I invite you now to turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 28. 1 Samuel chapter 28, I'll begin reading God's holy word at verse 3. Verse 3, 1 Samuel 28 verse 3. Now 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. The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim. or by prophets. Then 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. So 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 by a spirit and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you. The 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? But Saul, swore to her by the Lord. As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing. Then the woman said, whom shall I bring up for you? He said, bring up Samuel for me. When 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. The 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. He 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. So he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage. Then 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 should do. And Samuel said, why then do you ask me, since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David. Because 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. Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your son shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines." Then 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. And 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. Now, 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." He 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. Now 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. And she put it before Saul and his servants. And they ate. Then they rose and went away that night. Let us pray and ask the Lord's blessing now. Our Father, we thank you for your word. We pray, asking that you might bless your word to our hearts. We pray, grant us faith, increase our faith, and may we see in this passage the need that we have, that all your people have, for the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation that he has wrought. We pray, bless us now, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we read from the prayer requests about a conference that was that took place down in Uruguay about preaching expository sermons from the scriptures and about how to find Christ, preach Christ from any passage. And this is a passage. There's not much good that's going on here. Really nothing good, at least in terms of Saul. And there's an important theme in this passage. That is the theme of fear. Fear has utterly gripped Saul. He's overwhelmed by it. He is utterly terrified, falling on the ground in fear. Why is that? It's because God was his enemy. The truth is that if God is our enemy, there can be no peace, there can be no rest, There can be no joy whatsoever. If God is our enemy, there is good reason to fear. But faith in Christ, Christ who is the truly obedient King, brings us peace with God, deliverance from our enemies, and contentment and rest to our lives. As we go through this passage, we're first going to take a look at the disobedience of Saul, kind of retell the story, and highlight all the ways in which Saul is a complete and utter failure here. Then we'll look at the fear of Saul, then the consequence for Israel. and the need for Jesus. So first, this disobedience, or as I've titled the sermon, Desperate Disobedience of Saul. So the Philistines assemble and encamp at Shunem. In response, Saul gathers all Israel at Gilboa. As the king of Israel, You can imagine him scoping out the vast army of the Philistines, and he ends up frightened by what he sees and recognizes to be an invasion of Israelite land, and he recognizes they have no chance. Obviously, Israel is outnumbered, and things are not looking good for Saul. It would not be abnormal at this point to seek divine guidance. The normal ways of seeking this advice is boiled down in the three methods that are mentioned there in verse six. Dreams, which if you're familiar with the scriptures, typically come to kings. Then there was the Urim, which was the priestly method, and finally prophets who could be sought on behalf of kings or who could directly address the population at large. Saul tried inquiring of the Lord by using these three methods, but the Lord did not answer him either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets. As if to heighten the desperation of Saul, And to set the stage, we have a reminder in verse 3 that Samuel has died and has been buried in Ramah. In fact, we first learn of Samuel's death in the first verse of chapter 25, and verse 3 just repeats this fact in very similar language. Samuel had, of course, loomed large over this entire book so far. ushering in the massive changes that took place after the faithless house of Eli fell. Samuel had anointed Saul. Samuel had anointed David. Samuel was the kingmaker and the premier prophet of the Lord during this period. But we're reminded here once again that Saul, excuse me, Samuel is dead and Saul is on his own. Ironically, if you remember back quite a number of chapters, Saul was at one time considered to be among the prophets. The spirit of the Lord had rushed upon Saul, but later, due to his disobedience, the spirit had departed from Saul. Saul had not been following the word of the Lord for some time to his eternal shame. Now, if Saul had been interested in seeking the Lord through the priestly method, The fact is that Saul had actually entirely cut off that possibility. So we're just kind of reviewing some of the wonderful acts of Saul. Recall this heinous act of murdering all the priests at Nob. What a testimony to his rejection of the Lord. The priests who wore the Ephod, to serve before the Lord, had all been murdered by a Gentile at Saul's command. Recall, Saul had been commanded to utterly destroy, to devote to destruction, all of the Amalekites. Yet instead, he devoted to destruction all the priests and their families at Nob. No longer having any legitimate access to the Lord, Saul goes ahead and seeks the Lord's will through unlawful means. And what a crazy contradiction this is. Yet this is Saul. He asks his servants to find a medium. This is no easy task because earlier in Saul's reign, he had been, to a degree, following the Lord and had cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Cut off means they were put to death. They were to be stoned in accordance with the law of God. You can read that in Leviticus 19 and Leviticus 20. Israel was forbidden from seeking out mediums and necromancers and magicians and all those kinds of inappropriate methods of divining God's will. But it turns out there's at least one medium who has survived the purge who was an Endor, so Saul travels with two of his servants to meet her. Interestingly, Saul disguises himself and puts on other clothes as he goes to meet her. He goes and he meets her at night, obviously not wanting anyone to see him or to recognize him. But to disguise himself, what does he have to do? He has to take off his royal robes. Saul doesn't know it yet, but he's actually participating in divesting himself of his office and of his authority, which has been an ongoing progressive thing throughout the last chapters here of 1 Samuel. The end of the reign and kingship of Saul is fast approaching. Outside of the battle in which Saul is going to die, of which he doesn't really do anything valiant at all. This is the final chapter in the book of Saul's life. And it's really highlighting just how bad Saul has become. Saul could humble himself before the Lord. He could repent of his sin in dust and ashes, He could plead with the Lord for his forgiveness and his grace. That is, as we consider this morning, the very character of God. He is a forgiving God. We see no sign of Saul doing that. Instead, he doubles down on his disobedience to God, goes out of his way to further his disobedience to the Lord's commands, and he takes the Lord's name in vain. So the king who was charged His primary task was upholding the law of God. And he's the chief judge, magistrate of the land. And instead of obeying God's law, he disobeys it flagrantly. He goes and finds a medium. And he goes even further by sinfully swearing to this woman in the name of Yahweh that he will not bring any harm to her. when Saul ought to have put her to death. So the woman calls up Samuel at Saul's request, and Samuel really does appear. She says to Saul, I see a God coming up out of the earth. The word God is just the Hebrew word Elohim, which in this context just refers to a spirit coming from the invisible realm. The witch tells Saul, I see an old man, and this man's wearing a robe. By this, Saul knows that this is Samuel. Saul has, as it were, lost his robe, but Samuel still has his prophet's robe on, the very robe Saul had grabbed and torn, after which Samuel told Saul, as we read from 1 Samuel 15, that The Lord, just as Saul had torn Samuel's robe, so the Lord is going to tear the kingdom away from Saul. This fact is, of course, importantly reiterated in the conversation that Samuel has with Saul. Saul tells Samuel, I'm 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 should do." And Samuel does not beat around the bush here. He said, why did you bring me up? Why are you asking me this? You recognize the Lord is not answering you. You are the Lord's enemy. What do you think I'm going to tell you? The kingdom has been torn from Saul's hand and given to his neighbor. And then 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. In other words, Saul, you and your sons are going to die in battle tomorrow. What was Samuel's first prophecy? If we can remember back that far. The Lord would give Eli and his sons into the hand of the Philistines and they would all die together on the same day. Samuel's last prophecy. The Lord would give Saul and his sons into the hand of the Philistines, and they would all die together on the same day. The prophet's word to Saul is a word of judgment from the Lord. What had happened to the priestly house of Eli was about to happen to the royal house of Saul. The praise and prayer of the Song of Hannah from 1 Samuel 2 is still coming to pass. The Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he exalts. The Lord will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. And the king that Hannah is praying about, praising, and foretelling, prophesying of in her song, that king is not Saul. Saul no longer fills this role. The Holy Spirit has departed from Saul. And Saul hears these last words of Samuel. He falls prostrate on the ground. He has no strength left in him because he's not eaten all day or all night. We don't know. The text doesn't say, why hasn't he eaten? Is it because he's despondent? I mean, he's utterly filled with fear. Perhaps he's made another rash vow as he had earlier. Until all my enemies are killed, no one should eat anything. If they do, I'll put them to death. You know, and then Jonathan eats the honey. Maybe he's made another rash vow. We don't know. The medium offers him food saying, obey your servant. At first Saul refuses, but Saul's servants and the woman urged him and he listened to their words. There's so much irony going on here because, of course, Saul would not obey the voice of the Lord. Samuel said that explicitly to him. That's why you've been rejected. You've not obeyed the voice of the Lord, but now you're obeying the voice of a medium. It has become clear where Saul's loyalties lie. So this is a fitting last chapter to the life of Saul, the king of Yahweh who abandoned Yahweh by disobeying his word and his command. Saul is an utter failure, and this leads to three important matters that this account highlights. First is this, the fear of Saul. Fear is a hugely important theme in this chapter. Saul was, verse 5, afraid when he saw the army of the Philistines. The medium, verse 12, cried out with a loud voice when she saw Samuel. She was afraid. Saul told her, do not be afraid, in verse 13. Saul tells Samuel he is in great distress, verse 15. When Samuel tells Saul that he and his sons will die, Saul fell at once, full length on the ground, filled with fear, verse 20, and was, verse 21, terrified. If we go back a bit into the history of Saul's life, we will see that this is not a new theme. When the Philistine giant Goliath taunted Israel's army, Saul and his men were dismayed and greatly afraid. After Goliath was defeated, Saul became jealous of David and realized the Lord was with him, granting him success. The end result of that, how did Saul respond? He stood in fearful awe of David. And Saul was, it says explicitly in chapter 18 verse 29, he was afraid of David. The spirit was a gift to Saul, but the spirit had departed from Saul. As a result, Saul lacked courage and ended up being afraid of everything. He's afraid of David, so he's tossing spears at David. This fear flows as a result of Saul's sin and unbelief. It flows from the fact that Saul knew that the Lord had become his enemy. Fear is a complicated beast. But you should know that if you make the Lord your enemy, then fear is going to rule your life. Like Saul, you will find no peace and no contentment. Every little turn, every event can just be another opportunity for the Lord to work against you. The solution is to admit that God is right, that he's worthy to be praised, that his commands are just, that he ought to be followed. God has revealed himself as one who is full of mercy and grace and love, and he is willing to forgive your sin. The Apostle John wrote in his first epistle, there is no fear in love. You think Saul had any concept whatsoever of God's love? Did he know God at all? No, he did not. And so his life was consumed with fear. Perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. All of Saul's life, he was running from the Lord, running from that punishment, running from what he knew was inevitable. There is another man who's going to replace me. That man is David. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love. He would not place his faith in the coming sacrificial lamb. He misused the Lord's sacrifices. Instead, he was consumed with a desire, as pathetic and silly as it seems, to try to outwit God. Okay, you're not gonna answer me? I know what I'll do, I'll find a medium and call up Samuel and ask him myself. Obviously, the solution to fear is faith in Jesus Christ, the great King, who rules and defends us, but we'll get to this in a moment. Another thing to notice. Notice, even though it isn't given a whole lot of space in the chapter, it is nevertheless hugely significant. It's stated twice what the consequence for Israel is. Notice what is said here by Samuel in verse 19, the Lord will give Israel into the hand of the Philistines. What had Israel done to deserve being given over to the Philistines? Frankly, the fault lies principally with King Saul. In the first place, Who in their right mind would want to go to war with a king like Saul? And look at what Saul does. He consults mediums, divination, magic to determine his plans. Who does that kind of thing? The kings of the nations do that kind of thing. But this is the king of Israel, the king that Israel had asked for all the way back in 1 Samuel chapter 8, Israel had asked for a king like the nations, and the king like the nations they were given. Israel needs a king who is unlike the kings of the nations, but they are just beginning to figure this out. There are some interesting hints in the final paragraph of our passage that makes this clear. There are connections here. with this meal that Saul has at the witch's table with that of the Passover meal. The medium killed a calf for Saul. She takes flour and bakes unleavened bread for Saul. Saul eats it, then he rises and goes away in the middle of the night. This is a dark Passover, an inverse Passover. It's an anti-Passover. And this indicates, among everything else in this chapter and over so many chapters that we've already considered, that Saul is an anti-king. He is the exact opposite of what Israel actually needs. What some 600 men and their families who follow him have come to see is that David even in a state of humiliation, fleeing and running from King Saul, is the true anointed of the Lord, the one who foreshadows the coming Christ. And that small ragtag band following David represents the seed of a new humanity. Saul had failed to exterminate the Amalekites But David would soon be fighting and destroying the Amalekites just two chapters from now. David is better than Saul. David has a heart for the Lord. David obeys the word of the Lord. Israel loses. Israel is given into the hand of the Philistines because Saul is their king. What Israel needs and what we need is a better king, and that leads us to the final point here, the need for Jesus. Jesus is the king we need. Like Israel, we didn't know what sort of king we needed to ask for. Israel asked for the wrong sort of king, and we would have done the same, but for the grace of God. Far better than Saul, far better even than David, For Jesus has fully obeyed the commands of God with perfection and precision and has left nothing undone of what the Lord requires. All the filth and pollution of Saul's perverted kingship and failed reign All that desperate disobedience we see in this chapter with Saul defiling himself by pursuing the counsel of a medium cries out for a better king, a better head, a better mediator between God and man. Israel was defeated in battle with the Philistines because their covenant head, Saul, was a sinner. It didn't matter how good Israel as a people was. That's kind of irrelevant. The point is that they need a better king. But we find salvation and deliverance from sin and from all our foes because of our covenant head, Jesus, because he is the obedient son in whom God delights. The fact is our obedience is but filthy rags and cannot save us. What we need is a king who is anointed by the spirit without measure and whose obedience and service God rejoices in and blesses. It is God's acceptance of Jesus' death for your sin. It is God's acceptance of Jesus' obedience on your behalf that results in your acceptance by God. King Saul is an anti-type that yearns and longs for the coming of Jesus Christ. So in Christ, believe it or not, you have no reason to fear God. You can just see the fear of Saul dripping off of the words of this chapter off the page. He is consumed with dread. In Christ, God is no longer your enemy. You may now have peace. You may now experience rest in the finished, completed work of Jesus Christ, and you may experience joy and know that God has, in Christ, forgiven you all your sins. He loves you. He cares for you. Faith in Christ, the truly obedient king, is what brings us peace with God and deliverance from all our enemies. You have no need to fear. And that's how this passage shows us Christ, is the fact that Saul is no king for us, no good. The king whom we need is Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us pray. We bless you, our Lord in heaven, and give you thanks that you have given to us your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, a king who, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, we did not know that we needed. You have provided for us above and beyond what we could ask or think or imagine, and that you have given to us the Lord Jesus Christ to be our king and head our savior, our mediator, our deliverer. We thank you that in Christ, we have been brought up into the love that you, our father, have for your son, the love that your son has for you. We have been brought up into that love to experience it. You love us as you love your son. And therefore, we will experience and enjoy with Christ his victory. So we thank you for Christ, our king and our head. We pray that as we go into this week, We ask your blessing as there are many battles and small skirmishes that we partake of in this life. We thank you for Christ, who is our Savior. We pray that we might place our trust in Him all our days and have no cause for fear in this life, knowing that if you are for us, no one and nothing can be against us. We thank you, our Father. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. As we close, I invite you to turn to hymn number 164, O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing. Number 164, please stand to sing.