AP

1 Samuel 28:10-11    Saul swore to [the Medium of Endor] by the LORD, “As surely as the LORD lives, you will not be punished for this.”  Then the woman asked, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” “Bring up Samuel,” he said.
Saul is such a sad, sad, pitiful character.  He stands in sharp contrast in the Bible to his immediate successor, David.  Both men were chosen by God to rule as his representative King among his people.  David did that very well, and in that way foreshadowed God’s true King, Jesus; Saul, on the other hand, made a complete mess of it.

The fundamental difference between the two was their worldview, serving as a warning to us about the importance of getting our worldview right.  At heart, Saul was a humanist.  Outwardly, he appeared to acknowledge God as the true King of Israel; but inwardly he was his own man, seeking to solve his problems with his own wisdom and in his own strength.  David was ‘a man after God’s own heart’ (see Acts 13:22).  In spite of David’s many faults and even serious failings, his worldview never changed: the LORD was always his Ruler, Redeemer and Refuge.  Neither did Saul’s worldview change – and the more he tried to solve his problems in what he tried to think were ‘spiritual’ ways, the deeper he dug the hole he was in!

Samuel had already told Saul that his kingship was finished.  His failure to accept God’s verdict, and his continued resolve to fight against the inevitable, only served to confirm how ingrained his worldview was.  Samuel was now dead, but Saul still wanted to argue his case with him, even if it meant contravening the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 18:10-11) and his own enforcement of it (see verse 3)!

There is irony in the fact that God moved outside his normal means of communication and used Saul’s ultimate stupidity as the way of conveying to him his sentence of death.  Within a short time both he and his son and heir, Jonathan, would be killed in battle and the kingship would belong to David.

How committed and resolute are we to a Christocentric Biblical worldview (cf Colossians 1:15-20) as we live it out today, surrounded by a humanistic culture in which Saul would feel very much at home?
– Bruce Christian