“I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting
against me, and God has departed from me. He no longer answers me, either by
prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.” (1 Samuel 28:15b NIV)
Saul was chosen by God to lead Israel. He was gifted, strong, and
charismatic. But he had a pattern of behavior in his life that revealed he
would not trust God enough to obey Him. This went on for such a long time that,
finally, God could not use him anymore and chose David to be the new king.
Initially Saul had liked David, but when
he discovered that David was to replace him on Israel's throne, he would not
surrender to God, would not surrender his crown, would not obey God. Finally,
he ended up turning to the occult. He went to visit a woman known as the witch
of Endor to ask her to conjure up the spirit of Samuel the prophet, an occult
practice that would have been an abomination to him when he was a young man. As
G. K. Chesterton wrote, if people cease to believe in God they do not believe
in nothing but in anything. In the end, Saul took his own life in despair
rather than bend his knee before God.
-- John Ortberg in Faith &
Doubt
#4058
