Saul sinks lower.

What a faithful God have I. I allow these words to sink in, to sink in deep to my inner consciousness.

” Ribbons of mercy and grace adorn my throne, filling the air with a message which brings joy to every weary soul. Surrounded by the multitude of believers everyone covered by that message – the message that if God is for us who can be against us. If he gave his Son to die on the cross for you – how much more will He give you all things. Can you take the fullness of that message in? You can have, you already have, if you are a believer every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. You have My complete Grace and My love to cover the multitude of your transgressions. So come closer this morning, let the ribbons of mercy and grace wrap around you and cover you and bring you deep peace and joy.”

The picture of desperation and terror which have taken over Saul’s life, pictured here in 1 Samuel 28, is very real reminder of what it is like when God turns His back on you. In today’s society there are many who give God no thought, but anyone who has really tasted what God is like may experience this desperation. It is a stark reminder to us of what Jesus must have experienced, multiplied by a million times when He called out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In vs 15 Saul calls out, “God has turned away from me”. Samuel reminds him in vs 17 that he had predicted this and Saul should not have been surprised. However, he had obviously not really believed Samuel. He had made a half-hearted attempt at cleansing Israel by banning all the mediums and spiritists, but this act alone was clearly not from a fully believing heart. The very fact that he was prepared to seek out a medium in his fearful state shows where his heart really was.

The chapter opens with a chilling message as Achish plans to use David and his men in an attack on Israel. We already know that David would do anything to avoid having to do this from the previous chapter. The question hangs in the air and will lead us into reading the next chapter.

The chapter ends on an interesting note as the women seek to minister to Saul in his desperate state. I take that as an indication of God’s ‘common grace’, which he extends to the world as a whole, whether you are a believer or not.

This passage may again raise the perennial question, “Can you lose your salvation?” After all Saul was anointed as king of Israel by Samuel, described in ch 10. Samuel tells him that: v 6, “The Spirit of the Lord will come on you in power and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person”. This is the sort of language which we associate being born again in the New Testament. Yet here we find this same man with God having turned His back upon him. Can that happen to us?

This is an important question which needs a definitive answer. The answer lies in the fact that the promise of the new covenant was that our sins would be forgiven and we will be given a new heart able to live a new life of obedience. This promise followed centuries of apostasy and disobedience by the people of Israel, despite the promises of relationship with God under the various covenants.

The work of Jesus on the cross and the subsequent offer of full regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, indwelling each believer, places the NT believer on a different plane to those in the OT. There are a number of promises under this new covenant which indicate that once God has saved you, He will never, never leave you eg Rom 8:1 ff, Philippians 1:6.

However, we should never become complacent. In the same book Philippians, Paul says in 2:12, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. There are many stories of apparently devoted Christians turning their back on God. What is not always clear but is a fact that those people were probably never truly saved. Jesus warned us in the parable of the tares that the church will be made up of a mixture of Christians and Non-christians. The tares were a weed which so closely resembled wheat that it was only when they came into ear that you could distinguish them.

So while we can never lose our salvation if we are genuinely saved, the genuineness of our salvation will only be proved if we persevere to the end, Heb 10:19 ff and ch 12.

The work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was different to the new. He was given as an anointing to help specific people accomplish God-given tasks. Like kings and prophets, but others as well. It did not involve salvation and He would often only be given for a time till a task was accomplished. Thus, we can see David and Saul next to each other. Both anointed by God to be a king and both being involved in some horrendous things. Yet God could say about David that he was a man after God’s own heart and on the other hand turn His back on Saul. God could obviously discern the motivation of each of their hearts. Faith and love in one and disbelief and disregard in the other. Ultimately true forgiveness is only possible through Jesus and even the OT saints were only forgiven in retrospect through Jesus’ work on the cross, see Romans 3 :25

So, friends let us continue with joy, believing in the absolute certainty of God’s love and nothing separating us from that yet working out our salvation in fear and trembling. God bless, till next week.