Homilist 1 Samuel 28:15 And Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed… There are two stages in the history of human depravity. 1. Man deserts God. God calls, and man refuses. 2. God deserts man. The Eternal departs from him, which means a discontinuance of the overtures of His love, and His agencies to restore; it is leaving man to himself, to reap the labour of his own hands; it is the physician giving up the patient; the tender father closing the door against his reprobate child. In the first stage, we find the vast majorities of mankind in every age; in the second, we may find some of earth in every period. This stage is hell. The first stage is probation; the second stage is retribution. This second and final stage Saul had reached. All guiding oracles were hushed to him. The Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. Deep is the necessity he feels for supernatural help. He feels himself deserted by God. This passage presents three considerations concerning mankind in this state. I. THAT HUMANITY UNDER A CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD'S DESERTION WILL EVER BE IMPRESSED WITH THE NEED OF THE FORFEITED MEANS OF DIVINE COMMUNION. There was a time when Saul had communications with his Maker. The prophets were accessible to him. He could consult the Urim on the breast of the high priest; but he had lost all now: he had slain the high priest; Samuel was dead; the Spirit of the Lord forsook him, and the heavens were closed against him. How deep and earnest is the cry, "Bring me up Samuel." Oh! for one word from God now. Oh! that I could have but one more message from those sealed heavens. The deep cry of humanity, under a consciousness that God had deserted it, is, "Oh! that I knew but where I might, find him." Captives away in Babylon, how did the Jews value the temple which, perhaps, they often neglected when at home? Sinner, value and improve the means of Divine communion now: God is speaking to you, through ministers, the Bible, and other books. II. THAT HUMANITY, UNDER A CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD'S DESERTION, BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF FEARFUL DELUSIONS. Such delusions seem to me to spring naturally from his excited state of mired. 1. It presented a vivid vision of the teacher whose counsels had been neglected. The imagination of a conscience-stricken sinner will bring old reechoes from their graves, give them voice, and make them speak again. 2. It proclaimed the sin and pronounced the doom. (ver. 18-19.) Imagination now gives a voice of thunder to all this whispering of conscience. Imagination is a terrible faculty, when swayed by a guilty conscience. What visions it can unfold! It can create a subjective world, whose firmament is "black as sackcloth," whose tenants are fiends, whose stormy atmosphere is rent by lightnings and loaded with shrieks of anguish. III. THAT HUMANITY, UNDER A CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD'S DESERTION, MUST SINK INTO UNMITIGATED DESPAIR. Here is despair prostrating the man. The guilty mind, in despair, loses three elements of power. 1. Hope. What an inspiring element is this! How it sustains under trial! How it stimulates in enterprise! 2. Purpose. Mind is only powerful and happy as it has some purpose to engage its attention and energies: but in despair there is no purpose; the mind looks abroad on the dark universe and finds nothing to do. 3. Sympathy. A God-deserted mind has no sympathy: all hearts recoil from a sin-convicted soul, and it turns in upon itself. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. |
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