I am a Virgo, and my horoscope for one day last week reads as follows: “You've run out of patience with something or someone and may have a hard time dealing with the consequences. Try not to worry too much about it, because things should settle down pretty soon.”[i] That is about as generic and wishy-washy as you can get. I think I could apply this to every day of my life. Now compare this generic prediction to King Saul’s horoscope. Tomorrow, your army will be routed by the Philistines, and you and your three sons will die in battle. That is not only very specific—it’s very scary! Now imagine adding the last line of my horoscope onto Saul’s: Try not to worry too much about it, because things should settle down pretty soon. J
Saul was worried. In fact, he was so overcome with fear, he fell to the ground and terror filled his heart. Saul did not merely consult his daily horoscope, a practice, by the way, which I soundly condemn. Rather, Saul actively pursued necromancy. He consulted a witch so that he could speak with a dead person. We read about this act of desperation in 1 Samuel 28.
3 Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his own town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land.
4 The Philistines assembled and came and set up camp at Shunem, while Saul gathered all the Israelites and set up camp at Gilboa. 5 When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. 6 He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 7 Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.”
“There is one in Endor,” they said.
8 So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. “Consult a spirit for me,” he said, “and bring up for me the one I name.”
9 But the woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?”
10 Saul swore to her by the Lord, “As surely as the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this.”
11 Then the woman asked, “Whom shall I bring up for you?”
“Bring up Samuel,” he said.
12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!”
13 The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid. What do you see?”
The woman said, “I see a spirita coming up out of the ground.”
14 “What does he look like?” he asked.
“An old man wearing a robe is coming up,” she said.
Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.
15 Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”
“I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.”
16 Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy? 17 The Lord has done what he predicted through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. 18 Because you did not obey the Lord or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the Lord has done this to you today. 19 The Lord will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines.”
20 Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel’s words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and night.
21 When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, “Look, your maidservant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do. 22 Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.”
23 He refused and said, “I will not eat.”
But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch.
24 The woman had a fattened calf at the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast. 25 Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate. That same night they got up and left.
This was the low point in Saul’s life. We talk about people like drug addicts who have to hit rock bottom before they ask for help. This episode with the witch was rock bottom for Saul, but sadly, he didn’t ask for help. He was looking for a type of advice, but he was not seeking help. Israel’s arch enemy the Philistines had gathered for a massive attack and this sent Saul into panic mode. He needed to know if he would be successful in battle against the Philistines. He utilized all of the usual methods of predicting the future: dreams, urim and prophets. Saul didn’t have much time to hear from God through a dream, since the Philistines were assembling to attack, but nevertheless, the Lord was silent. The urim and thummin was used by the priests to make decisions. There is no description in Scripture about how this worked, but it would be somewhat similar to a magic 8-ball. Now let me explain that before I confuse anyone. Scholars believe the urim and thummin could have given three possible answers: yes, no and maybe. This is essentially the range of answers in a magic 8-ball, though it has several answers in each category. The enormous difference between the urim and a magic 8-ball is that the Lord specifically directed the priests to use the urim. Problem was that Saul had slaughtered a whole company of priests. In the hands of a Godly priest, the urim would give divine direction from the Lord, but in the hands of Saul, the urim was as useless as a magic 8-ball.
The prophets also fell silent to Saul’s request. All of Saul’s attempts to discern the future were met with utter silence. Last week, a top physicist announced that he believes that one day, time travel will be possible. But strangely he said that knowing the future will never be possible. The news blurb didn’t make mention of this, but the first question that came to my mind was, if time travel is possible, why can’t you also predict the future? All you have to do is travel to a future date, and travel back again, right?! Obviously, this same physicist does not believe the Bible, because the Bible is filled with predictions and prophecies about the future, all of which do come true. Saul knew this was true, but his attempts were met with failure.
What he did next has to be one of the strangest stories in the Bible. After casting out all of the mediums and spiritists from the land of Israel, Saul now sought an audience with a necromancer; a diviner of spirits, whom the NIV calls a witch. The witch calls up Samuel from the dead, and surprisingly, he comes and blasts Saul with one last prophetic message. Questions about this text are numerous. Was this really Samuel or what is it a demonic spirit, as some have guessed? If it was Samuel, how was a pagan witch able to bring him up? If it is a demon, how was the demon able to speak such a Biblical word of prophecy? Let me give you my understanding of these events. I think the Bible speaks plainly that this actually was Samuel. The Scripture is silent on how it happened, but my opinion is that the Lord made it happen and the witch was just a pawn in the Lord’s hands. Just as God used a donkey to speak to Balaam, so he used a witch to bring a message from Samuel.
Obviously, God could have given Saul the same message through any of the other means—dreams, urim or the prophets. But I think God chose to use the desperate and sad sin of divination to speak one last message to Saul. I believe this is true due to the content of Samuel’s message. Just before Samuel told Saul that he and his sons were going to die in battle the next day, Samuel said this: The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. 18 Because you did not obey the Lord or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the Lord has done this to you today. Do you recall this event from chapter fifteen? It is another difficult story where God punished Saul because he would not obey his command to completely destroy the Amalekites. If you have any questions about why God would require such a thing, I encourage you to go back online and read that sermon, because we don’t have time to go over it again. Suffice it to say that Saul directly disobeyed an important command from the Lord. Later in the chapter, Samuel caught up with Saul and confronted his disobedience. Saul put a spin on his side of the story that would make the best politician jealous. Samuel asked, “Is this the way you obey the Lord?” Saul defiantly answered his accuser, saying, “Well, that all depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” But Saul’s political spin had no effect on Samuel as he proceeded to utter the famous passage. (1Sam 15:22-23)
“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Did you catch the irony there? The very last message that Samuel ever spoke to Saul was the one in chapter fifteen. And what was at the heart of the message? “Rebellion is like the sin of divination.” Do you see? Saul’s rebellion eventually did lead to actual divination. When you read this story, we feel like this has to be the absolute low point in Saul’s life. We have been focusing a lot on Saul’s failures, insanity and sin, but we have to remember that Saul wasn’t always this way. He began strong and he seemed to be following the Lord. He had a good relationship with Samuel. It is possible that Saul gave the order to rid the land of mediums and spiritists at the urging of Samuel. But now this once great leader had lowered himself to donning a disguise, sneaking around at night and visiting a necromancer to call up Samuel from the dead. It is a desperate, sad story of a final fall from grace. Can you imagine if I were to do such a thing? I know that there are people in the Viroqua area who do channeling of spirits. When the In the Light magazine was still being published, there used to be an open invitation to attend such sessions. I know enough people that I am confident I could locate a channeler of spirits or some kind of witch within two to three phone calls. I could put on a disguise and sneak around at night to visit a diviner of spirits. As strange—and as creepy—as it sounds, It would not be difficult to engage in the actual sin of divination as Saul did.
But you see, as bad as this was, Saul’s sin of divination was not really the low point in his life. The low point in his life was ten to fifteen years earlier when he had rebelled against the Lord. When he said to God, “I will not do what you ask of me,” he had set in motion the course of events which led him to a witch in the middle of the night on the eve of his death. When we read Samuel’s words, “rebellion is like the sin of divination,” which do you think is worse—rebellion or divination. When we see Saul begging a witch to help him, or if you think about me finding a witch or a channeler in Viroqua and sneaking off to talk with demons, it seems as if the sin of divination is far worse that mere rebellion. Divination is utterly repulsive and disgusting. It stands for the exact opposite of everything God and his word stands for. Divination is creepy and dark and a bit like watching a horror film when you all alone during a nighttime thunderstorm. The sin of divination somehow seems far worse than mere rebellion, but God says that rebellion is like the sin of divination.
Let’s look at the main characteristic they have in common.
Both rebellion and divination reject God’s authority. In divination a person is seeking the authority of the diviner who has the power to call up spirits but the rebellious person is also rejecting God’s authority and is standing upon their own authority. The rebel only wants what he or she wants. The rebel wants to do things their own way. The rebel knows the truth of God but rejects it in favor of their own desire and will. Please note that when I use the word “rebel,” I don’t necessarily have in mind the James Dean type character, a rebel without a cause, who drives fast cars and runs with fast women. The rebel I am referring to is the rebel that lies within each one of us; the rebel who hides their rebellion behind a cloak of nice looking spirituality. Rebellion is simply this: knowing God’s will and deciding not to do it. You don’t have to do the opposite of what God tells you to be a rebel, you only have to ignore what God tells you.
If you remember Saul’s rebellion with the Amalekites, he actually did part of what God told him to do. He fought against the Amalekites but he did not totally destroy them. Saul tried to make the claim that this was obedience. But it wasn’t. It was a sneaky form of rebellion that not only passively hid behind a cloak of spirituality, but was actively flaunted his rebellion all the while calling it the will of the Lord. Let me define the types of rebels. First, you have the defiant rebel who gets right in your face and tells you what they think of your rules. The defiant rebel often does the very opposite of what you tell them. The second type of rebel is the quiet rebel. This person is outwardly obedient and compliant but is quietly hiding their rebellion. The quiet rebel will do one of two things: if they are an adult, they are most likely to keep their rebellion to themselves. They have hidden their rebellion for so long they don’t want to take the risk of being exposed. But if the quiet rebel is a child or teen, if they don’t change their direction, they are likely to turn into a defiant rebel in the future. Anyone who has a complaining spirit is a quiet rebel. Complaining is telling God that you don’t like what he has given you and you believe there is a better way. Complaining isn’t usually called rebellion because it is a quiet rebellion. The third type of rebel is the covert rebel. Saul was a covert rebel in regard to the Amalekites. A covert rebel disobeys God but actively claims that his rebellion is Godly obedience. Covert rebels tend to be active in the church and may even hold positions of leadership. A covert rebel is like a double agent. He or she claims allegiance to one authority, namely God, all the while they are serving another authority, namely themselves.
Now which type of rebel is worse—the defiant rebel, the quiet rebel or the covert rebel? Our first reaction might be to say that the defiant rebel is worse, because they are so active and bold in their rebellion. But at least you know where you stand with this kind of person. For the most part they are not hiding their rebellion. On the other hand a quiet rebel is like a ticking time bomb—you don’t know if or when the quiet rebel will explode into a defiant rebel. But perhaps worse still is the covert rebel who is not even aware of their own rebellion. They are so effective at serving as a double agent that they have convinced themselves that their selfish desires actually align with the will of God. I don’t know which type of rebel is worse, but I suspect that each of us has aspects of all three, with one type being the most predominant. Of the three, I am most likely to be a covert rebel. This is true with all pastors because their ministry is also their livelihood. That’s why I need people to get in my face and test my motives. I need people who hold me accountable and who make sure I have not deceived myself into thinking that my will is the same as God’s will.
So which one are you? Are you more of a defiant rebel, a quiet rebel or a covert rebel? None is necessarily worse than the other and each is uniquely dangerous in its own way. I am fairly confident that no one in this room would ever sneak off to a witch or diviner of spirits in the middle of the night. I don’t have to raise my voice and say, “Stop visiting the local necromancer. Stop calling up people from the dead. What’s wrong with you people? It’s wrong and you need to stop!” None of us actually practice divination like Saul did, but God has said that rebellion is like the sin of divination. We need to become just as disgusted with our own rebellion as we would if we were visiting the necromancers at night. God has said they are like one another. They both reject God’s authority and replace it with something else.
The really ridiculous thing about rebellion is, like Saul, we ask God to bless us in the middle of our rebellion. Saul was looking for an answer as to the outcome of the battle with the Philistines. Ultimately I think he wanted God to tell him that everything was going to be alright. In other words, Saul wanted God to bless him in the midst of his rebellion. I think this was the essence of Samuel’s words to Saul. In effect, Samuel said, “Saul, you’re a rebel and you’ve been a rebel for along time. You rejected the Lord, so why would you bother me to ask me if the Lord is going to hand you a victory in battle. It’s too late, Saul. It’s just too late.”
It was too late for Saul. I am not saying that God would not have forgiven him if he had truly repented. If evil men like Nebuchadnezzar and Manasseh could repent and receive forgiveness, then certainly Saul could have repented. But God knew that he wasn’t going to repent in the last twelve hours of his life. Saul received a horrible horoscope from a reluctant necromancer. It was too late for Saul. But it’s not too late for you and me. We still have plenty of time to repent of our rebellion. In fact, this ought to be a daily exercise. When we roll out of bed in the morning we need to start the day with a prayer like this.
“Lord, I’m a rebel. Some time today I will most certainly reject your authority over my life and choose my own way. I am a complaining, self-seeking, rebel who needs your loving correction right now. Lord, please stop me before I choose to go my own way.”
Whatever you do, don’t be like Saul and ask God to bless you in the middle of your rebellion. You see, our rebellion is like a prayer force field—it stops our prayers dead in their tracks. God will simply not hear our prayers while we hold onto rebellion. If he blessed us in our rebellion, it would be like aiding and abetting the enemy. You don’t give missiles to your enemy so they can fire them at you. In the same way, if God were to bless us in your rebellion, it would only serve to strengthen our rebellion. Hs blessings would make us a better rebel. You wonder why your prayers seem to so often hit the ceiling? Maybe it’s because we are clinging to rebellion while we offer our prayers. It’s not too late to repent.
Rich Maurer
April 6, 2008