OUT, INTO THE NIGHT

1 Samuel 28:3-25
Thousands and thousands of Philistine soldiers prepare for battle. They march out to Shunem (v.4) to begin the intimidation process, and the attempt to destroy Saul and all of Israel. Saul begins to feel the terror for he is only man, and a man now without the Spirit of the Living God.(v.16) Saul knows full well that the Lord has left him. He no longer gives Saul counsel nor speaks to him in dreams. (v.6) His fault: he failed to humble his heart before God.

Saul finally seeks out a spiritist who is able to bring the supposed "Samuel" back from the dead. Whether this is Samuel or the Devil, God uses this spirit as a mouthpiece for a prophetic statement against Saul. Saul soon finds out he and his sons are soon to die. (13-19) This adds to Saul’s dismay. He is to loose the Kingship, Israel will be defeated and given to the hands of the Philistines, and he and his sons are soon to die. After hearing this depressing, heartbreaking, and fearful news, Saul in his exhausted state, eats a meal prepared by the spiritist and he regains his energy. He and his men proceed out into the night. –"Then they arose and went away that night." (v.25) What a dark ending to the reign of Saul. He and his men go out into the night! This is true spiritual darkness and lostness. Saul’s life was once filled with the enormous presence of God and is now only a voided vacuum, a dark hole needing to be filled.

How many of us Christians energize our physical bodies and then head out into the night without spiritual strength? Do we eat dishes prepared by forces of darkness and journey off thinking we have spiritual nourishment? How many of us turn into Saul on a daily basis and fail to humble ourselves before God and then proceed out into the night? I pity the Saul "Christian". How often do we fear the Philistines and march out looking for answers apart from His WORD? How capable am I Lord to become so callused to your ways? If you request that I be Your means to deal out wrath against Amalek, I will. (v.18) If you demand I heed your voice according to your commands, I will. (v.18) But I cannot will unless You will me to. Will me not to proceed out into the night, like Saul, on the nourishment prepared by Satan. I know You will not tear the kingdom from my hands as you did with Saul. You are able to make me stand whether I leave in the night (God forbid!) on my own strength, or in the daytime, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But my heart wants to choose the latter!! Because the former makes me terrified, as Saul must have been, as he left out into the night to his apparent doom.