Turning to Darkness

 

    There is a dark and a light side to this world and it is not night and day.  It is all spiritual.  We all have light and dark within us.  We can only bring out the genuine light through God.  Feeding the dark side to our human nature is much easier.  It can be manipulated to look like goodness, kindness, or other aspects of the light.  However those with discernment will always see through the façade.

    Saul was a charismatic person.  People just wanted to be around him and to please him.  He led many people to their death by using that influence for the darkness.  That includes himself and his sons.  Here's the catch a lot of people that pretend to be good, but do no have the Holy Spirit thriving within them, have no idea that it is all an act.  They genuinely want to believe that they are good.

    It came to a big battle between the Israelites and the Philistines.  The Philistines wanted David to fight since he was King Achish's personal body guard.  Saul heard the rumors that David was fighting against him and he was afraid.  Here is where it gets sticky.  Years ago to try to please God he had killed off all the witches, sorcerers, or anyone who dealt with the dark arts/spirits.  He no longer had Samuel.  He had no spiritual guidance because God would not speak to him.  He was facing this alone and he could not deal with that fact.  

    He finally found a medium and dressed up to look like someone else.  He had to find a way to talk to Samuel.  Samuel was not too happy to be brought back.  He confirmed that in this battle that Saul would watch all his sons die before he died.  David would get his kingdom.  Saul was an enemy of God for his hard heart and leading so many people away from God and to their death.  

    The news was more than Saul could comprehend.  He had always found a way and now he had no control.  His strength left him in that moment.  No one could get him to eat.  Maybe it was the depression or maybe self-pity, but starving himself before a battle was not a good solution.  The Medium finally got him to eat.

    Saul turned to the darkness to try to get a different result than the one that he already knew.  Turning to the darkness will never turn out well.  You may appear to have everything you want for a time, but it will come back and consume you.   Following Jesus is almost always harder, but you become stronger and the end results will be far better than anything you can imagine.

1 Samuel 28