Turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 28, if you would, please. 1 Samuel chapter 28. Now, the Lord willing, we'll deal with the first two verses in our next study when we consider chapter 29. Verses one and two here of chapter 28 are connected really with the end of chapter 27 and the beginning of 29. And what we have in between here, then the remainder of chapter 28 is a very dark interlude.

You know, an interlude is a pause between intervals and that interval being chapters 27 and 28. Now there are a few chapters in all the Bible that are as dark unsettling and as awkward as 1 Samuel 28. And I've titled tonight's message, The Death of Free Will, and I hope that by the end of the message you'll see why I titled it that. You may not until the end.

Now this chapter shows us clearly what happens when a man spends his life resisting God, women too, one spends their life resisting God and then at the worst possible moment needs him. In these verses, Saul needs guidance and God gives him silence. Saul does what most desperate sinners do who have shunned God. He looks elsewhere for answers, which is always the wrong place.

Look at verse three. Now Samuel, Samuel the prophet 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 the wizards out of the land. And the Philistines gathered themselves together and came and encamped in Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel together and they encamped in Gilba. And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of Jehovah, Jehovah answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets."

Now, the picture we have here, or what we see here, is that Samuel the prophet is dead, He was the one who once advised Saul, and he's now gone. And God goes silent, which sets the stage for the crisis that follows.

Friends, we can't live on past voices. We can't survive on yesterday's grace. We need grace for every day. fresh and new every day. Even the best human mediators die. You know, I consider having myself and many of you having lived in a time where we've had some of the greatest preachers this world has ever known. They're not known like some of the old preachers or those prophets in the Bible, but I could name names and you would agree. We've heard some of the finest gospel preaching that's ever been preached. But many of them have passed on. And you know the ones that I'm speaking of.

So even the best preachers, the best mediators, I mean go-betweens, those who take God gives them the word and they give it to us, die. And that's what sets the Lord Jesus apart as the one mediator. He's the living and eternal mediator, one who never dies. And he raises up preachers, you know, to continue that work. And it's he that does it, and it's his word that saves us.

Hebrews 7.24 says, he abideth forever and hath his priesthood unchangeable, wherefore he's able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth. He ever liveth to make intercession for thee. We as believers always have a mediator on the throne of God, at the right hand of God, in all power and majesty and authority, who pleads our case and our cause. We are so blessed. Well, you know it and so do I.

Now verse three tells us that Saul had his king at one time or another remove the mediums, the necromancers and the wizards out of the land. And on the surface, that seems to be a commendable thing and seems to be obedient to the will of God. But now Saul proves that that was more policy and not repentance. When God stops communicating with Saul, he runs straight to the very sin that he himself outlawed. He goes to a witch, the witch of Endor. And what proof that is, that external reform never changes a dead heart. Law-based works may restrain behavior for a while, but it never, ever regenerates the soul. Never. We're not saved by works. We can't keep the law. We can't be saved by works. And the Lord said through the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 36, 26, the book that bears his name, a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit I will put within you and I'll take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I'll give you a heart of flesh. That's the only reason that we have life. God gives us life. God gives us a heart to believe. Saul changed the law of the land, but he didn't change the lordship of his heart. That's the point I'm trying to make. When God is rejected, he's almost always, always replaced with a counterfeit spirituality. And that was the case with Saul. Saul seeks the dead for answers. When we seek the world, we're doing the same thing. When we seek the world for counsel, for advice, we're seeking the dead for it. And that's what we see here. Now, at first, verse four seems like nothing more than just a military strategy among two nations, but it's much, much more than that. You see, one who stands before their enemy without God is in trouble. When David stood before Goliath, he made it real clear to the giant right then, he said, I come to you in the name of the Lord God. Who are you to defile God and his army? And he said, this is what I'm gonna do to you by the power of God. He didn't say, you know, I'm a really good with this slingshot. He said, God's gonna take you down to that. One who stands before their enemy without God's in trouble. And Saul gathers an army, but he's already lost the most important thing, and that's his relationship with God. God's gone silent on him. God's not with him. Without the Lord, no flesh is gonna obtain victory. Did you hear me? We stand before our enemies. If we stand before our enemies without God, we stand no chance. Saul has no prophet. He has no word from God. He has no guidance. He has position. He's still king. He has resources. He gathers his men together. He's got numbers, but he's without God and he's without hope in this world. So is every sinner without Christ, without God, without hope. Christ in us is the hope of glory, right? There's no hope of salvation, no hope of eternity apart from having Christ. That is every human condition without the Lord Jesus. And this is where we all find ourselves apart from God and His grace in Christ. Our enemies are real. Confrontation is unavoidable. Each and every one of us are gonna deal with our enemies. We're gonna deal with Satan, we're gonna deal with death, we're gonna deal with the grave, and I don't want to be confronted with them without Christ, and neither do you. Now, the Philistines are gonna advance whether Saul's ready or not, and sin and death and Satan and even self are not fictional. There's no opting out of this battle that you and I are facing, and the question is not if we'll stand, but how and with whom we'll stand. Israel's leader here is scared to death, and I can assure you that his men knew it, and what's he gonna do now? And you know, I thought about that, and yet there's still no doubt in my mind that if Saul would have just humbled himself before the Lord and asked the Lord to forgive him and to be with him that he would have been. But he didn't. He didn't. And oftentimes the Lord just leaves a man to himself. The Lord himself said, my spirit shall not always strive with man. Sometimes God has enough and says, okay, have it your way. Have it your way. But God's people don't want to have it their way. We want to have it His way. These verses, again, expose man's fallen condition and need of a mediator. And Israel's gathering highlights what they lack, and that's a king that truly represents them before God. We have that. We have that, don't we, in Christ, the King of kings. We have a gospel that declares just the opposite. God himself steps in to fight for us. The Lord fights our battles. We don't have any reason to be afraid. We don't have any reason to worry or fret or not know how everything's gonna turn out because God's already told us. We just need faith to believe it and only he can give us that. We can, without Christ, we can gather every advantage as Saul had and yet still be doomed, and he was. But with Christ, the battle's already decided. The war's already won. The outcome is decided. The victory's finished. Saul's heart trembled. Life is fearful when the Lord is absent. Fear is the fruit of separation from God. Perfect love cast without fear. Think about that verse. Look at that verse sometime. Meditate on it. What does that mean? That means God's love for us in Christ through His finished work removes the fear of judgment, punishment, And when we fully grasp, when God enables us to fully grasp that Christ bore our judgment, the fear of what we deserve vanishes. Now I know what I deserve, and if you're one of God's and you've been taught of God, you know what you deserve too. We deserve death and condemnation, but that's what grace and mercy is, is God not giving us what we deserve. And now our prayer is not like the world who says, give me what I deserve. Our prayer to the Lord is don't give me what I deserve. Give me grace, give me mercy, what I don't deserve. And if you sincerely want it and ask for it, he will. He's faithfully promised. What a God we have. The gospel provides refuge. Christ is our refuge. Saul stands under the weight of God's law. He's condemned. He doesn't have a mediator. What a hopeless place to be. I shiver to think of being in his shoes. I really do. He brought all this upon himself too. Christ faced the terror that you and I could not. That being the judgment and wrath of God, it fell upon him. We deserved it. He didn't. But he took our room instead. He took our place. He stood in our place and he took it for us. Death, the grave didn't have any power over him. And here's the great thing. We died with him. We were buried with him and were raised with him. And now we're seated at the right hand of God with him all because of what he did for us. We have no reason to be afraid. He'll never leave us nor forsake us. And you know what? Never and forever is a long, long time. Sure is. God's silence to Saul didn't start in chapter 28. In chapter 13, Saul ignored God's command. He took the priestly role upon himself and offered a burnt sacrifice in Samuel's place. In chapter 15, 1 Samuel chapter 15, his obedience to God was partial. He spared what God explicitly told him to destroy. He spared Agag, the Amalekite king, And he justified his disobedience. God told him to wipe them all out. Even the sheep and the cattle and all that. But Saul kept some of the best livestock. And when, remember Samuel came to him and said, what's that I hear? I hear sheep, you know, crying. And Saul said, oh, you know, I kept them to offer a sacrifice unto the Lord. In other words, I did this for the Lord's sake. Well, that's not what the Lord told you to do. He justified his disobedience and excused it for worship. He claimed to keep the best animals to sacrifice unto the Lord. So Saul disobeyed God, and then he claims that he did it for God. Well, the only reason I disobeyed is because I wanted to, you know, offer an offering unto the Lord. What a picture of man's depravity. And I'm telling you, we'll justify anything and then, and do so by saying we did it for the Lord. Our sin in most cases is not ignorance, friends, it's just selective submission. It's all obey God as long as it aligned with his own judgment and his reputation and his advantage. And let me say this, that partial obedience is dressed up in religious clothing and it's nothing more than disobedient. That's why God went silent on him. It's our sin that separates us from God. We say that all the time because it's true. That's what Isaiah 59 tells us. Christ is the only reason that God didn't go silent on us. God's silence exposes the cost of rebellion. Such silence isn't cruelty, it's judgment. God isn't just being cruel, it's his judgment upon man's disobedience. Saul spent years ignoring God's word. Now he gets what he chose. And that was a life without God's word. What he didn't want, now that he wants it, he doesn't get it. Sin is not just breaking God's law. It's breaking fellowship with God. Now look at verse seven. 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 unto him, behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at 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 me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. Now, sin and rebellion always, always, always looks for a substitute when God is rejected. Saul had rejected God's word. Remember when he had all the priests killed? He had ignored repeated warnings. He tormented David, who was God's anointed. God's not silent because God's cruel. God's silence was brought on by Saul's cruelty, by Saul's sin. And when God's voice is gone, Saul doesn't repeat it. He seeks another voice. He seeks another mediator. And this time it's a medium, it's a witch. One who claims to communicate with the spirit world, especially the dead, and they call them necromancers. They claim that they can communicate with the dead. You know, you've seen it in the movies and all that mess, seances. Saul seeks guidance, information, and power among the dead. Fear without faith drives men into darkness. He went down to this woman in the darkness of night, but true faith trusts God even when God's silent. Now, there's a great lesson right there for us to learn. There's been times when God has been silent to me. I'm not hearing from God. I'm not receiving from God. I feel all alone. I feel like I've been forsaken. Do we forsake Him? Do we go elsewhere? Where else are we gonna go? That's what Peter said. The Lord said, you gonna leave me also? He said, where else are we gonna go? You have the words to eternal life.

So faith, true faith, causes, even when God's silent, causes us to still trust Him. He may be silent, but I know He's there. And I know He's promised that He'd never leave me nor forsake me. I'm gonna trust in Him, regardless, regardless.

Saul's seeking information, not reconciliation. He says that I may inquire. He wants insight, not forgiveness. He wants direction, not deliverance. And that's why most folks wind up making a false profession in religion. because they seek God for the same reasons Saul sought the witch of Endor. They want insight and direction, but they don't want Christ. They desire power and success, but they don't desire God. That's the reason that this health and wealth gospel that we hear so much today is so popular. People want worldly things and they think that only God can give it to them, so they get religious.

But God's not gonna be consulted like an oracle. Saul goes down in the darkness of night, but Christ went into death and rose in the morning. And Saul consults a forbidden witchy woman, but the believer in Christ comes right into the throne of grace.

When a man or a woman refuses God's word, they will eventually, and you can just write this down, they'll eventually embrace spiritual deception, and they'll call it wisdom. I've seen it happen time and time again. You know, it's amazing to me some of the things that folks will believe and do instead of simply bowing to the truth of Scripture. Men choose to believe the most foolish, outlandish, bizarre things, rather than just bowing to the truth of God's word, which is much more practical and feasible to believe than the things they wind up believing.

Most every time, the reason they don't is that it requires the sinner to vacate any thoughts of having any participation in anything that has to do with spiritual and eternal life. In other words, there's gotta be something for me to do. I got to have a part in this, and the only reason that man wants to have a part in it is so he can share in the glory of it. But when God shows a sinner, there's nothing you can do, but trust in me. They'll either believe it or they won't.

The Lord said it in just seven words, and I was thinking about that day as I counted those words, seven's the number of completion and fullness, and Christ spoke seven words that settled the matter. You know what they were? He said, for without me, you can do nothing. That settles it. What must I do to be saved? You can't do anything to be saved. And even your believing, is according to the mercy and grace of God.

Saul sought a medium as a mediator, a counterfeit go-between for spirits and humans, one who claimed to have access, to access hidden knowledge apart from God, one who practiced what God explicitly told them in Deuteronomy 18 to do. Well, let me read it to you. You don't have to turn there. God said by Moses, there shall not be found among you anyone that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee." God said they're an abomination. Now, I don't see them as much anymore, but See these fortune tellers, you know, every now and then you drive through a little town and you'll see a palm up in a window or something, you know, and a fortune teller. And a lot of people, oh, that'd be fun. Let's just go try it and see what they say. You better stay away from it. You better stay away from it. God says it's an abomination. A medium is not a counselor, not a prophet, not a harmless curiosity. They offer guidance without God, and God should drive them out. There's one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus, just one, no substitute, just one go between God and man, and that's Jesus Christ. Now look at verse nine. And the woman said unto him, that being Saul, behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done. Now she's talking to Saul, but he's disguised himself. And she says, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land. Wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life to cause me to die? You're asking me to do something that could cost me my life. And Saul, now look at this. Verse 10, and Saul swore to her by the Lord, saying, as the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this night. What a dark, dark moment. Saul, rejected by God, turns to a forbidden means, witchcraft, necromancy, in an effort to secure his future. The woman, unaware at first that this is Saul, explains to him, you're putting my life in danger in a life-threatening situation. In order to help him, she's saying, I could die for this. And then in verse 10, we have even a darker moment, because Saul swore to her in the Lord's name that no punishment would come to her. He invokes the name of the Lord to protect someone who is in blatant disobedience to God's law, having himself outlawed these witches. And he had to go to Endor to find her, because they weren't allowed where he was. Proving again that when Saul drove them from the land, that it didn't affect him in any way at that time. It's different now. It's different now. Now he shows his true colors and his lack of care for God's word when it benefits him to do so. Like Pharaoh who finally obeyed to relieve his pain. Like Ahab who obeyed when judgment was unavoidable. Like Israel in the wilderness who obeyed when God fed them and protected them. Like Judas who followed the Lord Jesus as long as it suited his expectations. Like Ananias and Sapphira who appeared obedient for reputation's sake. Like that rich young ruler who was obedient as long as it was comfortable. And the Lord said, go sell all you got and give it to the poor. That was a different story, wasn't it? And he went away saying. Verse 11, 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." Now, every commentator that I read on this passage of Scripture says that this wasn't really Samuel who was raised from the dead. Most claim that it was some kind of a demon that looked like and pretended to be Samuel. They say that no witch could raise somebody from the dead. I agree with that. I don't have any problem with that. I agree with it wholeheartedly. But listen, God can. God can. And I believe that God did. I believe this was Samuel. And we're not told exactly what he told the woman, but I can just imagine, and you know, I don't like to, say things like this, because it doesn't really matter what I think, but maybe it was something like, you know that Saul you're talking to, because that's the first thing she says, for thou art Saul. When the, you know, when the Lord died on the cross, you remember the hour that he died, many graves were opened and there was dead people. I guess they were alive, weren't they? They were walking around Jerusalem. And on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah. Listen, God can raise a name. God raised Samuel to pronounce judgment on Saul. Look at verse 13. And the king said unto her, be not afraid for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw God's 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's 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, What hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? And Saul answered, I'm sore distressed. "'For the Philistines make war against me, "'and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, "'neither by prophets nor by dreams. "'Therefore I have called thee, "'that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.' "'And then said Samuel, "'Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, "'seeing the Lord is departed from thee, "'and has become thine enemy?' What a terrible thing to have the Lord as your enemy. I can't imagine. I don't want the Lord as my enemy. Samuel's saying, the Lord's your enemy. He's not going to help you. He's departed from you. Verse 17, and the Lord hath done to him, or for himself is the language, as he spake by me, "'For the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of your hand, Saul, "'and given it to thy neighbor, even to David.'" Now we know in our study of 1 Samuel that Saul had done a lot of bad things. We mentioned some of them already tonight. But then Samuel here tells Saul one thing that he did that caused God to cut him off and forsake him. One thing, verse 18. Because thou obeyest not the voice of the Lord, nor executest his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day. Now that's going back again to 1 Samuel chapter 15. I mentioned it briefly earlier. Saul did not do what the Lord told him to do with regard to the Malachites, who were the descendants of Esau. God said, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. The Lord had promised Moses back in Exodus chapter 17, that he would do away with the remembrance of the Amalek from under heaven. And the Lord God had sworn to the Lord Jesus Christ. It says the Lord swore to the Lord that he would war with Amalek from generation to generation. This would be a war that keep on going and going and going. Amalek represents and pictures The old man, we talked about this before, the old nature within us, and he's gonna war against our flesh as long as we reside in this flesh. You know that and I know that. There's a war going on within my members, Paul said, and it's gonna keep going on as long as I live in this flesh. Now, the Amalekites deserve God's judgment. Stay with me. God told Saul to kill them all and Saul disobeyed. He spared Agag their king. He left the top dog of the bunch. He left the decision maker. He left the king who made the decisions. And it repented the Lord that he had set up Saul to be king, for he turned back from following God and hath not performed his commandments." 1 Samuel 15, 35. Now listen, Saul did 75 to 80% of what God told him. But partial obedience, as I said a moment ago, is nothing more than disobedience. And the Amalekites clearly representing the flesh, our human nature, fallen and sinful. Saul spared. King Agag, the decision maker, the one whose will is always to war against God, cannot be spared. You see the picture? False religion spares the will. What do they preach? Man's free will. They spare themselves who they believe to be the decision maker. As we will see, do you know who in the end killed Saul? Do you know? An Amalekite. Isn't that something? The one that Saul spared killed him. If we spare the flesh, the decision maker, the same will happen to us. Though we're born again, we still have something called the flesh, and we're gonna war against it till the day we die. It's sinful, it's wicked. The believer's been given a new nature, a holy nature, a nature that loves God and His holiness, but we still war. It's going on from generation to generation. My kids war with it, their kids war with it. It's called the flesh, so what are we supposed to do? The same thing that Saul was, put it to death. put it to death. It's a battle that will never be over until I'm dead. Because every time we kill it, it just comes back to life. The battle, as the Lord said, goes on from generation to generation. Saul did what religion still does. He spared Agag. And that's what religion does. It spares the flesh. Oh, you're not all that bad. It tells the same story that their father, Satan, did in God. Well, you shall not surely die while you be as God. And that's all religion does today, is that by your own decision-making, by your own free will, you can have salvation. And it's a life in the pits of hell. Saul spared the decision-maker, and so does religion, and we must not. Religion calls it free will. There's no such thing. Our will, the sinner's will, is in bondage to their nature, to their sin. There's nothing free about it. I cannot not sin. I can say, okay, I'm gonna will not to sin anymore. I've said that before. As a young boy, I'm never gonna say that bad word again, only to say it pretty much after I said I wouldn't, immediately after. To say I have a free will is to say that my will can trump God's will. It's to say my will is sovereign over God's will. That can't be so because God's will is always done. It's not of him that will it, but of God that showeth mercy. Isn't that what the scripture says? How can I have a free will? It means that my will's over God's will. Can't be. False religion still wants to spare Agag. You don't have any problem killing everything else, but not the will, not the so-called decision maker. That's why Saul was rejected. Lord, deliver me. from my will. That ought to be a constant prayer of ours. Lord, deliver me from my will. Don't let me have my way. Not my will, but thy will be done. Isn't that what Christ said? Verse 19, Samuel said, moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines and tomorrow, shalt thou and thy sons be with me. The Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines." In other words, Israel is going to be defeated and Saul and his sons would die and they When Samuel says, you'll be with me, he's not talking about Saul, you're gonna be with me in heaven's glory. He said, you're gonna be with me in this life after death. But Samuel would be separated from Saul by a great gulf as Lazarus was from the rich man. And then look at verse 20. Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth and was sore afraid because of the words of Samuel, and there was no strength in him." Now it goes on to say that he hadn't eaten and all, and he hadn't because he was afraid. You know how we get sometimes when we're tore up and all... And turmoil, we don't feel like it. And God was behind it. God was behind it. And I suppose, friends, the sooner that we learn that we don't have any strength, and we don't, we don't have any strength, that all our strength's in Christ alone. The sooner we learn that, we'll seek Him to put away and kill the agag within us. The death of our free will is what we pray for.