The Last Meal, Part 2

The death of King Saul paved the way for an entirely new plan of operation and ushered in David's kingly line which led to the Messiah. When Jesus died, he paved the way for an entirely new operation and the creation of the church and this new line.

Saul's death led to a rather unlikely person, an unknown shepherd boy from a poor family to sit upon the throne. So also the death of Jesus Christ has reached unlikely people like you and me. Have you ever experienced a time when you were walking in disobedience and as a result God seemed far off?

The problem is that those two things are incompatible. We can't continue to take delight in our sin and walk in disobedience and at the same time expect to walk in close fellowship with God. In the Old Testament, King Saul tried to live that way. There were times when he seemed to want a relationship with God but mostly his life was marked by rebellion. We're going to learn more about this today here on Wisdom for the Heart.

Here's Stephen Davey with a message called, The Last Meal. What David means here is that God will not respond to a request of him that you deliver from an unrepentant heart that is cherishing sin you know you should confess. So here's Saul complaining, Oh God, you know, he just won't listen to me anymore.

He won't tell me anything. And you think, wow, why would you expect him to when you refuse to repent? The tragedy here is that Saul has chosen to be wayward rather than worship in honor of God and you just can't have it both ways. You can't have it both ways. It's like a child wanting to commune or have fellowship with mom or dad and at the same time rebelling, right?

It's like you when you were a child. Your parents told me you rebelled against them and still wanted communion with them, right? How many of us are guilty of that? You wouldn't raise your hand until I did. You chicken.

Okay, you just you can't have both. Chuck Smith all told a funny story and his commentary here on what happened to him years ago when he visited the hospital one evening, woman in the church was critical condition and he came to visit as he pastored in Fullerton, California. And she's walking through the parking lot. He spotted the husband of the woman that he'd come to visit. They both attended the church. He pastored and the man was standing off to the side of the front entrance of the hospital smoking. The man caught sight of Swindoll walking toward him at some distance away and he evidently didn't want his pastor to see him smoking. So he stuck his hand with the lit cigarette into his front pants pocket. Swindoll commented, I just decided to go over and carry on a conversation with him.

A long conversation. He said the man turned all shades of red, fidgeted, smoke was literally coming out of his pocket. Finally he just left and he said, look, why don't you just go ahead and finish it? The man actually looked at him and said, finish what? And he hurried off in a cloud of smoke. Somebody came up to me after one of the earlier services and said, maybe that's the origin of the phrase, liar, liar, pants on fire.

Could be. Listen, we don't go to God for advice or communion or worship while at the same time attempting to hide something from him that he might not be pleased with as if he can't see it. Swindoll is complaining, God doesn't answer me anymore. But he's got stuffed into his royal robes, a heart that is smoldering with disobedience. And he knows it.

He knows it. But it is tragic. He can hear the war chant of the Philistines and he cannot hear the voice of God. This is the tragedy of Saul's unrepentant life.

Secondly, let me point out the reality of an unseen world. Notice verse seven. 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.

Isn't it interesting he asks for a woman? Most scholars believe he knew she existed. He knew that she had escaped the purge. He just doesn't know where she's living at the moment. His servants do. In fact, one author said she's related, some believe, to the royal family.

There are connections. The Bible in the Hebrew text literally refers to her as a mistress of necromancy. In other words, she consulted the dead in order to determine the future. Now Saul has categorically refused God's prophets and God's word. His disobedience has blocked God's prescribed methods of gaining insight and wisdom.

And we've been told this is sufficient for our life, right? He is rejected before the completion of scripture, the prescription of God through his prophets and priests. And because of that, he says, you know what? I know there's a woman who's a medium. She can contact the dead.

I want to try to get an appointment with Samuel and hear from him. This is what happens next, verse 8. 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 for me by a spirit and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you. And the woman said to him, well, surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land.

Why didn't you land 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. By the way, don't miss the irony that he's swearing by the name of the Lord. He is at that moment disobeying.

This is how rock hard his heart is. Verse 11, the woman said, well, whom shall I bring up for you? He said, bring up Samuel for me. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. That's a long way of saying she screamed, which is almost comical. She evidently wasn't expecting anything. And by the way, Samuel is going to emerge before she starts any incantation, before she, you know, she throws a frog into the cattle or whatever, before she, you know, draw something on the sand and then gets in the middle of it and begins to moan and chant.

None of that took place. Here comes Samuel. By the way, God can do this.

He has done this with Moses and Elijah, brought them to the Mount of Transfiguration to bolster the faith of Peter, James, and John. Now, I will tell you, and we'll pause for just a few moments because there's a lot of ink spilled on whether or not this was really Samuel. I mean, what's really happening here? Is the devil doing something? Is this a demon? Is this an apparition?

Is this some mist? Or is this really Samuel that God allows to come back to pronounce this final judgment or reaffirmation of the judgment? I would throw my hat into the ring with those who say it's literally Samuel. And there are five reasons why I'm going to say I'm faster than you can write.

So I don't want you to write them. Just listen. First, because the woman saw him and described him. Now, if you look at verse 14, she's polytheistic, she's superstitious, and she describes a god coming up from out of the earth. And then she described him as an old man, as he gets a little closer, wrapped in a robe.

So she's describing a man. Secondly, Saul recognizes him, not just the description, he evidently it's implied sees him, because he bows before him. Thirdly, because the biblical text literally refers to this thing as Samuel three times. And Samuel said, and Samuel said. Fourthly, the message that Samuel delivers is a mirror message of what he had already delivered to Saul years earlier. He said to Saul, God has taken away the kingdom from you and he's going to give it to your neighbor. What he does here in this text is he adds a name to the neighbor, David.

One more reason, and these are an ascending order of importance, that this had to be God's divinely inspired prophet. And here it is, because Samuel knew the future. The dead do not know the future any more than the living, beyond what God has already provided. We do know how it wraps up. We don't know when, do we? We don't know when.

We're not sure of all the details. We interpret literally what God has delivered to us. But God has revealed to us the world of those that have departed, hadn't he? However, they don't know the future, which is why the man who's in torment in Hades, he's still there today, waiting for the final judgment where Hades is poured into hell. And he is so concerned about his brothers, he doesn't know what's going to happen to them, Luke chapter 16.

It isn't like he dies and all of a sudden knows now what's going to happen to his brothers. What about the believer? Well, you have the believing martyrs who are martyred in the coming tribulation and they're at the throne of God and they're saying, how long, oh Lord, before you vindicate our blood? They know he's going to vindicate it because they've read Revelation, but they haven't been told when.

And so they're asking. So believers don't know the timing of God's events. The dead don't know the future any more than we do.

However, keep in mind the deception of the underworld. While they do not know the future by means of their communication systems, they know what's happening a thousand miles away right now. Could communicate it to somebody a thousand miles distant from them. They can read your email. They can read the email somebody's writing to you, which you won't get because it gets thrown into spam until you can figure out how to get it back in your mailbox. They can read the letter that's been mailed to you before you get it and they know what it says. They know the nickname of your great grandfather.

They know your departed pet's favorite toy. They know all that. I mean, the devil is deceitful and his kingdom has communication methods we know nothing of, so we don't trivialize them.

We don't focus on them and we definitely don't solicit information from them. Because they could deceive us with legitimate information. Because of things they have been able to communicate and what they do see. And people today are led to believe in some strange spirit world, distracted and deceived, taken away from God's revealed word, which is their intention. They don't know the future any more than in generalities or through prophecies revealed by God. Now back to my fifth point for a moment. Samuel is obviously provided with information from God himself. Why?

Notice how specific it is. Look at verse 19. Moreover, Samuel is saying to Samuel, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, note this, and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. That is you and your sons are going to die. Tomorrow you've got less than 48 hours to live. By the way, this was one final message of judgment through the prophets Samuel.

But don't miss this. This is one final invitation by God's grace. I mean, can you imagine being told, even the believer, wouldn't it be great to have a 48 hour notice? You got 48 hours and you're going to be with the Lord.

Great. I mean, you got things to clean up and fix and straighten up and maybe some things to get right. Wouldn't that be great? If you had 48 hours, not that you only have 48 hours, but wouldn't it be great if you were told you had 48 hours before that happens? Saul has been given a 48 hour notice. He had 48 hours.

He got things to fix. Now it'd be great to read that Saul fell down and pleaded for the mercy and forgiveness of God. He falls down, you'll notice in verse 20, prostrate, filled with fear as he should be because of the words of Samuel.

There's no strength in him. He hadn't even eaten all day and all night. But the next verses tell us they convince him to eat a meal and he sits on this woman's bed while she fixes it.

Takes several hours. In fact, most of the day he eats. No whisper of sorrow over sin. No, no begging for the God of Samuel to forgive him. Instead he eats his meal and this is implied in what he does next. Listen, he's sitting there and he comes to the conclusion that his own plans are infallible because he eats and he leaves, not even considering the word of God that this is going to be his last meal.

How do you know it? Because he marches into battle with his sons. Even though Samuel has prophesied defeat and death, he's thinking to himself, ah, you know, as I've been waiting for that veal to be cooked, baked, whatever, I think I can get around this. You know, maybe it was a mist or some apparition or maybe she's a really good witch. Maybe it wasn't really true.

Maybe Samuel's wrong. He's been running from God for more than a decade. I think I can keep running and get away from it or get away with it. Get away from God. Maybe I can avoid this death verdict from the priest and prophet of God. I couldn't help but think of a story I've shared many, many years ago told often by Peter Marshall to his congregation where he pastored in Washington DC.

He also served as the chaplain of the United States Senate. He would often tell the legend of the Middle Eastern servant who went to the market to purchase food for his master's household. He turned a corner in the marketplace and came face to face with the grim reaper wearing his trademark black hood that covered his face. The grim reaper suddenly raised his hand and his sickle into the air and the servant, terrified, ran thinking that death had come for him. He ran to his master and begged the loan of a horse so he could ride away to another village, the village of Samara where some friends live where he could hide out until death lost track of him.

His master agreed. He sped away to the village while his master went on then to the marketplace to purchase the food himself and he also turned the same corner unwittingly, came face to face with the grim reaper. Death seemed uninterested in him so he boldly asked, you know, why did you terrify my servant today?

What do you mean? Well, the master responded, you raised your sickle into the air, you know, to strike him dead and he ran for his life. The grim reaper said, no, I raised my hand in surprise. I wondered why he would be in this village. You see, I have an appointment with him tonight in the village of Samara. Saul says, I can get around this. Samuel doesn't know what he's talking about.

I've ignored him for years. Ladies and gentlemen, let me put you on notice. I don't know how many hours or days, but unless Jesus Christ raptures the church, those of you who believe in him are going to die. I'm going to die.

For those of you who don't know Jesus Christ, there is coming a day, we don't know when, how many hours, days, weeks, months or years and you are going to die. You cannot avoid the appointment. We're going to make that appointment. In fact, our lives right now are rushing toward the keeping of that appointment. The question is, will you stand before God as your judge and face his holy terror? Or will you arrive to find an advocate who knows your name, who says, Father, that's one of mine.

Welcome home. For Saul, he ignores the message. He doesn't prepare his heart for the life after. And if you go over to chapter 31, it just simply delivers the rather gory news of Saul's appointment with death. Let me just kind of fly over it quickly, but it records his defeat in battle, the death of his sons, including sweet, dear Jonathan. And Saul is wounded by the archers.

The Latin text tells us he received an arrow in his abdomen, a fatal wound. He doesn't want to be captured because he doesn't want them to put out his eyes and sport with him like they did Samson. So he asks his armor bearer to put him to death.

His armor bearer won't do it. And so Saul, without repentance, again, he says, I'm in control. I'll live like I want. I will die like I want. And he falls on his sword and dies.

For the Philistines, this is the day of great joy. They send their messengers. They come to strip the slain. They find Saul, verse eight, and his sons, they were in the rear on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head. They strip his armor.

Note this. And they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. They get their missionary enterprise into full steam.

Tell the good news to the people. Our God triumphed. Put his armor in the God, in the palace or temple of our goddess. She is stronger than the God of Israel.

The party began. They celebrated to the strength of their gods and their armies. And they boasted that Israel's God could not even protect his people and he could not even protect his king. One author wrote, Saul had chosen inch by inch, day by day, to live in light of disobedience.

He had spit in the face of the one who gave him grace all the way up to the day before his death as if to say, Saul did to God, I don't need you. I will live like I want and I will die as I please. I've met people like that. Not only the young who say, I will live as I please, but I've met old people who will be dead within a year of me speaking to them and they say, I'm going to die like I want. This is the tragedy of an unrepentant life. This is the reality of an unseen world.

And this is the penalty of an unyielding heart. The Israelites are now on the run. They're decimated in terms of territory. You need to understand that the Israelites now shrink in the square miles that they control. In this defeat now, they go back to almost where they were at the beginning of Saul's reign.

They're back to square one. It's going to be a day or two before David even hears the news of Saul's death and the wheels slip into motion that ultimately put him on the throne. Now I said I'd turn a corner about the time I ran out of time.

And let me turn it in a rather unusual way. Behind all this bad news and all of this tragedy is providential news. Even though it looks entirely differently, God is not finished with Israel.

He's just beginning. In fact, one author provoked my thinking and I just stayed on the trail for some time and I want to close this way by comparing the death of Saul to the death of Jesus Christ. And you might think that's odd. It is in that Saul and Jesus Christ are very different.

But consider this. Saul's death appeared to be the end of all national hope. All national hope. When Saul died, many of the people would have thought that this is the end of Israel. This is the end of hope. The Philistines are conquerors and they will conquer us forever, right?

In a similar way, Jesus Christ's death appeared to be the end of all spiritual hope. We have been conquered. We will be conquered forever. There's no hope and Jesus is dead.

There's no future. There's no living savior. There is no kingdom. The death of King Saul further paved the way for an entirely new plan of operation and ushered in David's kingly line which led to the Messiah. When Jesus died, he paved the way for an entirely new operation, a new dispensation.

It would be brought into existence with the descending of the Holy Spirit and the creation of the church and this new line, a new race, a living, believing unique people of God. Saul's death led to a rather unlikely person, an unknown shepherd boy from a poor family, to sit upon the throne. So also the death of Jesus Christ and his saving grace has reached unlikely people like you and me. And he has brought us not only into the family of God but into the royal line where we will one day sit with him upon the throne. Now the death of King Saul ends the book of 1 Samuel, but there's a second book about to open and the next few pages begin the reign of King David. The death of Jesus Christ ended the book of suffering for sin. But another book is going to be opened. It will reveal in time yet future the reign of the son of David upon a royal throne in the city of Jerusalem in his glorious kingdom and we with him. There's just a little more history yet to write before that page is turned over. One book has ended but there's another book about to be opened because of Christ's death and resurrection.

In fact, it's just a few pages away. Amen? If you're not ready for that appointment, you are seeking answers from anyone but God. I'm glad you've heard this message and you've been taken to this text but I encourage you not to leave until you settle what needs to happen between you and God. While you're living and breathing, there's time. You may have less than 48 hours. Lunch today might be your last meal.

As Stephen just said, we have no idea how long we have before our time of legacy building ends. Make sure that your relationship with God is all that it needs to be. This is Wisdom for the Heart and Stephen's calling today's lesson The Last Meal.

It comes from a series on the life of King David called The Singer. If you missed part of this lesson or if you joined us late, you can go to our website and listen again right there. In fact, you can do that anytime because we post all of Stephen's teaching to that site. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org. Jake from right here in North Carolina went to that site and sent us a message. He wanted us to know that getting into his work truck and listening to this teaching is a highlight of his day.

Well, a highlight of our day is hearing from people like Jake. We'd love to learn what God's doing in your life. You can go online and tell us but maybe you prefer sending cards and letters in the mail and if so, please address it to Wisdom International, P.O. Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. You can also email us at info at wisdomonline.org. That's all for today. I'm Scott Wiley and on behalf of Stephen and the entire Wisdom team, thanks for listening. Join us tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart.