30th.: If You Get Silence
King Saul also had a chronic lack of genuine repentance.
Saul's lack of contriteness offended God. It kept Saul from being heard.
1st Sam. 28:4-5 tells us of one time that the Philistines gathered together.
They were going to war with Saul and Israel.
This scared Saul enough to seek the Lord.
But God did not respond,
“neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” (1st Sam. 28:5b).
Nor did Saul mourn for his past mistakes.
He did not go around in sackcloth and ashes.
All of these elements of repentance can take time, as God watches to see how serious someone is.
When no response came, Saul tried to go around God to get spiritual advice (see 1st Sam. 28:7-8).
We must note here that several centuries earlier, God had commanded Moses,
“Regard not them that have familiar spirits.” (Lev. 19:31a).
Scholars tell me that familiar spirits are demons who dwell in certain people.
They can sometime divine the future, or even ‘arrange meetings’ with dead loved ones.
1st Sam. 28:3b tells us that many years earlier, King Saul had driven those with familiar spirits out of Israel.
Now Saul was so desperate for supernatural advice that he resorted to seeking input from a familiar spirit.
For us, if God won’t immediately answer, Do NOT go to demons, or séances, etc. to get spiritual direction.
"These things hast thou done, and I kept silence." Psalm 50:21b