I’ve been in 1 Samuel for weeks. There is so much to learn from the life of Samuel, Saul and David in the scriptures here. This weekend and this morning I sat down to once again read and study the encounter that Saul had with a medium in Chapter 28. Here is a king that was frustrated because God was no longer speaking to him and decided to take matters into his own hands and go out and seek the help of a medium under disguise. Samuel had died, so Saul was upset that he didn’t have him there for advice or to speak to him on behalf of God. He wanted this medium to bring up Samuel.
As I read over this and studied I couldn’t help but think about the chapters I have previously read when Saul was hearing from God. What happened that he was no longer speaking to Saul? His pride got in the way and he consistently rebelled against God. We even find Samuel telling Saul in Chapter 15, verse 23 that if you were rebelling from God you might as well obey the spirits of the dead and practice witchcraft! It’s one in the same.
Ouch.
Well, here’s what we see Saul doing in Chapter 28. He goes and visits a medium (some translations call her a witch) to see about hearing from Samuel. He is asking of a medium after he had expelled them from the land because it was forbidden by the Lord. He is so worried about the Philistine army attacking him that he is desperate to hear from Samuel. He does and the message he receives is not a good one.
He will die tomorrow.
Why do we not hear from God?
Disobedience on our part.
God doesn’t move…we do. We get frustrated when we don’t hear Him speaking, but most of the time it is because we have chosen to rely on ourselves, turned from Him in disobedience or acted against God’s word or will.
So, when we don’t hear his voice, we decide that we will do whatever it takes to bypass Him and seek counsel from wherever and whoever in an attempt to “know what to do.” When we get in great distress, we don’t want to look at the reason we aren’t hearing from God, but we must remember that God never ceases to stop speaking, we are usually spiritually deaf because of some reason. Most often that reason is sin. It separates us from God.
Also, we must remember that God doesn’t always say what we want to hear. When the Holy Spirit speaks to us, it may not always line up with our plans and our will. We can’t take matters into our own hands and bypass what He has for us, because it will surely not end well.
We see a great example of in the life of Saul of what happens when we let ourselves get in the way of God’s will for our lives, turn from God and look to the things of the world for answers. You may get an answer, but it will certainly bring more fear and less peace, just as it did with Saul. We may not fall on our own literal sword as Saul did, but we will surely fail.
You can’t bypass God and expect a blessing.
