If you have been reading ahead
in the preparation for this, you know we are entering into
some odd language in the Scripture, a strange incident. And the title of my message is,
A Strange Interlude. We will begin reading verse 1. And it came to pass in those
days that the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare
to fight with Israel. And Achish said to David, Know
thou assuredly that thou shalt go out with me to battle, thou
and thy men. And David said to Achish, Surely
thou shalt know what thy servant can do. And Achish said to David,
Therefore will I make thee keeper of mine head for ever. Now Samuel
was dead, and all Israel had lamented him and buried him in
Ramah, even in his own city. And Saul had put away those that
had familiar spirits and wizards out of the land. And the Philistines
gathered themselves together and came and pitched at Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel
together, and they pitched at Gilboa. And when Saul saw the
hosts of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly
trembled. And when Saul inquired of the
Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim,
nor by the prophets. Then said Saul unto his servants,
Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her
and inquire of her. And his servants said to him,
Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit in Endor. And Saul disguised himself and
put on other raiment. And he went, and two men with
him, and they came to the woman by night. And he said, I pray
thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring him up, whom
I shall name unto thee. And the woman said unto him,
Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off
those that have familiar spirits and wizards out of the land.
Wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life to cause me to die.
And Saul sware to her by the Lord, saying, As the Lord liveth,
there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. Then
said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring
me up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel,
she cried with a loud voice. And the woman spake to Saul,
saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul. And the
king said unto her, Be not afraid, for what sawest thou? And the
woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth. And
he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man
cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle, And Saul perceived
that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and
bowed himself. And Samuel said to Saul, Why
hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am
sore distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God
is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by profit
nor by dreams. Therefore I have called thee,
that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. Then said
Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is
departed from thee, and is become thine enemy, and the Lord hath
done to him and he spake by me, for the Lord hath rent the kingdom
out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbor, even to David,
because thou obeyest not the voice of the Lord, nor executeth
his fierce wrath upon Amalek. Therefore hath the Lord done
this thing unto thee this day. Moreover the Lord will also deliver
Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow
shalt thou and thy son be with me." And the Lord also shall
deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.
Then Saul fell straightway all along the earth, and was sore
afraid because of the words of Samuel. There was no strength
in him, for he had eaten no bread all the day nor all the night.
And the woman came to Saul, and saw that he was sore troubled,
and said unto him, Behold, thine handmaid hath obeyed thy voice.
And I have put my life in thy hand, and have hearkened unto
thy words which thou spakest unto me. Now therefore, I pray
thee, hearken thou also unto the voice of thine handmaid,
and let me set a morsel of bread before thee, and eat, that thou
mayest have strength when thou goest thy way. But he refused,
and said, I will not eat. But his servants, together with
the woman, compelled him, and he hearkened unto the voice.
So he arose from the earth, and sat upon the bed. And the woman
had a fat calf in the house, and she hasted and killed it,
and took flour and kneaded it, and did make unleavened bread
thereof. And she brought it before Saul
and before his servants, and they did eat. Then they rose
up and went away that night." Let us pray. Our Father, we bless
You and thank You for Your Word. We praise You that You have not
left Yourself without a witness. But you have spoken to us, and
do speak to us through this word as it is preached. We thank you, Father, that you have so named your Son
the word. For we know that He is the means
of communication between you and us. He is that mediator between
God and men, the man Jesus Christ. We are thankful, Father, that
You have sent Him and speak through Him. We know that in other times
and in diverse manners You spoke to the fathers by the prophets,
but in these last days You have spoken to us by Your Son. We pray, Father, as we look at
this passage of Scripture tonight, we'll see for ourselves what
You are teaching us here in this strange interruption It seems
between the first two verses of 1 Samuel chapter 28 and chapter
29, we are in awe of who you are. And we do bow for you and
ask for instruction and help as we look at your word. We pray
for those of our company who are sick and going through various
trials, going through different treatments. We ask, Lord, you'd
be with them. For those who are traveling, we pray you'd watch
over them and give them safe passage back home again. Help
us now to worship you in spirit and in truth, we pray in Christ's
name, Amen. The first two verses of this
chapter pick up where the last chapter ended and they are a
reminder of the consequence of applying to the enemy of the
gospel for help. David, as we saw last time, has
lied to Achish, convincing him that he had slain Israelites
and the friends of Israel, when in truth he had killed the enemies
of Israel. Now his lie had caused Achish
to count on him as an ally, and now David's chickens have come
home to roost. Sin, when it is finished, brings
forth death. The Philistines have gathered
against Israel and now Achish calls for David to honor his
promise to join with him in slaying the people of God. He has allied
himself with Achish. Now the time has come to prove
his mud. Compromise of the truth must
ultimately bring you to fight against the truth. That may not
start out that way, but compromise of the truth will ultimately
cause you to fight against the truth. It may seem a small thing,
some seemingly innocuous method or means, but by the employment
of it, the truth is denied. I'm not afraid of much in this
world. That's not due to the fact of bravery, but probably
can be attributed to the lack of interest in crisis pathology.
I'm just not interested in those things. But there is one fear
that has consumed me for about 32 to 33 years. I fear compromising
the truth. I fear it with every fiber of
my being. and temptations abound, to join
in temporal battles that would garner me friends, give me status
perhaps, but I know that somewhere the truth will be compromised,
and from that moment on I will cease to be a minister of the
gospel of God's grace. I have prayed one prayer for
some thirty-three years. I pray it almost every night
when I go to bed. I pray it throughout the day.
From early on my prayer has been, Don't let me lie on you. Don't
let me lie on you. I know I'm capable of it. I did
it for a long time before the Lord saved me when I was in religion.
David is realizing the cost of his compromise, but these two
verses here are really attached to chapter 29. And we'll look
back at these two verses as we look at the compromise as it
begins to unfold and David's response to what he must do concerning
fighting against Israel. We see that in chapter 29. Then
after these first two verses introduce what David has brought
himself to, we have this strange interlude here. about the witch
of Endor and Saul applying to familiar spirits and bringing
up supposedly Samuel from the dead and Samuel speaking to Saul
and declaring that he's going to die and it's just a strange
thing in scripture, a strange thing. The rest of this chapter
is the record of this strange interlude. It seems to be a record
of someone talking with the dead, doesn't it? Someone talking with
the dead. Now, this is a very popular concept
and subject in the day in which we live. It's really a big thing.
Several prime-time TV shows use talking to the dead or necromancy
as the themes of their shows. I mean, one called a ghost whisperer,
one called a medium. These people talk with dead people
all the time. Several men and women have seminars
that let folks talk to those who passed on, and it's really
big money. and a big time thing in the world today. Metaphorically,
dead man speaking is a linguistic tool, is a linguistic tool to
convict or convince. Our Lord said to Cain, Abel's
blood cries from the ground. Abel's blood cries from the ground. That was an indictment of Abel's,
or rather Cain's, fratricide. Abel, the Lord said, being dead
yet speaketh. That convinces us that he was
the one who was accepted by God on the basis and the manner in
which he approached God, and that was with the blood of the
Lamb. So those, that's, it can be used
as a linguistic too. Can disembodied spirits materialize? Yes, they can. Preacher, are
you crazy? No, I'm not. Moses and Elijah,
being long dead, appeared at the transfiguration of Jesus
Christ and spoke to Christ of the death that he should accomplish
at Jerusalem. We find from that that the dead
who are in Christ still have the same line and centrality
of thought. It's about Christ and what He
accomplished on Calvary Street. The Law and the Prophets gave
witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. So there is that example of that
in Scripture. And as far as I know, that instance
and the one we're to look at tonight are the only two such
occurrences in the Word of God. So I think it's to say that this
is not a common experience. However, since our Lord warns
us of such things as seeking out familiar spirits and prohibits
His people from pursuing such things, we can be sure that if
or when they occur, they fall into the category of the secret
things of God. These are strange things. You
will not find in this episode the incantations that this witch
might have used to supposedly call up the dead if that was
what really took place. You won't find that. God didn't
put that down because we're nuts enough to use it and try to call
up dead people, so He didn't put that down. He didn't put
that down. And there is some questions here
just by the language used in the context of what really took
place. Maybe it would help for a moment to explain how mediums
or those with familiar spirits call up the dead, how they claim
to call up the dead. The medium, of course, is approached
by someone for this, which automatically puts the medium in the power
position. And the medium Generally... If you read about it, they don't
see apparitions or don't call apparitions up for people to
see. They speak for the dead. They speak as if they're speaking
to the dead and speaking for the dead. Not necessarily anything
seen, but the voice that they hear, supposedly they tell then
to the person who's looking to hear something from the dead
person, and that seems to satisfy most people. Sometimes they call
themselves They say they're channeling people, and then sometimes they
actually use a voice. If you study the art of ventriloquism,
the earliest use of ventriloquism was done by those who said they
possessed a familiar spirit. And interestingly enough, the
language was often always said to come from the belly. The voice
came from the belly of the person, which they were able to throw
their voice there and hear it. And also, there is an indication
in scripture that the kind of voice they used was often a whisper
or a gravelly voice or a voice that sounded like it was just
coming out of the ground. And you know if you've seen horror
pictures, that's the kind of voice that all these spirits
have, raspy and gravelly, you know, things like that. Why do
I say that? Well, look over at Isaiah chapter 29. Just for a
moment. Isaiah chapter 29. Our Lord describes this voice
of a familiar spirit in verse 4. He said, Thou shalt be brought
down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and shall speak out
of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust,
and thy voice shall be as of one that hath a familiar spirit
out of the ground, and thy speech shall be a whisper out of the
dust." And if you look in your margin for whisper, a chirp or
a peep out of the dust. In other words, so that's the
way people believe that these spirits communicated. That was
the way that the mediums supposedly communicated with the dead. Now,
the question then is answered, or I ask this question because
of what the context is, did Saul actually see Samuel? Does this passage indicate that
Saul actually saw Samuel? No, it indicates that the witch
supposedly saw Samuel because Saul said in verse 14, after
she said in verse 13, I saw gods ascending out of the earth, the
word gods there can be used for judges, magistrates, people of
great renown, or even angels sometimes are called gods in
the East. So she said, I saw gods ascending
out of the earth and he said to her, what form is he of? So it's evident that he didn't
see the form, she said she saw the form. And he goes on to say,
an old man cometh up, and he hath covered with a mantle. Now,
if you're going to talk about an old prophet who she knows
has died, and everybody else knows has died, that's a pretty
good way to describe it. Well, he's really an old guy, and he's got
a mantle. Oh, that must be Samuel. It's got to be Samuel. So, you
know, you can look at these words here and see that Saul possibly
didn't say. It doesn't say that he saw, but
it said he perceived that it was Samuel. He perceived. Now,
perception can come in a couple of ways, but generally perception
has to do with hearing something and coming to a conclusion based
on that. We perceive that God loved us. How? Because He laid down His
life for us. How do we perceive that? Do we perceive that because
we were there when Christ died? Do we actually see Him on a cross?
No, it's declared in the Word of God. We perceive because words
have been spoken concerning something. And I believe that word can be
used here to say that Saul perceived it was Samuel because he believed
the words of the witch of Endor. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't
Samuel because I don't know. I'll be honest with you. But
I know how the system works. And that seems to fit the system
pretty good. Whatever the situation, whatever
the situation, God has forbidden His people, flat out, to have
anything to do with these things. Look at Leviticus chapter 19. Leviticus chapter 19. Verse 31 says, ìRegard not them
that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be called
by them. I am the Lord your God.î Iím
the one you call on, Iím the one you trust, Iím the one you
seek after. Look at Isaiah chapter 8. These are just a few. If you
want to run a reference to it, you can find several in Scripture
where the Lord talks about seeking out familiar spirits. Isaiah chapter 8 and verse 19. And when they shall say unto
you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards
that peep, and that mutter, there's that sound that they make, should
not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead? Shouldn't that be the difference?
Shouldn't that be who the people seek after? So we're forbidden
to do that. And let me tell you this, once
you have stuck your feet in that dark place. It's going to be
hard to get your feet out of it. I'm just telling you that.
I've seen some fine people with great intentions, I mean really,
to try to expose the wiles of the devil and the ways of that
dark world. And I've seen them become oppressed
and strange things begin happening to them, whether they were real
things or whether perceived things. You're not to study occultish
or dark things, ever. Our Lord doesn't give a whole,
just like He didn't give us how this woman did this. And when
He talks about the wiles of the devil, He don't talk about how
the devil does it. He's a deceiver, so you really
don't know what He's doing from one thing to the next. We need
to look to Him who is the truth. Now the Lord has seen fit to
give us this record And thus we can be assured that it is
here for our instruction. For the word of God is given,
breathed by God, for doctrine, reproof, instruction, and correction,
that the man of God might be truly furnished unto all good
works. Also we may be sure of this, though it may not seem
so in any way, this has to do with the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is what this has to do with.
It has to do, it is an aspect of that which concerns Christ
and His elect, and the glory of their salvation, as does everything
else in the book point to. Now the characters and what they
do here in this passage tells us the story, and since it involves
someone doing that which is forbidden by God, we must consider that
this is a warning to those who would seek out and listen to
that which is false. Because all of this has to do
with the dark side, if you will. All of this has to do with the
spirit of error. Saul has been forsaken by God. So he seeks out another means
of discerning things about his life and his future. This is
a warning to us. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 18.
I want you to look here because this is also used by Peter in
preaching in the early days of the new church. In Deuteronomy
chapter 18 in verse 9, it says this, Our Lord says, When thou
art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,
thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. I shall not be found among you
any, anyone that maketh his son or daughter pass through the
fire, that's the fires of Moloch, or that uses divination, or that
is observer of times, or enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or
a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. That simply means someone who
talks with the dead. Greek word nekros, nekros, dead. Necromancer. For all that do these things
are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations
the Lord doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt
be perfect, or upright, with the Lord thy God. For these nations
which thou shalt possess hearkened unto their observers of times,
and unto diviners. But as for thee, the Lord thy
God doth not suffer thee to do so. The Lord thy God will raise
up to thee a capital P, Prophet. a prophet from the midst of thee,
of thy brethren, like unto thee, and to him shalt thou hearken."
Who do you reckon that's talking about? Jesus Christ. "...according
to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in
the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice
of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more,
that I die not. And the Lord said, They have
well spoken which they have spoken." They're talking about not seeing
God on Mount Sinai. He said, ìI will raise them up
a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, and I will put
My words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that
I have commanded him. And it shall come to pass that
whosoever will not hearken unto his words which he shall speak
in My name, I will require it of him.î Now the Lord says, ìStay
away from those divining spirits. Iím going to raise up somebody
that Iím going to speak through, and you better listen to him.
Youíre going to have to deal with Me.î Simon Peter preaching. in the
early days of the church, actually part of His Pentecostal message.
If you want to know what true Pentecostalism is, read Acts
chapter 2 and Acts chapter 3. You will find out what is being
talked about in Acts chapter 3. In Acts chapter 3 verse 22 it
says, ìFor Moses truly said unto the fathers, ìA prophet shall
the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto
Him. Him shall you hear in all things whatsoever He shall say
unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul which will
not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people.î
Now, what did our Lord say of His Son? ìThis is My beloved
Son. You hear Him.î you hear Him. So when we talk about these false
diviners and those who call it familiar spirits, it's in direct
opposition to that prophet that God has raised up that we are
supposed to hear and obey. Now this episode in our text
back in 1 Samuel chapter 28 begins with a reminder of something.
This particular episode. Look back at our text in verse
3. Now Samuel was dead. Now Samuel was dead. This has
already been recorded for us in chapter 25 that Samuel died. So he'd been dead for a while.
But now it just simply says in the beginning of this episode
that Samuel was dead. Why? Bring this previously recorded
fact up at this time. Because it sets the stage and
establishes the premise for everything that follows. The reason why
Saul did what he did, the reason why this familiar spirit was
called upon, the reason why he sought this out is because Samuel
is dead. Samuel is dead. Now, there was
a priest in Israel, a Baathar priest was in Israel, but he
was alive and he was on David's side somewhere now in Ziklag. But there was no prophet and
there was no word from God for Saul. And Scripture says, When
there is no vision, the people fail, or the people perish. The word vision there, if you
look it up, is word. When there is no word, and when
you don't have a prophet from God, you don't have a word from
God. And there's only one prophet
today. I'm not a prophet. There are no prophets living
today, except the one who lives at the right hand of the Father
on high. the prophet, the Lord Jesus Christ. Saul has been rejected
by God. He was rejected way back when
he refused to kill Agag and kept those sheep. God rejected him
from the kingdom and rejected him also. Saul is a reprobate. He is now a reprobate. God has
cut him off. God has done with him. God has
turned it over to his own devices. And if you'll read about reprobation
in Scripture, there's no recovery from reprobation. There's no
recovery whatsoever. Look what it says in verse 6.
And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not,
neither by dreams, nor by Urim, that is, by the priest, nor by
the prophets. God's not answering Saul. He's
crying out, but God's not answering him whatsoever. God's done with
this man. Being a reparate does not diminish
religious zeal, however, it actually entices it, but with a refusal
to acknowledge God as He is. When God is done with a man, He's done with him. He's done
with him. And then man's pursuit of his
warped notion of God drives him to religious activity. This is
not an irreligious thing that's going on here with Saul. He's
having a religious experience. He's having a real religious
experience. However, this is particularly exacerbated when
the man is faced with the real probability of his own death,
and Saul was. He looked up on that mount and
saw those Philistines and said, I'm a goner. I can't beat this
crowd. God ain't on my side no more.
God's not with me. I don't have a prophet. I don't
have a word from God. I don't have a priest. I don't have anything. I've got
to face these people alone. I've got to face these people
alone. Saul's in dire straits, isn't he? He's in dire straits. He's lost David. He has no word
from God and the enemies of Israel at the door. The word says, he
inquired of the Lord. He asked Jehovah to save him.
That's what the word, you'll notice how Lord is spelled there,
capital L-O-R-D. That's Jehovah saves. Jehovah
the Savior. He's asked the Lord to save him.
However, Saul is so far gone, that his prayer is not even considered
a prayer to God. For as God records this same
incident over in 1 Chronicles 10, if you'll look over there,
1 Chronicles 10 and verse 13, the same instance is recorded
here. Verse 13 says, So Saul died for
his transgressions which he had committed against the Lord, even
against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for
asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit to inquire
of it, and inquired not of the Lord. Well, didn't he call out
on the Lord? No, he really didn't. He just called it out. Called
it out. Therefore he slew him, and turned
the kingdom to David the son of Jesse. He had a prayer, but
it wasn't to the Lord. It wasn't to the Lord. The fact
is that he would seek out a witch reveals that he does not trust
God to begin with. And you can't play both sides
of this fence. I know people like to, well, I'm a Christian,
but I believe all that spirit stuff, you know. Go ahead. Go
ahead. Involve yourself if you want
to. Forget about God here. He ain't going to hear you. He
probably done done with you at the end of that. Probably done
done with you all together. Saul, when the woman was found,
disguised himself. And comes to her by night, as
it says in verse 8. It says, And Saul disguised himself,
and put on another raiment, that is, other than his kingly raiment.
And he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman
by night. By night. You don't have to stretch your
imagination to know why that is. Our Lord told Nicodemus who
came to Him night, that men do their things by night because
they love darkness and they hate light. Because their what? Their deeds are evil. That's
why men do things in darkness. If he believed there was something
to this, he would have come and brought daylight to this woman.
But he didn't. He comes to her by night. And I think that plays
into the whole scenario of who saw what and why and how in that
thing too. Because he left the same night.
It was still night. And there ain't no inclination
here that he lit a candle in the whole outfit. But the rest
of the story is stranger than fiction. It's a strange story. Some believe that Samuel was
actually raised from the dead to prophesy the end of Saul.
Some believe that it was an apparition conjured up by the woman who
is clearly a minion of Satan. Clearly there are more things
in heaven and earth than our eyes have seen. People tell me,
well, I've seen a ghost. They might have, I don't know.
I really don't know. I've seen some things under the
influence of certain Things that I thought were odd. I don't know whether people see
ghosts or not. I've heard, I've got family who said they swear
them down they've seen them. Did they? I don't know. I ain't about
to say it don't happen. There's things in this world
we cannot understand. I look at this and I'm just flabbergasted.
I'll be honest with you. It flabbergast me and I'm not
easily flabbergasted to tell you the truth. Some believe it
was an apparition. The fact that the apparition
spoke the truth concerning Saul convinces some that it must have
been Samuel indeed, risen from the dead. But God has used others
to prophesy a truth whom He has condemned. Balaam was used to
tell the truth about Israel in three different prophecies. But
Balaam is described as those who are reprobated by God in
the book of Judea and in 1 Peter. And we're told not to follow
after Balaam's course, because Balaam ultimately, all he said
about Israel was true. But he then told the king away
to mix that multitude by sending his men in to marry those Jewish
women. And if he could get that done, it would be a mixed multitude. Balaam's ass. He spoke, didn't
he? He spoke the truth. The only
one who told the truth that whole bunch, that whole servant. There's
three servants on the road that day and one of them told the
real truth. It was Balaam's ass. Now, you know, Balaam's ass told
the truth, but I'm not going out in the field looking for
a burrow to tell me anything about the gospel. I'm not going to
do it. There was a sorceress in Acts chapter 16. Look over
there. Acts chapter 16. Who spoke the
truth? In Acts chapter 16 and verse
16, it says this, And it came to pass, as they went to prayer,
a certain damsel, possessed with a spirit of divination, the word
python. I don't know what that is, but
I guess it has to do with the serpent. of divination, met us,
which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying." So she
worked for some guys and brought them a lot of money by soothsaying.
"...The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying," here's
what she said, "'These men are the servants of the Most High
God, which show us the way of salvation.'" Anything wrong with
that? Ain't a thing wrong with what that woman said. Now she
was a woman with a familiar spirit. But look at what this, and this
she did many days. I can just see Paul going around,
Paul and Silas going around preaching, and here's this woman behind
them. Who used to be a soothsayer, still is, but don't look like
it no more. Hollering, listen to these guys,
listen to these guys. What did they have to say about
that? But Paul being grieved, turned and said to the Spirit.
So this Spirit within her of divination was the one that was
causing her to speak. I command thee in the name of
Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out of her the same
hour. And there's no record that she ever said anything like that
again. But she was used. She was used to say the truth.
She was used to say the truth. And no telling how many people,
because of her words, stopped in the street and said, didn't
we used to get something from her? And now she's pointing to these guys.
I don't know how it works. Others who I've read believe
that this was a trick of the devil, what happened here in
1 Samuel 28. Since Samuel had long been in
the presence of the Lord, and yet he's depicted as coming out
of the earth. I saw God's coming up out of
the earth. And when Saul says, what does he look like? She said, well, he comes out
of the ground, wearing a mantle, and he is really old. He is really
old. Samuel has been in the presence
of the Lord. To be absent of the body is to be present with
the Lord. Whatever it is, such things make fodder for sophomoric
debate, but they missed what is being taught in this passage
of Scripture. The fact is, and here are the facts, the fact
is that a man is seeking to hear from the dead. That's a fact,
right? I agree with that. A man is seeking
to hear from the dead. A man is seeking to enter into
the spirit world to find answers for his problems. That's really
basically what's going on here. No doubt about it. And he will
get answers. And maybe they will be true answers. But the means employed to seek
them will leave the man in spiritual darkness rather than spiritual
light. You see, there is an order of
things in this world. There is an order of things,
and one of the order, a proper order, for God is a God of order,
not a God of confusion. God will not be spoken to, nor
will He speak to anyone except through a mediator. He speaks through a mediator.
There is God, according to 1 Timothy, and there is man, and there is
one mediator between men and God, the man, Christ Jesus. If you're going to speak to God,
you're going to have to speak to Him through Jesus Christ. They that worship God must worship
Him how? As the what? The Father. And
He ain't a father unless He's got a son. It's that simple. Got to go through
the Lord Jesus Christ. For Saul, there was no mediator. There was no prophet, nor was
there a priest. Those two set as mediators in
the Old Testament. David himself had to learn this,
didn't he? He learned it over in 1 Chronicles 15. I won't get
too much in there, but you remember when David was going to go recover
the ark? He said, let's go get and recover the ark. Had a vote.
Had a congregational vote, and everybody raised their right
hand. Said, yeah, let's go get that ark. And David said, all
right. And he built a fine little ox
cart, and they went over there, and they got that ark, and let's
bring it back home. And while they was bringing it back home, Uzzah was kind of the big dog
to guard the ark. And it was on that ox cart, and
it shook a little bit, and the husband reached up and touched
the iron, and God quartered him. That's what the Word said. It says,
slay him. You look it up, it's slaughtered, just like they slaughtered him.
He quartered him. He blew him up right in front of the people.
You know what David said? We have not sought God after
the right order. There's an order to this, you
see. And what did he do? If you read the context, the
next thing he did, he called for the priests. He says, you're
the guys that are supposed to hold the hierarchy, aren't you?
You're the guys supposed to put those golden stains through those
golden rings and cover it up for nobody to see. And you're
supposed to put it up on your shoulders. And before you do
that, you're supposed to offer sacrifice before you do it. He
said, that's the order. And that, we messed it up. Don
Fortner was preaching down in Australia many years ago, and
it was on a hot summer night down in Australia, and the church
doors were open. And this Jewish fellow was standing
outside. Don Fortner said, there's an
order to this matter of salvation. You can't have salvation unless
there's a priest, a sacrifice, and an altar. And that Jewish
guy went, what? I think I'm going to listen to
this fellow. But that's the truth. The thing is that Jesus Christ
is all those things. He's the high priest, he's the
sacrifice, and he's the altar. Don went on to tell him that
we offer, that's the way we order, and that's the way we worship
God after the right order. Saul didn't do that. He didn't
follow the order. He did it wrong. And in this
scripture, in the scripture, false prophets are often called
spirits. in the New Testament. John says
in 1 John chapter 4 verse 1, ìTry the spirits, whether they
be of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.î
False prophets and spirits are the same thing, evil spirits. False prophets are minions of
the devil. Minions of the devil. The man
whom God has rejected will seek a word from these false prophets
and will always get what he seeks. These false prophets do not wear
a badge that proclaims their falsity. They do not come as
what they are. According to Christ, they come
as what the seeker desires. They come as sheep in wolves
closing, but they are ravening wolves wishing to tear people
apart. They come speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ. If a man stands up and says,
Believe in Donald Duck, I don't think he's a Christian. Do you? I believe he is a Duckian or
a Disneyian. One of those. But not a Christian.
I wouldn't believe that. But when a man stands up and
starts speaking of Christ, if he has the name Jesus Christ,
I start to listen. It may not last but two minutes
before I realize he is lying like a dog, but I'll go ahead
and listen for it because I hear the name. Christ said in the
last days, many false prophets shall come and say, Lo, here
is Christ and there is Christ. Follow them not. They are false
prophets. They speak of dreams. People
said, I had a dream. I'm glad you had a dream. And
sometimes dreams do come true. I don't know how that works either,
but they do. Deja vu. I'm more experienced
with boujee day. I go to a lot of places I feel
like I've never been before. These things are strange things.
People speak of having dreams and their dreams coming true.
I think women are especially The one, the people I've spoken,
not spoken to many men who said they had a dream that came true.
But I spoke to many women who said, you know, I dreamed that
before it happened. You know, I don't doubt that that's true. That may have
happened. People say they have visions.
They see things in the future. They come up with what we call
extra biblical revelations. And here's a way to determine
if a person has an extra bill of biblical restoration. If he
says, God told me, those three words, write him off. God didn't tell him. Because
shortly to follow that is going to be, God told me to do such
and such and told me to have you pay for it. That's how it's
going to end up. Does God speak to men? Of course
He does. Right here. Right here, He speaks to me.
And listen, you'll never glean all He has to say from you if
you spend your whole life reading this book. You'll never get it
all. I've been preaching here 31 years,
all told about 33 years, and I'll tell you what, I've not
touched the hem of the garment. I opened up this book and it
still surprises me. I'm still like a kid in a candy
shop when I open up the Word of God. It's still an amazing
and a wondrous thing to me. Jeremiah said, He that hath a
dream, Let him tell his dream. But in he that hath my word,
let him preach my word faithfully. For what is the wheat to the
chaff? He said dreams are chaff. The Word of God is wheat. It's
food for the soul. We are told to try the spirits
whether they may be of God. So here we can know about this.
This man has sought out a woman who has dealings with familiar
spirits to get Samuel supposedly to rise from the grave and tell
him his future. This woman fits the complete
view of the false prophet or the necromancer or the one who
divides familiar spirits. False prophets are pawns of Lucifer. They do not come painting pentagrams
on walls or sacrificing goats in the wilderness or practicing
witchcraft or worshiping Satan. Such are the devil's failures They are the devil's failures.
False prophets come preaching a message that is of such a good
counterfeit that if it were possible, it would deceive even the very
elect of God. I'm not fooled by that guy over
in Rome. I'm not fooled by him. I know
where he got his hat and I know where he got 99% of his religion.
I'm not fooled by him. But you let somebody stand up
and start talking about the sovereign grace of God. I'll listen to
them. I have. All the way through their
message they talk about the glories of Christ and they end it with
an invitation. They're done. They're done. You know why? That's
an invention of men. Not anywhere in Scripture. Not
anywhere in Scripture. Let a man stand up and say, I
preach the sovereign grace of God, I preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and open up a book, open up a hymn and sing some hymn
that degrades God and exalts man? Cut him off. Just that simple. Just that simple. False prophets
come preaching a message that if it were possible, God said,
would deceive the very elect. They're going to talk about Jesus
Christ. They're going to talk well of Him. Talk well of Him. They look like, talk like, and
act like ministers of the gospel. They teach men how to be holy. That's what false prophets do.
They don't teach men how to be drunks. They teach them how to
be holy. They teach them to be separate from sinners. They teach
them to live good and exemplary lives. They make men believe
that hell and death will not touch them. They make men believe
that what they do, the good things they do, make them acceptable
before God. And it fits the scheme of natural
religion perfectly. The devil is not red, he's not
horned, he's not a long-tailed dragon carrying a pitchfork.
He is not in the bars and the bordellos of this world. He's
in the pulpits! Wristing the scriptures to the
destruction of men's souls, his singular goal is to have his
conference go to hell off a church pew with a Bible in their hand,
accompanied with the seraphic, dulcet tones of a choir singing,
Just As I Am. That's how he wants it, and he
gets his way, because God allows it. They're false prophets. They're
false prophets. The lesson to be learned from
this passage of Scripture, this strange interlude in our context,
is that false prophets are spirits, dead spirits, spirits of error. But they don't appear so. They
look like Samuel. Men perceive them to be Samuel. And even if they tell some truth,
It'll never be the truth of salvation. The prophet's message was, you're
going to die tomorrow. You and your whole cotton-picking family. They'll make you a better man.
False prophets will. They will. They'll make you a
better man. Your sins will be finer sins.
What the old Puritans used to call Splendida Peccata. Shining
sins. or sins of self-righteousness
that look good to everybody but God. They're smoking God's nose. They'll
dress up Adam in new clothes and put new words in his mouth,
but he'll be putting lipstick and fancy duds on a pig, and
that's all it'll ever be. What does the New Testament say
about this? Paul teaches the meaning of this,
of our text in 1 Samuel 28. in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. In 2 Corinthians, Paul said he
was worried in verse 3. He was worried because there
were a lot of people coming in after he preached the gospel
to tell him other things. I fear, verse 3 of chapter 11,
that lest by any means As the serpent beguiled Eve through
his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the singularity. That's what that word simplicity
means, singularity of Christ. For if he that cometh preeth
another Jesus, whom we've not preached, or if you receive another
spirit which you've not received, another gospel which you've not
accepted, I'm afraid you might well bear with them. I'm worried
about that. But I want you to know who they are, Paul said.
Look down at verse 13. For such are false apostles,
deceitful workers. What do they do? They transform
themselves into the apostles of Christ. But that shouldn't
amaze you, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light. The Hebrew word Lucifer comes
from a Latin actually, from the Latin Septuagint, Lucifer. We get our word like luminescence
from it. Or phosphorus comes from the
same word, bright and light. If you look at The word serpent
in the Old Testament, if it has a marginal reading in the Garden
of Eden, he's called the bright and shining one. He comes as
an angel of light. He's not going to appear like
people think he is. He's not. It's no great thing
then if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of what? Righteousness. whose end shall
be according to their works. What is their end? Galatians
chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1. Verse 3, Grace be unto you, and
peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this
present evil world, according to the will of God and the Father.
The evil world is not the planet. The evil world is the evil world
of the Judaizers who are trying to bring the believers back under
the law, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I marvel that
you are so removed from Him that called you unto the grace of
Christ, unto another gospel. Notice that another gospel and
him are the same things. Well, the gospel and him are
the same things. But that gospel is really not
another, but there are some that trouble you and would pervert.
In other words, there is poison, the gospel of Christ. Now look
what he says, but though we, or an angel from heaven, preach
any other gospel unto you than that which is preached unto you,
let him be accursed. Anathema Maranatha. Destroyed
when the Lord comes. As I said before, so say I now
again to you, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than
that which is preached, let him be accursed. Let him be accursed. How do they do it? How do they do it? Colossians
chapter 2. I'm just giving you a few verses.
Our Lord describes this throughout the Scriptures. Colossians chapter 2 and verse
8 says, Beware lest any man spoil you through vain philosophy. Vain philosophy. Love of self. Study of self. And vain deceit. Empty lies. after the tradition of men, after
the rudiments of the world, which is touch not, taste not, handle
not, bringing people under the law, and not after Christ. For
in Christ dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye
are complete in Him which is the head of all principality
and power. Now how do you suppose vain philosophy, vain deceit,
The tradition and rudiments of the world will come at you through
these false prophets. They go, this can be fairly simple.
They're not going to say Christ is nothing. They're not going
to say that. They're not going to say, you
know, don't believe in Jesus Christ. They're going to say
believe on Jesus Christ. But listen, that's not the end
of it. That's just the beginning. We'll
give you a book on how to perceive, they'll say. He'll give you a
book on how to carry on. But that's not the end of it.
That's just the beginning. They're saying you're really
not complete yet if you believe on Christ. But Scripture says,
ye are complete in Him. Ye are complete in Him. And they'll
give reasonable things. They'll say you have to, you
know, join a church, and you'll have to give, and you have to
be a good person, and you have to pray, and you have to read your Bible.
You need to do the, you know, things like that. You'll have to do
those things. Those things are additional. That's not to say those things
aren't good, but those things are product of salvation, not in
any way associated with salvation. Right now, as you are tonight,
if you're believing Jesus Christ, you are as holy as you will ever
be. You are as perfect as you will
ever be. When you go to glory, what you
have in Christ, you're going to take with you. The only thing
you're not going to take with you is that which hurts you here.
It destroys you here. That sorry flesh, that old nature
is going to die and go to the grave. It ain't never going to
raise up again. But you're not going to be more holy in heaven
than you are now. You're complete in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Complete. 2 Peter chapter 3.
Now this is Peter talking to those about the mockers who are saying
Christ hadn't come yet, so He probably ain't going to come
again and so forth and cause them a bunch of liars. But he says in verse
17, knowing that Christ is coming, He's going to destroy this world
with the fervent heat, what manner of men all you ought to be. And
he says in verse 17, Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these
things before, beware, lest ye also, being led away with the
error of the wicked, fall from your steadfastness. Now what
is the error of the wicked? Oh, they're going to lead you
to drink and do dope. Ain't going to lead you to go
fishing into the racetrack on Sunday. Ain't going to lead you
women to wear pants instead of skirts. That's what they're going
to lead you to do. What wickedness? It's defined
in verse 18. The error of wicked is to do
anything other than this, but grow in grace. The word and is chi. even, grow
in the grace even in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To
Him be glory for now and forever. It always comes back to that
simple, plain truth. If you're doing another gospel,
it's because you left the gospel of Jesus Christ who delivered
us from this world. To grow in grace, what does that
mean? It's one of those oxymorons of Scripture. Like screaming silence is an
oxymoron. Grow seems to mean every time
we use it, it's this way. You're getting bigger. Your stature
is changing. You're growing. It's always seen
as an upward thing. We plant our bushes and we watch
them grow. Malcolm gave me a butterfly tree.
Not a butterfly bush, but a butterfly tree. Me and David was talking
this morning. Look how that thing has grown. How did it grow? Well,
it got bigger. But how do you grow in grace? Grace is unmerited favor. How do you grow? Down. That's what growing in grace
is. It's growing down. It's growing and getting closer
to the ground. Old Scott Rich used to say, if you're on your
face when you fall, it ain't gonna hurt that bad. if you own
your face to start with. Donnie Bell said, it's like a
cow's tail growing in grace. It gets longer, but gets closer
to the ground. And the longer it gets, the closer
to the ground it gets. It's a wondrous thing. That's
the answer to it all. All other error is seeking someone
else. Seeking someone else to tell
you what's going to happen. That's seeking familiar spirits.
Listening to the dead rather than the living. Father bless
us to understand and pray in Christ's name. Amen. Good day.
God bless you.