So Blessed by You All!
1st Samuel chapter 28.
Saul was disobedient before God and served as a king selfishly. As a result, God no longer answered his prayers, nor responded to them. Rather than repent and confess his sins, he turns to a spiritist. His death is predicted.
We can't expect God to work in our lives if we are striving to:
- Be in control or
- Be selfish in our approach.
God responds to:
- A broken heart. Am I broken before God because I recognize my sin?
- A Repentive heart. Do I recognize my need to stop practicing sin and focus on being holy before God?
- A surrendered heart. Am I striving to be in control of my life or am I willing to give up my life and control so God can accomplish all he wants to accomplish in and through my life? What do I need to let go of so God can have complete control?
Does God seem distant to me? Perhaps my heart is distant to Him.
Achish wanted David and his men to be in his army. Ever feel like you were going to be in a battle, but you were about to be fighting on the wrong side? Maybe the enemy was your own flesh? David’s relationship with Achish makes me think of hypocrisy. Achish was blinded by the outward appearance and couldn’t see what was really in David’s heart. How long could David keep faking it? We might be able to “fake it” with others, but God knows our hearts.
Then there was Saul. He was so afraid and became desperate for help. He inquired of the Lord, but didn’t hear any answers. Some people make excuses like this when they say that they “tried Christianity” or that they’ve asked God for help, but they didn’t get an answer. How sincere were they? Instead of seeking God with all of his heart, Saul went another direction by seeking a medium to get answers from Samuel who had already died. Sadly I think that there are many people who are like this. Instead of dealing with their own sin, they want to take shortcuts to be successful and want their best life now without facing the consequences of sin. They may seek out religions, fortune-tellers, or advice from people who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear instead of accepting the truth found in God’s Word.
There are four Bible passages that I was reminded of today when thinking about David and Saul’s situations as well as my own.
Matthew 23:27-28
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
James 4:7-10
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
2 Timothy 4:3-5
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
Jeremiah 29:11-13
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.”
I’m reminded that every temptation the devil sends our way is gift-wrapped as a present. David was given Ziklag but 16 months later the bill comes due.
There’s an important lesson here. The war with the Philistines was set to take place in the northern city of Gilboa which indicates the Philistines had penetrated deeply into Israel. Why? Because Saul had been fighting the wrong enemy – he had been chasing David.
We can easily fall into the same trap where we get so caught up in the small problems that arise as Christians that we’re not ready when the enemy comes to launch his stuff at us. Stay in the Word and put on your spiritual armor every morning before you start your day!
In this chapter we see a woman familiar with the Saul who had listened to the Lord and cut off mediums and spirits from the land. She even predicted consulting a spirit would result in her death. Yet, it’s Saul who is there going back on what he promised, because God is not giving him the answers he wants.
How often do we do the same thing? When are we like Saul, where we choose to follow God, obey His commandments and stay out of sin. We may even share it with family and friends. Talk about or post it to social media… but after awhile, temptation comes back around and here we are back to our old ways? When people question us, like i thought you weren’t drinking anymore? Or said you stopped dating him… we find an excuse and it feels like when we are in our sin, God is nowhere to be found. Just like Saul felt. But it’s not God that has departed from us, it is our sin that separates us from chasing after God. From coming to Him and being still and knowing He is there. Our sin can only separate us from God if we let it. Let’s let it go and let God back in.