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Chapter 28, we see in verse number 1, the Bible reads, It came to pass in those days that the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare to fight with Israel. And Achish said unto David, Know thou assuredly that thou shalt go with me to battle, thou and thy men. Now if you remember, in chapter 27, we saw David have a lapse in faith. He should have believed the promises of God, that he was going to be kept safe, that he was going to be the next king of Israel. But he has this lapse of faith in chapter 27 verse 1 where he says, Someday I'm going to perish by the hand of Saul. I need to just get out of the country, go to the land of the Philistines, and he will despair of seeking after me. So he runs away and goes to the Philistines. Saul stops seeking after him. And while he's there, because he's not in God's will, he's not in the promised land where he's supposed to be, he's taken upon himself to go to the Philistines, he ends up having to live a life of deception while he's there. And he's out fighting against certain groups of people, and slaughtering them and taking the goods. And he lies about it and says, Oh, I was actually fighting against the south of Judah, and the Kenites, and so forth. And so he's being deceptive while he's there. He's there for 14 months, pretending to be a faithful servant of the Achist, the king of the Philistines, when really he's not any such thing. Well, now he's put in a really weird position. Because now the king of the Philistines wants him to go out to battle against his own nation, the nation of Israel. And remember, this is the guy who wouldn't even put forth his hand to touch the Lord's anointing. He's probably not going to battle against Saul, he's going to kill Saul and fight against all his own people, his own brethren. But he has to continue his deception and his lying, and so he says in verse number 21, I'm sorry, I'm on the wrong chapter here. He says in verse number 2, And David said to Achish, Surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do. He's basically saying like, yeah, I'm going to show you what we can really do on the battlefield. So he basically says he's going to do it, he's not really going to do it. Now we leave that story, we go back to King Saul. And that's really, this chapter's not much about David, it just kind of tells us what's going on with David. And then it gets into King Saul. King Saul is about to do battle with the Philistines, with Achish and all the other Philistines, and he wants to inquire of the Lord and basically make sure that he has God on his side in this battle because of the fact that this is such a formidable enemy, he wants to make sure that God's going to be blessing him. And it says in verse 5, And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. So this is in the days where they didn't have the complete Bible, like we have the written word of God, and so they would get God's word from the mouth of the prophets. That's why the Bible says, God who had sundry times and in divers manners, spake and time past, unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. And so in those days, they would get God's word from a prophet, they didn't have the whole book like we have, and so they would have to rely upon prophets, and God also would speak unto them, through dreams and through other prophecies. And he's asking God for help, he's praying to God, he's not getting any answer. So this really worries him, because he's about to go into this major battle, and he has no answer from God, he doesn't know if God's blessing him or not. Now he should have known that because he's been living a life of sin, because he's been disobeying God's commandments, disobeying God's commandments that God is not with him. He's already been rebuked twice by Samuel the prophet, while Samuel was alive. Well now Samuel's dead. And Saul is in a position where he's scared, he doesn't know what to do, and God's not answering him. So look what he decides to do. It says in verse 7, Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and inquire her. Now you say, what's a familiar spirit? In the Bible, a familiar spirit is basically an unclean spirit, it's a devil. These are people that are dealing with what we would call demons, but the Bible calls devils. And he says, find me a woman, and it's interesting that he's looking for a woman. Why is it that all these psychic readers, it doesn't seem like they're usually women. I've never heard of one that's a man. What's that? I've never heard of one that's a man. I've never heard of one that's a man either. It seems like all these psychic readers and palm readers are always mad at them so and so. So he says, yeah, find me one of them. Basically he's calling the psychic hotline, because he can't get ahold of God through God's word, he's reading the Bible, he's talking to the prophets, he's not getting the answer he's looking for, so he wants to go to basically a witch, is what he's trying to go to. So he says, find me a woman that has a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and inquire her. And his servants said to him, behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit in the door. Now here's what's funny about this. His servants just right away, oh yeah, of course, there's one right over here. A few verses later, it says in verse number nine, it says, and the woman said to him, behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land. Wherefore then, layest thou a snare for my life to cause me to die. So Saul had earlier in his reign, gotten rid of all witches and those that have a familiar spirit out of the land, and put them to death. Why did he do that? Go to Leviticus 20 and you'll see why he did that. Saul was following God's word. Now it's interesting because a lot of people will try to take these commands in Leviticus 20 and try to say, oh, that's just figurative. Oh, that's just symbolic or something. But Saul didn't take it figuratively. I mean, when he was doing what was right, when he was serving the Lord in the early part of his reign, this was one of the things that he did right. He got rid of the witches out of the land and the sorcerers. It says in verse 27, a man also, or a woman, that hath a familiar spirit. You see that? And he begins to define what that means. Or that is a wizard. So you see what we're talking about. Witches, wizards, familiar spirits. Shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them. So we go back to 1 Samuel 28. This woman is afraid when Saul shows up with his servants and he says, you know, divine unto me by your familiar spirit. She's afraid to do it. And she's afraid it's some kind of a trap. Saying, wait a minute. Have you not heard how Saul has made a proclamation that all those that are witches and all those that have familiar spirits were to be cut off out of the land? And she said, you're basically making me risk my life and causing me to die because I'm going to be put to death if I'm caught being a witch or being a sorceress or whatever you want to call it. And verse 10, it says, And Saul sware to her by the Lord, saying, as the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. So what a hypocrite. He's enforcing God's laws against sorcery and witchcraft. He did right. But now he's gotten so backslidden that he's actually trying to, oh wait, did we kill them all? Or can you still find me one that I can go talk to? Isn't that ridiculous? And so he's trying to find this witch. Now look, this right away should show you how bad witchcraft is, that if God sang Stone them with stones, put them to death, if King Saul got rid of all of them out of the nation, that shows that we shouldn't be messing around with the Ouija board. We shouldn't be messing with the crystal ball and we shouldn't be calling these hot lines and the horoscopes and the psychic readers and the palm readers and the tarot cards and also the literature for children, the Harry Potter, the, what's the other one? Somebody help me out. Huh? Lord of the Rings, Narnia, I don't know, just all the stuff that's the goblins and the witches and the good witch and the bad witch and the white magic and the black magic. You know, white magic, but it's all bad. It's all simple. There's no such thing as this good witch. The only good witch is a dead witch. That's what the Bible says. The Bible says to be put to death. Now obviously it's not our job to go on a witch hunt. We're not going to go on a witch hunt. We're not going to take the law into our own hands, but I mean that's what God's law was back then was to put the witches to death. Okay, this is not a game. And I know Milton Bradley makes the Ouija board. I think it was Parker Brothers. I don't know who it is. But I've seen it in the board game section right between Monopoly and Parcheesi. Ouija board. Has anybody seen it there? What in the world is it doing in the game section? It's not a game. You shouldn't be playing with the occult and playing with witchcraft and sorcery and all this stuff. We should get as far away from it as we can. And this Harry Potter, people think it's innocent. But I was on a playground one time and I saw this kid and he was saying all this weird like bleh bleh bleh all this like gibberish. And he said he was casting spells that he learned in Harry Potter. He's memorizing all this weird stuff and saying it. And I don't know. Probably the author's of Harry Potter. It's probably some demonic spell in some other language or something. I don't know. But he was saying all this weird stuff and he's trying to cast spells. This little kid on a playground. And that's pretty bad when they're getting them indoctrinated in the occult and witchcraft and sorcery at that young age. We need to guard ourselves and those that we love from such things. But he goes to this woman that has a familiar spirit. Now why is he going to the woman that has a familiar spirit? Well look at verse number 11. It says, Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. Now, what is this woman's trade? What is she doing? Do you go there? Does she read your palm? Well, she basically puts you in touch with dead people. Right? Because notice, what does she ask? Okay, who should I bring up for you? So she is supposedly going to put him in touch with someone who's dead. Does everybody understand? Now this is what a lot of psychics today claim to be able to do. You know, you go to the psychic or the witch or whatever you want to call her and she'll tell you, hey, you know, you want to talk to your mother and then they'll put him in touch and say, oh, I talked to your mother and she's fine, she saw a white light and everything's happy and you know, that'll be 25 dollars or whatever. Now, you say, is this real? Well, here's the thing. Number one, probably most of them are just charlatans. They're just, you know, and they've been exposed a lot of times as just being total fraud, just completely like a magician. You know, doing tricks and sleight of hand and so forth to make people think that they're putting them in touch with a dead loved one. They're not really putting anybody in touch with a dead loved one. Now, look at Isaiah chapter 8. This is a key verse to use when interpreting 1 Samuel 28. Because 1 Samuel 28, I'm not going to lie to you, it's a strange chapter. It's a very strange event that took place. So we're going to analyze it tonight. But go to Isaiah chapter 8 and I think this is a very applicable passage when it comes to this subject of people going to a woman that has a familiar spirit trying to talk to dead people. This is not biblical. That's called necromancy, trying to communicate with the dead. And that was one of the people that would be put to death also on the list in the Mosaic law. But it says in Isaiah chapter 8, verse number 19, And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards and unto wizards that peep and that mutter, should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead? So why are people going to the peeping wizard? Why are they going unto the woman with the familiar spirit? They're trying to seek after the dead or communicate with the dead, right? And it says, should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead? How would they seek unto God? He tells us in the next verse, verse 20, Now what is the law and the testimony? That's another term for God's word. He calls the Bible the testimony in Psalm 119 and a lot of other places. He refers to his word as his testimony. And also, of course, the Bible is referred to as the law. And so he says people should not go to a familiar spirit woman or a wizard or a peeping wizard or whatever. He says they should go unto their God and he explains go unto their God as in to the law and to the testimony, go to God's word, okay? You see, it's not for us to try to communicate with dead people, okay? That is necromancy. That is condemned by the Bible. If we want to go to the past, if we want to go to great men of God, to the past, this is pretty much the only place we can go right here in the Bible. You know, we can't sit there and try to communicate with the saints. And this is what Catholicism is, you know. You're talking to dead people. You're praying of the saints so and so who died a long time ago. You know, you need to go to the word of God, to the law, to the testimony, not try to communicate with the saints, to the dead. The only one that we should pray unto is the Lord. And the Bible says there's one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. We should pray to Jesus Christ, pray to the Father, pray to God. Do not pray to saints. Do not pray unto human beings that have died and gone on before. Now, it's funny because Saul wants to talk to Samuel. Out of all the people that she can supposedly bring up, he chooses Samuel. Now, Samuel's a guy that he talked to plenty while he was alive and he didn't listen to him then. But now all of a sudden that he's dead, he's gonna listen to him now. Now, is this woman really able to conjure up dead people to talk to? Now, think about this. Do you think that this woman who has a family that's not dead and has a wife Do you think that this woman who has a familiar spirit which is what according to the Bible? A devil. An unclean spirit. Okay. There was a woman, by the way, in Acts chapter 16, I think, Brother Danny, you touched on it in your sermon, right? Last night. In Acts 16, 16, where this woman has this familiar spirit and she's basically, they're using that for financial gain and so forth. This is a devil and it says she was possessed with the familiar spirit and it gets cast out. Okay. So basically, this is a devil. This woman has a devil. Do you really think that she has the power to bring people who are dead back to life to talk to other people? No. No. And so if you think you're going to go down to one of these places and talk to some dead relatives, this is not going to happen. Okay. And so I think a lot of it is just fraud. A lot of it's just fake. But a lot of it's real. It's just you're not talking to your dead relative. You're talking to devils. Perhaps impersonating your dead relative. You know, because people in these seances where they bring in these spirits and you know, I think this is kind of similar to what Native Americans do when they're talking to their ancestors or whatever. You know, different tribes have different deals with that. But you know, they're trying to go to the ancestors and people in Southeast Asia, same thing, trying to communicate. And basically, they'll have somebody, you know, smoking some kind of a pipe or taking some kind of drugs and I watched one in Cambodia or something. I saw this documentary when I was a teenager where they take drugs and then basically they're supposedly possessed by the spirit of their ancestors. It comes into their body. But do you really think that ancestor's possessed in their body? Or do you think it's a familiar spirit? An unclean spirit. A devil. Now, what's going to happen here in this encounter is strange. But let's read it together. So he says, bring up Samuel. She says, who should I bring up? He says, bring up Samuel. And we're going to talk about why he says bring up Samuel in a moment. It says, when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice. So Samuel shows up. Now, that's the weird part about the story is that Samuel really does show up. You say, well no, Samuel didn't really show up. But see, the Bible says that Samuel showed up. And when the Bible's telling us she saw Samuel, Samuel said, that means that Samuel was there. Or else the Bible's not being accurate. It says, when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice. So this isn't the normal thing she's expecting. Because she's used to dealing with fraud. Or, more likely, she's used to dealing with devils. Because the Bible says she had a familiar spirit. So she's used to dealing with these devils while all of a sudden the real guy shows up. Samuel, back from the dead. So she goes, ah! You know, Samuel has a loud voice because it's really, he's really there. And it says, she spake to Saul and the woman spake to Saul. So first she just cries out with a loud voice. Then she speaks to Saul and saying, why hast thou deceived me for thou art Saul? Now, I don't know why she knows that it's Saul all of a sudden. But, she saw Samuel, screams and says, wait a minute, you're Saul. Maybe, I don't know if Samuel told her that. I mean, the Bible doesn't tell her. All of a sudden she just knows, hey, you're Saul. Because Saul was in disguise. And the king said unto her, be not afraid. For what son? He's like, you know, who cares? You know, you're not going to be put to death. Shut up. You know, just tell me what you saw. So basically he said, be not afraid. For what sawest thou? Now, this is a strange thing that she says. And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth. Now, gods? Well, you know, the Bible uses the word gods frequently. With a little g, just gods plural. And let me tell you something, you know what it's referring to? Pretty much all the time? Devils. Why? Because the Bible talks about people worshipping other gods. Now there is, the Bible says very clearly in 1 Timothy 2.5, I already quoted it earlier. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. So anytime you have gods plural, you're talking about false gods. You're not talking about the true God. Now, the heathen nations, they all worship false gods like Molech and Baal and Astaroth. And the Bible says that when they worship those false gods and when they worship those idols, it said that they were worshipping devils is what they're worshipping. So basically anytime you have people worshipping a false god, they're actually worshipping devils. Like for example in India, they have these, you know, a thousand different gods or whatever. Well, a lot of those are probably just figments of people's imagination or else if they really exist, then they're devils. Okay. There is only one God. Any other false god is just a devil that is pretending to be God or calling himself a god. So she sees these gods ascending out of the earth. Okay. Now, what is in the earth? What is located down in the nether parts of the earth? Hell. So, she sees these gods ascending out of the earth. So, we're talking about basically these devils coming up out of hell. Okay. Now, this is what she's normally dealing with, okay, because she conjures up these devils and she deals with familiar spirits. Who are familiar spirits? Unclaimed spirits. Devil. She's dealing with devils and so these devils are coming up out of the earth. That's who she's usually dealing with. It's not normal that the guy actually shows up, which she's supposed to bring up. He actually shows up. Here he is. Samuel. That's why she's screaming and freaking out. So, he said to her, what form is he of? Now, the what form is he of is not referring to the gods ascending out of the earth because gods ascending out of the earth is what? Plural. And what form is he of is what? Singular. You see what I'm saying? So, that's the guy that she saw, Samuel, that she's referring to or that he's referring to when he says, And an old man cometh 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 himself. Now, the Bible doesn't really tell us whether he actually saw Samuel. The woman saw Samuel. We don't know if she saw him or if Saul saw him or not because it doesn't seem like Saul saw him. Because Saul, basically, is asking her, what form is he of? What does he look like? She tells him and then, from the description, she reads, Hey, this is Samuel. He falls on his face to the earth. And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore to stress, for the Philistines make war against me and God has departed from me and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams. Therefore, have I called thee that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. Then said Samuel, Wherefore, then, why hast thou disquieted me saying, The Lord has departed from me and has become thine enemy? So right away, Samuel begins to rebuke Saul. The first thing out of his mouth is, Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? So he's saying, What are you doing trying to bring up a preacher that's already gone on to be with the Lord? Why are you doing this? If God's departed from you and become your enemy, if God's not talking to you, if God's not, what is talking to me going to accomplish? What are you doing? Why are you here? So he pretty much rebukes him right away. Now, some people will misunderstand this passage in several different ways. Here are some ways that people will misunderstand the passage. Number one, some people will say he wasn't really talking to Samuel. Well, the problem with that is that if you notice everything that Samuel says, everything that Samuel says is right on. And it's all the same stuff Samuel was saying while he was alive. And Samuel's rebuking him and then Samuel predicts that tomorrow he and his sons and all of Israel will be defeated before the Philistines which is what happens. So everything that Samuel tells him is going to happen happens. Everything he tells him jives with the word of God and jives with what he said while he was on this earth. So, of course, the Bible is accurate when it's telling us that he's talking to Samuel. Another way that people misunderstand this is they'll try to say, well, this shows that Samuel was coming up out of hell. And that's not what the Bible is saying. She saw gods coming up out of the earth. You say, well, why did Samuel use the word why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? The reason why is because obviously this is the terminology that they're using talking about conjuring people up. And we would even say things like, hey, so and so showed up at the party. It doesn't mean they ascended out of the earth. They showed up at the party. Or we brought up a subject. Or we conjured up spirits. We use the word up with the word conjure. And we say, hey, they conjured up the devil. We're not necessarily talking about what direction they came from. That's just the term. And notice, who is the one who started using that term? Go back in the passage a little bit and it says clearly in verse number 11, then said the woman whom shall I bring up? So this is her trade being a witch, being a familiar spirit sorceress. So this is the term that she uses. To bring people up. Whom shall I bring up? Bring up Samuel. Why did you bring me up? That's just the term that they're using to describe. Samuel was not in hell. Samuel was not in the lower parts of the earth. Samuel was in heaven. Samuel was clearly saved. The Bible makes it very clear that he was saved, that he was a righteous godly man. You say, well, saved people used to be in hell, in the good side of hell. No. There's never been any other way. And they were not in the earth. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes, for example, it says who knoweth the spirit of man. Listen to me now. The spirit of man which goeth upward. And the spirit of beast which goeth downward into the earth. Elijah was caught up by a whirlwind into heaven. The sons of God in Job 1 and 2 are very clearly in heaven. The sons of God from Genesis to Revelation are never any other than the believers in Christ, the saints, the believers. That's why the Bible says, behold a man of love, the Father have bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. It says in John 1-12, but as many as received him, to them gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. The Bible says in Hebrews 1-5 that the angels are not God's sons. It says, under which of the angels said he at any time thou art my son, this day about to God be. Unto a lively hope, 1 Peter 1. We have been begotten again or born again. We are the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Those are the things that the angels desire to look into, but the angels are not the sons of God. Saints, Old Testament saints, New Testament saints are the sons of God. Unbelievers are not the sons of God despite what Latter-day Saints will teach when they say that we're all God's children. Many times when you're giving the Gospel unto Mormons, they won't get saved because they're not afraid of Hell. Here's what they say. God would never send any of his children to Hell. Now that's very true. Of course God wouldn't send any of his children to Hell. I wouldn't send my children to Hell. No parent would send their children to Hell, but the problem is we're not all God's children because the Bible says, but as many as received him, to them gave you power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. You become the sons of God when you believe on him and receive him. That's when you become the sons of God. You're not a son of God until that point. And so you say, well, you know, the angels were created by God. That makes them God's sons. No, just because God created animals, they're not his sons. God created angels. God created human beings and not even human beings are God's sons except if they believe on Christ and they're born again. That's when they become a child of God. And so these are some misunderstandings of this passage that are not accurate. You've got to jive this chapter with the rest of the Bible. Okay. We know that going unto a wizard is not the right way to get in touch with a dead loved one. He said, no, you know, that is, you know, don't go to those that peep. They should be put to death. The wizards that mutter and so forth and people should go to the law and to the testimony. Go to God's word. Now, let's see here. Where are we at here? Let me, let's finish up with what Samuel told Saul and then I'll make another point. Of course, Samuel said to Saul, why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? Verse 15. And Saul answered, I'm sore as stress for the Philistines make war against me and God has departed from me and answereth me no more neither by prophets nor by dreams. Therefore, if I told thee that thou mayest make known of me what I shall do. Then said Samuel, the Lord has departed from thee and has become thine enemy and the Lord hath done to him as he spake by me. For the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand and given it to thy neighbor, even to David because thou obeyeth not the voice of the Lord nor execute it to his fierce wrath upon Amalek. Therefore, hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day. Moreover, the Lord will also deliver. Now, so far, everything that Samuel said to him at the event with Amalek, he told him the same thing. He said, why did you bring me up? Why are you here? Why are you with the wizard? Let me tell you everything I already told you while I was on this earth. Here's where the new information comes out in verse 19. 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 then Saul fell straight away all along the earth and was sore afraid because of the words of Samuel. And there was no strength in him for he had eaten no bread all the day nor all the night. So, when you hear Samuel the prophet come back from the dead telling you, hey, by the way, tomorrow you and your sons are going to be with me, that's going to scare you. You know, that's not what you wanted to hear. Your sons will tomorrow be with me, he says. Now, this is another proof, as if we needed another proof, there's plenty of proof that Saul was the same man. The Bible is real clear earlier on, God gave him another heart and he was turned into another man and he was definitely a man of God. Now, when he became king, he was still a great king for a few years. The turning point was when David slew Goliath, okay, when Saul did not have the guts to fight against Goliath, even though he was the tallest man in the kingdom, even though he had the same weapons and armor that Goliath had, when he wouldn't fight Goliath and David slew Goliath, David got all the glory and they sang that song that said, you know, Saul has a lot of power, he started to become angry, he started to be jealous of David and so forth. Of course, before that he had already sinned, but that's when he really got mad. Before that, of course, he went a few years doing right and then the first mistake he made, remember when he offered the sacrifice that he did, or my fierce wrath against Amalek, that's where he basically was decided, that's it, you're losing the kingdom unto David and then the events followed with David and Goliath and so forth. So we see that he wasn't just a horrible, rotten guy to the core, wicked, reprobate, evil guy, no, he started out a great guy and in fact, a great guy that had said that about those two men more than any other men in the Bible. So yeah, he made mistakes, he didn't wait for Samuel, he offered the sacrifice, he didn't kill all the Amalekites, he was jealous of David and tried to kill David, he tried to kill his own son Jonathan with a javelin and let me tell you something, you can't lose your salvation, it's eternal life. Jesus said, I've given an eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Now some people will say, well, in the Old Testament you could lose your salvation. Well, here's the thing, if people were supposedly saved by works in the Old Testament, how were they good enough? I thought how'd they measure up back then? Nobody's ever measured up, it's always been by grace, it's not something that we could earn. But not only that, you say, well, but back then they could lose it, lose it how? By sinning? Well, then I guess they all would have lost it. Well, that's a false doctrine. But here's the thing, here's some proof that you can't lose it. Who did God specifically choose here? Saul. God specifically chose David. God specifically chose Solomon. From there on out it's hereditary for a while. But when God specifically chooses somebody to be the king of his nation, he's not choosing unbelievers. Yeah, let me find an unsaved wicked guy and make him your king. Not because it just gives too much power. And it goes to their hand, they start multiplying wives. Even David, the man after God's own heart, he's got a ton of wives and then he commits adultery with Bathsheba. The power is too much for a human being to handle because we're all sinners, there's none righteous, none other. If you were made king of America and you just had absolute much power over his fellow man. But King Solomon, righteous man, godly man, prayed for wisdom and God answered his prayer and gave him more wisdom than anyone who ever lived. And he lists off all the great thinkers of the time and says Solomon was more intelligent, more wisdom than any of them. And the Bible says God loved Solomon and chose Solomon. They turned away his heart and he actually began to build temples onto other gods. Now he didn't believe in those other gods. He's just building it for his wife. But that's pretty bad when you're building temples to other gods. I don't know whether he, I don't know why he's that, but he built it for his wives is what it says. So he's building all these temples and he's doing all kinds of sinful stuff. And yet the Bible clearly says that Solomon's in heaven. Because the Bible talks about in Luke chapter 13 verse 28, he says there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of heaven and ye yourselves thrust out. Solomon is in heaven. He didn't use unbelievers to write his word. If anybody would have lost their salvation it would have been King Solomon. If it were possible to lose it. Or it would have been King Saul. But no, Samuel said tomorrow you'll be with me and thy sons. What's one of Saul's sons' names? Was he a pretty godly man? A pretty righteous man? Yeah. Saul and Jonathan both lived righteous and godly lives. Samuel and Jonathan lived righteous and godly lives. Saul lived a good life for a while but then he started living an ungodly life. Now they're all going to heaven but there's going to be a difference in rewards that they get. There's going to be a difference in the reward that they get when they get there. Now, I thought of this today because we were out soul winning today and we talked to this guy and this guy just wanted to argue with us. We were out giving people the gospel and this guy walks up to us and he pretended like he was really interested in what we had to say and he pretended like he wanted to say the gospel. And pretty much after about five minutes I told this guy to take a hike because I said, you know what? I said I'm not going to sit here and waste my time with you. And you know what's funny? The next door I knocked I got somebody safe. So that's why I'm not going to sit there and horse around with some kind of a false prophet. And the Bible says not to cast your he says give not that which is holy unto the dogs neither cast ye your pearls before swine lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. And so don't sit there and cast your pearls before swine. The Bible says now it's your turn to reject them and go to the next door. See you later. Shake the dust off your feet and not waste your time. But this guy he just wanted to argue and here's what he said to me. This is what I wanted to tie in with the sermon. He's this Calvinist guy. You know this reformed theology. And I start showing him the Bible. I'm not saying that works save you. I'm just saying you have to have works to be saved. And if you don't have the works you're not saved. But works have nothing to do with salvation. Don't get me wrong. What? But this is what they say. We've all heard it before. I'm not saying the works save you. You've got to persevere all the way to the end and all this. So he's saying all this stuff. So I start showing him the truth out of Romans 4-5. 1 Corinthians 3. I'm taking him to 1 John 5. And everything I show him he's just like well that just depends on how you define that word. And he says well that just isn't consistent with Reformed theology. And I told him I said and at this point I could figure out hey this guy is just here to argue with me. And it was clear. Because he acted like he was this friendly oh hey how you doing? But then he was he basically tried to act like he's somebody that just wants to hear what we have to say and talk. Turned out he was just there purposely stalking us. He'd seen us three hours earlier. He'd been following us. Okay? And he finds us and he just wants to argue. I said without the Reformation Baptist wouldn't even be here. That's what he said. Without the Reformation Baptist wouldn't be here. You know what? Without this book we wouldn't be here. And nothing else. This is the only reason why I'm here. I'm not here because of Calvin or Zwingli or Luther or any of these other reformers or white people. And it was preserved by God. And he said, well, but man, you know, what about the men who gave you that Bible? This Bible wasn't given to me by man, it was given to me by God. And God, if they didn't do it, God would have used somebody else to do it because God promised to preserve his word to every generation. Does that exist? Because we Bible-believing Christians that happen to call ourselves Baptists, we only have one authority, and it's not some Baptist confession from the 1600s, it's the Holy Bible. And the Holy Bible was around before the Reformation, and the Holy Bible will always be around, and it's always been around, and we exist for one reason, the Holy Bible. He decided that he didn't like some of the Catholic stuff and he was just going to hang on to part of it and form a new religion called Catholic Light, which is Protestantism. Look, we don't need to sit there and you say, well, can you prove that Baptists go all the way back to Jesus Christ? I don't have to, because the bottom line is that God's word is Catholic. I mean, how can you believe that garbage? Before our saviors came along and the Reformation, everybody was Catholic, until Martin Luther with the beer in his hand was reading the Bible and figured out that justification was by faith. You don't think anybody could have picked this book up and seen that a million times before that guy found it? Do you really think he's right? It's on the bottom of the In-N-Out Burger Cup. Back then it was on the bottom of some chalice or something, probably, somewhere. Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what it was like hundreds of years ago. I'm not going to get up here and expound to you the history of the Baptist Babe and the history of the Protestant Reformation. This book is the only thing I believe or care about, I don't think I'm descended from Zwingli and Martin Luther. My dad was an electrician and they were all from Sweden. So I don't see how I wouldn't be here or something. You know what I mean? Well, you wouldn't believe the Bible. We'd all be a Catholic. John the Catholic. He hadn't gotten the Baptist yet until the Reformation. I was thinking about this sermon while I was talking to this guy. I'm meditating upon 1 Samuel 28 because I knew I was going to be preaching it tonight. He's telling me, you wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for the Reformation. I said, I'll tell you what, I said, I'm going to go and knock more doors and preach the Reformation. Why don't you go get a shovel and you can dig up Calvin or maybe you can dig up Zwingli or whatever. Dig up all your carcasses of your dead preachers. Listen to me, I don't care about dead preachers. I'm supposed to go to the law and to the testimony, not to a dead preacher. When do we see Saul? What's Saul's authority in his life? He's got to live this life and figure out what he needs to be doing. Instead, he's got to go to his dead preacher to go tell him about it. I don't care what a dead preacher said. People will try to correct your doctrine with dead preachers. They'll go to the graveyard and dig out some dead preacher or conjure up some dead preacher. Here's what we need today, today is law. We need the law and the testimony. We need God's word and we need living preachers. Did you hear me? Preachers that are alive. Listen to preachers that have a heartbeat. Not some dead preacher. You need a living preacher and we need some young men in a dead body is not what we need to preach to us. We need living preachers and we need God's word and we need nothing else. So come to church and listen to a pastor that has a pulse. Preach to you. Why is that important? People love to go to the preachers and say well, it's always relevant. No, the Bible is always relevant. What some dead preachers said may or may not always be relevant. The stuff that I'm saying right now is biblical but mixed in with what I'm I mean look, am I just only reading the Bible in the 11th audience. That's what preaching is for. Otherwise, I would just get up here and read with no commentary. The purpose of preaching is to take God's word, the law and the testimony, and to be filled with the spirit and bring it to you to preach against the homos. That's because he never even seen this stinking homo. Because he's living in the Victorian age. He doesn't know what a homo is. Or he's read it in a different world. And everybody wants to go to these dead preachers like they're some kind of authority or something. This is the only authority. And you say, well, the living preacher, you know, he's the living preacher. And if you can't find any living preacher that you like, I don't know what to tell you. But this guy's authority is Reformed Theology. And if God is telling him no, so he's going to a preacher to try to get a different answer. Think about that. He already knows that he's not right with God. So what can we learn from the chapter? Be careful of witchcraft, be careful of sorcery, and also, idolizing a dead preacher, you need to move on. I mean, Saul needed to move on here. Earlier in the chapter, it very clearly said in verse 3, now Samuel was dead and all of a sudden, he was buried, we cried about it, and now we need to move on. You know, now we need to live our lives and have some prophets that will rise up for that generation. And Saul, he could have gone to the prophets of his generation. Are you listening? The Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by urine, nor by what? prophets. So he goes to all the living preachers and they're telling him what he doesn't want to hear. They're not telling him what he wants to hear, so he's got to go to his dead preachers. He said a witch wasn't doing right here. He was supposed to be going to the living prophets and asking them, hey, what should I be doing? And they could have given him the preaching that he needed, the counsel that he needed. Instead, he's got to go to the dead preachers. Stay away from the peeping and muttering. Stay away from the familiar spirits, the psychic readers. You only need one place to get your knowledge, the law and the testimony. And if you want to go to a prophet and you want to go to a preacher, you should go to the teachings of dead preachers all over the wall. And people have said to me that they were offended by it. And I've been to many churches where they have drawings and paintings of dead preachers on the wall. You know, whoever it might be, it might be Jack Hiles, it might be Jack. What is the difference between that and you walk into a Catholic church or a Catholic school and you've got Saint Augustine the Hippo and Saint Bartholomew and you've got Saint this and Saint that and they've got their idolizing, listen to me now, they're idolizing dead people. Like they can do no wrong because they've got their idolizing and just live, live in 2011 and move on. Let's borrow that word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, dear God. We thank you that we have the law and the testimony and that we can get the answers we need from there. We don't have to go to a witch or a psychic or dig out a dead preacher to tell