"The Fall of the House of Saul"
God will not allow the old thing to fall until He judges that the new thing is ready to take its place.
Download or email this sermon God Ceases Communicating with Saul
I Samuel 28:6:
"And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets."
We are not certain what Urim and Thummim were, but we do know they were two kinds of stones in an ephod case on the high priest's chest. Urim has to do with the Hebrew word for lights; this is how they discerned God's leading and direction in some circumstances in Old Testament Israel.
We see in 1 Samuel 28:6 that God stopped giving light to King Saul; He stopped hearing King Saul. Saul's leadership was at this point totally backslidden, and had become treacherous. When leadership backslides, something else happens: God stops speaking to that leader or those leaders. God would not speak to Saul by prophets – perhaps God would send him false prophets, but no longer any true prophet, such as Samuel. One of the things that take place in this kind of situation is that God removes prophetic voices.
We don't think of it this way, but God does: The death of Samuel was not bad for Samuel. Samuel didn't want his sleep disturbed as we see in 1 Samuel 28:15. However, Samuel's death was bad for Saul.
"When a righteous man perishes, no one takes it to heart" (Isaiah 57:1)
That is a judgment of God. When God removes true prophetic voices, that is one of the final phases of His judgment. I personally believe that the untimely death of our friend Larry Thomas was God's judgment on the Assemblies of God; I don't believe God ever intends to give another warning to the Assemblies of God in America. I believe He will simply let them go their way into apostasy and decline, which in fact they already have begun to do.
What happens when God stops speaking to backslidden leaders? When we look at verses 11 through 16 of 1 Samuel 28, we see what Saul did:
"Then the woman said, 'Whom shall I bring up for you?' And he said, 'Bring up Samuel for me.' When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, 'Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!' And the king said to her, 'Do not be afraid. What do you see?' And the woman said to Saul, 'I saw a spirit (divine being) ascending out of the earth.' So he said to her, 'What is his form?' And she said, 'An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.' And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down. Now Samuel said to Saul, 'Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?' And Saul answered, 'I am deeply distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God has departed from me and does not answer me anymore, neither by prophets nor by dreams. Therefore I have called you, that you may reveal to me what I should do.' Then Samuel said: 'So why do you ask me, seeing the Lord has departed from you and has become your enemy?'"
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.