saul knew about the God of Israel, and he was a Benjamite. F the tribe of Benjamin But he did not have the relationship with the living God of Israel as Samuel himself had He couldn 't call Samuel's God, his God, because he wasn't And so Samuel said Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams

Value The value of obedience is great, but the vileness of disobedience is huge For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and id Wow, what a statement! You are insubordinate, King Saul You are unwilling to submit yourself to the commands of God When you don't do what God says, you are an idol When you don't obey everything that God says to do, you are an idolater because you have set yourself up as God over God, thinking that I can make a decision based on my own opinion or my own desires, and I can do what I want

Want to do? You can't do that because you are created to give honor and glory to your God And Samuel calls it for what it is You are a man of iniquity, a man of insubordination, a man of rebellion And your rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft Your rebellion has at its root the devil And on top of that, you are a worshi of yourself And that's already been evident by the fact that he erected a monument to himself And so Samuel calls it for what it is Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king You're done It's over As of today, you're done

And then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned. I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and listened to their voice Now, therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord And you read that, you think, wow, he's turning around No, he's not No, he's not He's only conf that he sinned after he has heard of the consequences of his sin If he was truly repentant, he would repent because he had sinned He would not repent upon hearing the consequences of his sin

See that? Oh, yeah, sure, I'm going to repent once I know the punishment Once I know everything's going to come down, the hammer's coming down Oh, you're right. I've sinned. I was wrong No, where was it when he was called out before? He gave excuse after excuse after excuse Twice, he said, he spared the king Twice, he said, it was the people who wanted to take the choices of the spoils He kept giving excuses He played the victim card You ever played the victim card? It was the people. I feared the people

Here was the man who was anointed king over Israel, but he feared the people, and the fear of man is always a snare and always a trap And so then he says, please pardon my sin He's asking Samuel to pardon the sin He's not asking the Lord to forgive him of a sin This isn't true repentance Here's a man who is still self-deceived Here's a man who wants the people to think he is still okay Here's a man, as we will see in a minute, that he wants to be honored among the people of Israel He is not truly repentant

Samuel said to Saul, because Samuel sees right through him, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord And the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. I not going back to worship with you No, I can't worship with you You are rebellious. I can't worship with you You have dishonored God. I can't worship with you You have rejected the word of the Lord You can Worship with people who reject the truth You can't Because they're at enmity with God See? Sham knows that As Samuel turned to go, Saul seized the edge of his robe and it tore He's begging

He is pleading He is doing everything he can Oh, and grabbing a hold of it Don't turn, Samuel, as if To think, hey, maybe it's really serious No, no, that's not it at all For read on So Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you Ooh, wow, that's Pouring salt into an open wound There's somebody better than you There's somebody more deserving than you And God has already decided who that is God has already chosen your neighbor You're done It's over for you Verse 29

Also, the glory of Israel will not lie or change his mind So, there, verse 29 is your interpretation of verse 11, right? The glory of the Israel, the Lord God, will never lie, nor will he change his mind, for he is not a man that he should change his m Saul says, I have sinned, but please honor me now before the elders of my people And before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord your God It's all a show for Saul Don't embarrass me Honor me before the elders of Israel Make me look good before the people Come back with me So they know, at least they'll think that I repented

They'll think that I'm right with your God They'll think that I'm on speaking terms with you and your God, at least We can deceive them that way That's what he's thinking So Samuel went back following Saul And Saul worshiped the Lord Samuel did not worship with him because Samuel had another mission He was going to publicly humiliate Saul by doing to King Agag what Saul didn't do Samuel said, Bring me Agag, king of the Amalekites And Agag came to him cheerfully, I'm going to live, I'm going to be good And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past Samuel says, nah, don't think so

Sorry, dude. I'm cutting you. I'm slicing and dicing you right up right now And he cut him to pieces Samuel's an old man, he's in his 70s But he can wield a sword, and he cut him to pieces because that's what Saul was supposed to do And now the people know that Saul did not obey the word of the Lord Very clear, very evident to them And then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his house at Gabia of Saul And Samuel did not see Saul again That right there is the greatest judgment upon Saul He would never see Samuel Again, wow, that's harsh But you see, he needed Samuel He needed the truth

He needed the accountability He needed the word of the Lord, but he wouldn't get it He wouldn't get the word of the Lord ever again because Samuel would never see him again How tragic is that? So wait a minute Didn't he go to the witch of End and call up Samuel from the grave? Yeah, he did In fact, turn there with me, if you would. 1 Samuel 28 Seems though you asked the question Remember the story? The Philistines have come against Israel Verse 3, Samuel's dead Samuel hasn't seen Saul since 1 Samuel chapter 15 Satan was dead And all Israel had lamented him

Really? Seriously? They didn't care two hoots about what he had to say concerning the Lord while he was alive Now, why are they lamenting him now that he's dead? Because they real too late that the man who spoke to them the word of the Lord is no longer going to be present among them So they lamented him The Philistines gathered together and camped and came and camped in Shunn And Saul gathered all Israel together and they camped in Gilboa When Saul saw the camp of the Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly You bet it did He was scared to death, and rightly so

And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him Either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets Wow That is the fulfillment of what is said in the book of Proverbs, the first chapter, when the Lord God said these words Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention, and you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof, I will laugh At your calamity. I will mock when your dread comes

When your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you, then they will call upon me, but I will not answer They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me because they hated knowledge and did not Choose the fear of the L And who did Samuel fear? I mean, Saul fear He feared the people He did not fear the Lord And so the time c where Saul would call upon the Lord, but the Lord would not answer Why? Because the Lord would laugh at his calamity He would mock him because of his distress Why would God do that? Because he said

You chose not to fear me You chose not to follow me Therefore, I will not answer you That's a horrible place to be That is an absolute horrible place to be And that's why it's so important, as we begin at verse number one Listen to the words of the Lord Why? Because when you don't It's disastrous. I don't care who you are It is absolutely disastrous for you And so, if you go back to First Samuel 2, Saul is in trouble So he says to a servant, Seek for me a woman who is a medium that I might go to her and inquire of her He said, Well, there is a woman An indoor She's a medium

So Saul disguised himself He didn't want her to know who he was And he came to the woman, verse 8, by night and said, Conjure up for me, please, and bring up for me whom I shall name to you But the woman said to him, Behold, you know what Saul has done What has Saul done? Well, back in verse number, I believe it is two. I'm sorry, verse 3: Saul had removed from the land those who were Medians and Spiritists She says, You know what Saul was doing? She didn recognize him as Saul

You know what he's done? Saul vowed to her by the Lord, saying, As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing And the woman said to him, Who shall I bring up for you? He said, Bring up Samuel for me And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice, and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul Now, people get upset about this because how can somebody come back from the dead? This is not a big deal for God at all First of all, she sees a divine being, which is a spirit

But the spirit is old, spirits don't have age, and the spirit has a robe on, spirits don't wear robes Okay? But this is a miracle of the Lord And God, and Samuel just died, and God was going to bring Samuel back to speak once again to Saul the same thing he said In chapter 15, although it wasn chapter 15 back in those days When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice, and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul And the king said to her, Do not be afraid, but what do you see? That tells you right there that the woman didn't conjure up the spirit

Right? Because she was afraid She knew it was all fake anyway And then all of a sudden, here comes Samuel Now she's afraid because something's happening She knows that there is a God She didn't do it She knows that. I see a divine being coming up of the earth He said to her, What is this form? And she said, An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage And Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up? And Saul answered, I am greatly distressed

For the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams Therefore, I have called you that you may make known to me what I should do He's desperate He's so desperate. I don't know what to do You are the king of Israel You have no idea what to do Where have you gone, Saul? I don know what to do Seamus said, Why then do you ask me? Since the Lord has departed from you and has become your adversary Wow How heartbreaking is that? God is your enemy

The Lord has done according as he spoke through me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom of your hand and given it to your neighbor to David As you did not obey the Lord and did not execute his fierce wrath on Amalek, so the Lord has done this thing to you this day Moreover, the Lord will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines Therefore, tomorrow you and your sons will be with me Indeed, the Lord will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines You have been dethroned You will be defeated and you will die That was the council

That's Samuel gave him You bend the throne, remember? Remember why? Because you didn't do what God said And not only will you be dethroned tomorrow, you're going to be defeated at the hands of the Philistines, the archenemy of Israel And on top of that, you're going to die Wow. I bet he wished he would have never called Samuel up from the dead Then Saul immediately fell full length upon the ground, and was very afraid because of the words of Samuel And there was no strength in him, for he'd eaten no food all day and all night Now he's very much afraid

Remember what the Bible says in Psalm 112? How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who great delights in his commandments? His descendants will be mighty on the earth Saul's descendants were not able to carry on the kingship because he had disobeyed the Lord The generation of the upright will be blessed Wealth and riches are in his house No, Saul would lose all that It says in verse 6: For the man who fears the Lord will never be shaken Saul lived in constant fear and turmoil all the days of his life because he did not fear the Lord or his commandments

But those who fear the Lord, the psalmist says, that man will fear no evil tidings His heart is steadfast, trusting the Lord His heart is upheld He will not Fear until he looks with satisfaction on his ad Wow Which do you want to be? The one who fears the Lord and greatly delights in his commandments, so that you will never be shaken, so your descendants will be mighty upon the earth That you will be blessed because of the generation of the upright? Or do you want to be like Saul? who lives the rest of his life in fear and distress and turmoil because he would not obey the commands of God

He would not fear the Lord his God And therefore He could not stand Choice is yours Let's pray Father, thank you for tonight. A chance to be in your word, a chance to once again examine our lives in light of your word And pray that we would be like Samuel, men and women of the word, true to the truth, always wanting to follow you Maybe learn our lessons from Saul Realize that partial obedience is a total rejection of the Lord God of Israel And may we, as your people, learn to listen to everything you say and heed all that we hear We pray in Jesus' name Amen.