1 Samuel 28:6 And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. 1. Calamity may be borne. We can oppose it to our manhood and our constancy. Menaced by shipwreck, we can breast the storm. To be defeated in battle, to be superseded in power, to see popularity crumbling into indifference — all this and more Saul had to bear, and all this may be borne. "If God be on my side," anyone may say to all the world, "I care nothing for all the rest." Did not great Martin Luther cry: "Oh! my God, punish me rather with pestilence, with all the terrible sicknesses on earth, with war, with anything, rather than Thou be silent to me?" "And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not." Ah! that is to be desolate indeed! 2. There are some whom God does not answer because they do not care to inquire of Him at all. The earth suffices them. Life is their feeding trough, and they care nothing for more. They never care to look beyond the narrow horizon of themselves. 3. When Saul inquired of the Lord, we are told that the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Dreams were the lowest form of revelation: yet we have so many closer modes of communion with God, in His Christ and by His Spirit, that of dreams we need not speak. Have no messages of Scripture ever seemed suddenly to burn their revelation upon your souls? Yes, God does speak to us by Urim still, and He also speaks to us by His prophets. And can you wonder that, if this be so, God, whom you have despised, and whose laws you have deliberately and habitually violated, should not only be silent to you at last? God never turns from the cry of the penitent, however bad he may have been. Distinguish between God's apparent silences for His children, and the self-created silence of your own to those who utterly refuse Him. Oh, let us beware lest we feel the awful silence which is not God's, but arises from our own obstinate and determined wickedness, that it may not overwhelm us. (Dean Farrar.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. |
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