We are nearing the end of our study in 1st Samuel. Ultimately, this story is about the sovereign hand of God as he establishes the kingdom of Israel on earth amidst the ups and downs of a nation that continually turns her back on God. It has been a story of disturbingly dark contrasts between what is holy and what is unholy – between what honors God and what is despised by God.

Samuel has been a faithful prophet who spoke for the Lord. Israel has turned her back on God because of her desire to be like the surrounding nations. Saul was chosen by God to be Israel’s first earthly king as a fitting judgement against Israel for her rebellion – due to his own rejection and rebellion against God. David was chosen by God to be Israel’s second earthly king as an instrument of grace and restoration – despite his sinful failings.

As we near the end of our study – just three short weeks from now – we can feel the intensity ramping up for a grand finale. Samuel is dead and Saul, the rejected king, who rejected God’s rule over his life, is in his final moments of kingship. He has been trying to hold onto his kingship by the might of his own hand – especially in his murderous rampage against David – but he has been no match for the invisible hand of God.

At the moment however, Saul has relinquished his murderous campaign against David because David, as we learned last week, has given into his fear of Saul – he has experienced a sixteen month bout with doubt that has become sinful and has landed him squarely where sin lands all of us – intimately in bed with the enemy.

Let this be a warning to all of us: playing with any kind of sin – and especially the sin of deception (no matter how small the lie) will always have dark and deadly consequences. You cannot outrun the consequences. Sin has one goal in mind: your spiritual death.

The passage we are studying today is all about the consequences of sin. For Saul, it is a bitter end before the casket closes over his dead body. For David, it is the first round of consequences that brings the appropriate guilt and shame needed to turn him back to trusting in the Lord as he becomes king Achish’s bodyguard.

1In those days the Philistines gathered their forces for war, to fight against Israel. And Achish said to David, “Understand that you and your men are to go out with me in the army.” 2David said to Achish, “Very well, you shall know what your servant can do.” And Achish said to David, “Very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life.”

3Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, his own city. And Saul had put the mediums and the necromancers out of the land. 4The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa. 5When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. 6And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. 7Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a medium at Endor.”

8So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments and went, he and two men with him. And they came to the woman by night. And he said, “Divine for me by a spirit and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you.” 9The woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Why then are you laying a trap for my life to bring about my death?” 10But Saul swore to her by the Lord, “As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.” 11Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” He said, “Bring up Samuel for me.” 12When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul.” 13The king said to her, “Do not be afraid. What do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” 14He said to her, “What is his appearance?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage.

15Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” Saul answered, “I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams. Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do.” 16And Samuel said, “Why then do you ask me, since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? 17The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given to your neighbor, David. 18Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day. 19Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”

20Then Saul fell at once full length on the ground, filled with fear because of the words of Samuel. And there was no strength in him, for he had eaten nothing all day and all night. 21And the woman came to Saul, and when she saw that he was terrified, she said to him, “Behold, your servant has obeyed you. I have taken my life in my hand and have listened to what you have said to me. 22Now therefore, you also obey your servant. Let me set a morsel of bread before you; and eat, that you may have strength when you go on your way.” 23He refused and said, “I will not eat.” But his servants, together with the woman, urged him, and he listened to their words. So he arose from the earth and sat on the bed. 24Now the woman had a fattened calf in the house, and she quickly killed it, and she took flour and kneaded it and baked unleavened bread of it, 25and she put it before Saul and his servants, and they ate. Then they rose and went away that night.

#1: DAVID BECOMES ACHISH’S BODYGUARD (VV. 1 – 2)

That first round of consequences for David is spelled out in verses 1 – 2 where the Philistines gather their armies to wage war against Israel. King Achish – of the Philistines – you may remember, fully trusts that David has made himself into an enemy of Israel, due to David’s insidious lies (1 Samuel 27:12).

What a pickle for David. We do not really know everything that drove David to earn the trust of the enemy king by lying to him, but one would be right in saying that David’s lies were driven by his overwhelming fear, and were rooted in his mistrust of the Lord, and then couched in a desperate attempt at self-preservation.

Commentators go to great lengths here to warn us of the dark consequences of practicing deception because it is the language of Satan himself. What begins as one very small, minute, itty-bitty lie, will always grow as new lies are presented to cover the original deception. Who ever thought that the Veggie Tales story of Larry Boy and the Giant Fib could play out into such serious consequences as this?

To be sure, this story is no children’s tale! The enemy king now trusts his new partner in crime. You understand what it means to trust someone right? To trust someone is to place your entire life into their hands for safe keeping. This is exactly what this enemy king does when he tells David that he and his men are expected to accompany his army into war against Israel.

Catch this… the enemy has David trapped in his lies to the extent that it is demanded that he now do deadly harm against those whom he is not only related to but has been anointed to serve and shepherd as king. The consequences of sin never affect only you – sin will always affect those closest to you, those who place their trust in you.

What will David say in response to king Achis’s demand? He could refuse to do harm against his loved ones. He could come clean about his lies. He could repent right now by telling the truth and taking a stand against his own sin and trusting the Lord to preserve and bless him. But he does not do this does he? Nope, not at all!

Instead, David practices what appears to be more underhanded deception when he says, “Very well, you shall know what your servant can do” (v. 2). In other words, he is telling the enemy that he will see, very soon, how skilled he is in battle. He also still refers to himself as the enemy’s servant – or slave. He still sees himself as the enemy’s slave. As though David now belongs to the enemy rather than the Lord!

Is this not the core of the issue for David right now? He has taken on the identity of the enemy rather than the identity of a chosen, son of God and anointed King over God’s people. This is what sin does – it jacks up your identity and leaves you in bed with the enemy, practicing evil things and making evil plans to satisfy the idols that have been erected within your heart.

The enemy loves this. This is exactly where the enemy wants to get every one of us – indebted to him, in an intimate relationship with him, ready to even defend the works of darkness and to do whatever our slave master demands. That is exactly the response of this enemy king with David when he responds to David’s promise by saying “Very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life” (v. 2).

He literally says that David will be the keeper of his head as he trusts him with his life.2The enemy trusts David with his life – with his head – even though not so long ago, David took the head of the Philistine giant. Oh, how far David has fallen. What shame. What guilt. He is now destined to protect and preserve the enemy and all his dark and perverse workings as he submits to the demands of the enemy.

Again, what a sad place for a child of God to be – due to the ignorant passions of a deceitful heart. For now, though, this is where we leave David until next week – sitting in his shame and in his guilt, uneasy about his future, wondering how he will get out of this one.

#2: SAUL SWITCHES ON WITCHES (VV. 3 – 7)

Now, in verses 3 – 7, the narrative shifts its focus back to the failed king Saul as he switches things up on his witch policy. It is interesting to note the condition of Israel at this precise point in history. David – the anointed incoming king has been compromised and has enslaved himself to the enemy. Saul the current rejected king, is fresh off the death of Samuel, his once upon a time spiritual guide and confidant, and he has recently outlawed any practice of witchcraft (v. 3).

I assume that Saul outlawed witchcraft because of his recent bout with a demonic spirit – although he could not see past the tip of his nose enough to see that the demonic spirit was his own doing – the consequence of rejecting the Spirit of God. Nevertheless, once Saul sees the great Philistine army assembled against him along with hearing that David and his fighting men are with the enemy (1 Sam. 27:4), he was filled with a great fear (v. 5).

Who could blame him? This is doomsday for Saul and Israel! This is the kind of fear that makes you go weak in the knees in desperation – where the only hope you have is in a miraculous move of God. Although Saul had not been desperate enough to actually repent of his wicked ways earlier in the story, he still thinks it might work to seek the Lord in prayer over his current circumstances – never imagining that he was about to face his final consequence for his rebellion.

Saul tries all the normal ways of hearing from God (v. 6, dreams, Urim [dice], prophets)but all he gets are crickets. I wonder, if Saul had humbled himself, if he had confessed his sins, if he had owned those sins instead of justifying or blaming them, would God have answered him?

I would like to think that the Lord would have answered him, but as it is, Saul basically practices some religious performance to get himself out of a jam again and the Lord has had enough of his devilish heart. What is Saul to do? Saul does what every person who is separated from God does – he dives deeper into his sinful behavior and begins to seek out a witch to give him guidance.

Once again, what a sad place to be. Sadder than David, I think. David is self-deceived but he will be brought back to dependence upon the Lord (CHS. 29-30). But Saul? He is much worse off. His sins of self-preservation, self-exaltation, self-promotion, and self-reliance, have won him the ability to travel down the darkened corridors he once banished as he seeks out the help of a demonic witch.

What a sad state of affairs, to have so rebelled against the God of the universe that his protective hand is completely removed from you as you slither further and further away into darkness.

#3: MEETING WITH THE WITCH OF ENDOR (VV. 8 – 14)

This exactly what Saul does in verses 8 – 14 as he slithers further and further into darkness when he meets up with the witch of Endor. Have you ever begun to tiptoe through a doorway you knew should not cross? Ever entered into something you absolutely knew was out of bounds in relationship with God?

If so, you should count yourself blessed for having some forewarning, because I do not think Saul even had an inkling of the darkness he was slithering into – I think he was so far gone from God’s presence that there was no longer any sense of right or wrong inside his heart as he went off to meet with the witch of Endor.

The author tells us that Saul “disguised himself” presumably to get passed his men without being recognized. He takes two men with him and enters the witch’s home under the cover of darkness (as they prepare for their dark deed). And then, without any thought whatsoever, Saul jumps off the edge of the cliff and asks the witch to get ahold of Samuel.

The witch is rightly alarmed when Saul shows up with his initial request to contact a dead person, because she knows the penalty for witchcraft is death. But Saul assures her by swearing “by the Lord” that she will not be punished for her services (vv. 9 – 10). What is alarming to me here, is the fact that Saul would swear by the Lord – the God who would not answer him and who had rejected him for his rejection.

Depraved people love to use the Lord’s name in vain in as a false assurance for their sin. Super twisted if you ask me! Saul has turned the Lord’s name into a meaningless religious mantra. Out of one side of his mouth, he is chasing demonic powers, while out of the other side of double-tongued mouth, he is using the Lord’s name to seal the deal of false assurance to cover up his sin and rebellion. The consequences of false religion are deadly – you cannot live in the light of the Lord while playing around in the darkness of demonic deception.

But this is who we have come to know Saul as: he is full of darkness, deception, and demonic impulses. Even the witch realizes this when Samuel appears before she can even call him up – presumably Samuel just shows up by the Lord’s initiation since the demonic cannot call up a saint such as Samuel – and in the light of Samuel’s appearance, the witch recognizes Saul and calls him the deceiver he really is (v. 12).3

It is a fascinating irony to me that a worker of demonic witchcraft would call Saul to account for his deception, but she does so with fear and trembling, to which, Saul calms her nerves and asks her what she sees and she describes Samuel to a tee, right down to the robe that Saul had torn earlier in the story (vv. 12 – 14).

Once “Saul knew it was Samuel” he fell flat on his face before him – something he should have done before the Lord before this day ever arrived. But I digress… Saul is clueless to understand the moment at hand. He has no idea what is coming next.

#4: SAMUEL CONDEMNS SAUL, HIS SONS & ISRAEL (VV. 15 – 19)

With Saul face down in the dirt, Samuel begins to speak and what comes next in verses 15 – 19 is nothing short of the final condemnation for Saul, his sons, and all Israel. At first, Samuel seems to be annoyed in verse 15, when he asks Saul, “Why have you disturbed me”and rightly so, since Samuel had been in the perfect presence of his Savior, free from the filth and stress of this sin-soaked earth.

Saul’s answer to Samuel’s question does not seem to lighten the mood at all because once Saul explains that the Philistines are preparing to wage war against Israel and that, in his own words, “God has turned away from me and answers me no more” (v. 15), Samuel gives Saul an answer that would have chilled the toughest of us to the bone.

Samuel’s answer in verses 16 – 19 is basically a scathing indictment and foreshadowing of final judgement for Saul’s rebellion that is going to happen the very next day. Samuel asks Saul why he even bothered to summon him since he clearly understands that the Lord has turned away from him and is now his enemy. He reminds him of his earlier warning that is now coming to fruition in the kingdom being torn from him and given to David.

He reminds Saul that all of this began because of his failure to obey the Lord in wiping out Amalek. He tells Saul that what is happening to him right now is something that “the Lord has done… to you this day” (v. 18). And he wraps things up with a chilling conclusion in verse 19 when he says, “the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me” (presumably Saul will not be with Samuel in Heaven but with him in death).

All of this is going to happen tomorrow as the hand of God delivers Saul into the hand of the enemy for his final earthly judgment. All because as verse 18 states, “you did not obey the voice of the Lord”. Saul has just received the final verdict, guilty!

He has also received the final sentence, death by the hand of God through the hand of the Philistines. This leads us to the final section of our text today where Saul falls into utter distress.

#5: SAUL IS DISTRESSED (VV. 20 – 25)

When you get caught up in sin – like Saul and David both do in our study over the last few weeks – you only have two paths to follow: utter broken repentance and ownership of your sin, or full loss of hope as your heart fills with inescapable distress as you face the irreversible consequences of your rebellion.

Saul is of course in the latter place – full of inescapable distress. I suppose he could have still repented and owned his sin fully and fallen on the grace of God. He most likely would have still faced the earthly consequences of his impending earthly death. But his eternal relationship with the Lord would have been restored.

Instead, Saul falls to the ground, according to verse 20 because he was “filled with fear because of the words of Samuel. And there was no strength in him, for he had eaten nothing all day and night”. The thing about great stress is that it has the tendency to rob us of our appetite for what should nourish and sustain us through the stress. Saul had long ago lost the appetite for what would have really strengthened and nourished him – namely the presence of the Lord.

And now he cannot even bring himself to eat food. Interestingly, and I do not think the contrast should be lost in these final verses (vv. 21 – 25), the demonic woman that Saul sought help from, now – with the encouragement of his men – orders Saul to eat what she provides, which turns out to be a meal fit for a king even though Saul was no longer fit to be the king.4

KEY TAKE AWAYS…

As far as key take aways are concerned, you really have to stop and appreciate the great warning we are given here in this story. What a dark day this was in the history of Israel and her kings. David is compromised and enslaved to the enemy because of his sinful lies. Saul is about to die. Israel is about to be defeated.

David began this story by submitting to his slave master’s demands. Saul began this story by consulting with a demonic witch only to find himself receiving some comfort from that same demonic witch at the end of the day.

For both men, all prideful posturing is done. All the lies – self-deception and otherwise – have ran their course. All of the attempts at self-preservation, self-promotion, self-exaltation, and self-justification have come to an end. No more blame game. No more hiding from the truth. David is in slavery and the end is around the corner for Saul. This is a sobering and distressing warning for all of us: your lies will find you out, the enemy will enslave you, and you may wind up finding comfort with demons.

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion, I am finding it difficult to wrap this up today. Both David and Saul are in such utter dark places. There is really no light at the end of the tunnel in our immediate text. Sometimes maybe it is best to leave us sitting in this darkness with our characters. Maybe it is actually more faithful right now to let us sit here and feel the hopelessness of the situation in the story and how that hopelessness relates to us if we are caught up in sin.

I want to preach the Good News of the gospel. I want to remind us of the hope we have in Christ. But I think that we sometimes rush to that Good News too quickly and we wind up glossing over, justifying, blaming, or forgetting the utter sickness of our sin. Yes, in Christ, every blessing is available to those of us who call upon on his name. Forgiveness, grace, mercy, love, new identity, the promise of eternity… all available to every one of us.

But my question is this… have you asked the Spirit of the Lord to reveal the sin in your life that you are enslaved to? Have you listened long enough to come to a place of full disgust with that sin? Have you asked the Spirit of God to remove the spiritual blindness from your eyes? Have you asked him to remove the spiritual deception from your heart? Have you asked him to help you walk in the light of truth? Have you asked him for the strength to do what is right or to make things right? Have you begun to walk in obedient action to what He has revealed to you?

That barrage of questions is meant to help you do what neither David nor Saul have done in our text today. The choice is yours today just as it was theirs back then. Stay in slavery. Submit to sin. Face certain consequences. Ultimately die in your sin. Or seek the Spirit of God as you trust in the work of your crucified, risen, and returning Savior to wash you clean and set your feet back on the Rock of Ages. – Amen!

1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).

2 John, Woodhouse, 1 Samuel: Looking for a Leader, Preaching the Word Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2008), 509 – 510.

3 Ibid., 515.

4 Ibid., 518.

5 Matthew Henry, John Gill, Arthur Pink, An Exposition of I & II Samuel, (Mac Dill AFB, Florida: Mac Donald Publishing, 1980), 265 – 267.