Sometimes God will step in and He will take someone's life, not always.
We don't always understand His choices, but in His wisdom, He will choose to in certain
situations end someone's life right there for committing a sin unto death, Old Testament
or New Testament.
He'll do it.
Now, some people would say, "Well, these people weren't saved," but we don't have any indication
that Achan and Ananias and Sapphira were not saved.
I'm assuming that they were saved based on the context of the story.
There's no indication that they weren't.
But here's a guy who was for sure saved where God took him out.
Look at King Saul, 1 Samuel 28, 1 Samuel chapter 28.
Here's a man where there's no doubt that he was saved.
You say, "Well, why do you say that, Pastor Anderson?"
Well, first of all, God hand-picked this man to be the king over Israel for a reason, because
he was a godly man.
Not only that, but the Bible talks about God giving him a new heart, you know, which has
to do with salvation.
The Bible talks about him being changed into another man, which has to do with, you know,
being a new creature, being saved.
Not only that, but if you read the story right here, the Bible talks about the fact that
he's going to go to heaven when he dies.
Look if you would at 1 Samuel 28 verse 18.
This is Samuel speaking unto Saul, "Because thou obeyest not the voice of the Lord, nor
executest his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this
day.
Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines,
and tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.
The Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines."
Now when Samuel says to him, "Tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me," you have to
understand, Samuel has come back from the dead to speak to him, just his spirit has
come and spoken to him.
So when he says, "You're going to be with me tomorrow," he means you're going to be
dead tomorrow.
But not only that, we know that Samuel is in heaven, he's with the Lord.
He's not in hell, so he says to Saul, "You're going to be with me tomorrow," meaning you're
going to die and you're going to go and be with the Lord.
You say, "Well, why is that a punishment?"
Well, because, look, we're all going to die physically, you know, unless we make it unto
the second coming of Jesus Christ.
We're all going to die physically on this earth, and if we're saved, we're all going
to heaven.
But here's the thing, there's a loss of reward associated with not finishing the work that
God gave you to do on this earth.
And the more work that we do for the Lord, the more glory we're going to share with him
throughout the millennial reign of Christ, and the more rewards we're going to earn and
so forth, and obviously dying an untimely death is not something that any of us want
to do.
I mean, who here knows for sure if you died that you'd go to heaven?
Put up your hand.
All right, who wants to take the next train out?
Almost no one, right?
Most of us want to stay here, and some people like the Apostle Paul might say, "I have a
desire to depart and to be with Christ," which is far better.
But honestly, most of us would rather stay here and do work for God.
We want to live our lives.
We want to raise our children.
We want to serve the Lord.
We want to accomplish something.
We don't want it to be over, the race to be over.
We want to keep running.
And so that's what the Bible is teaching here.
When he tells them, "Tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me," if you read the story,
guess what happens tomorrow?
They all get killed in battle, him and his sons, which I believe that he was saved and
I believe that his sons were all saved.
There's no indication otherwise.
They're all worshiping the Lord.
They all seem to be believers and with Saul there's zero doubt that he was saved.