[Monday's Devotional] - A desperate act

 

This week we will focus on the Bible in a year readings from the books of Samuel.

 

It has all been happening in today's reading.  David has been able to enter Saul's camp by night and without waking anyone, steal Saul's spear and water jar.  Despite this miraculous event, David then shows no faith in God and flees to the land of the Philistines.  He then further covers himself in glory by making a living raiding parts of the adjacent land and then lying to his host King about where he has been pillaging.

 

Saul, meanwhile, is preparing for battle with the Philistines, and he is scared.  Very scared.   As a younger, stronger man, Saul had put all of the mediums and necromancers (those who communicate with the dead) out of the land.  He was right to do so.  God is God and it is clearly a lack of faith in him to seek guidance and counsel from the spirit of an ancestor or any other departed person.  This is of course true for us too.  Attempting to communicate with the dead is at best misguided, and at worst a deliberate rebellion against God.  Sadly, I have personally seen the damage that this kind of occult involvement does to people's lives.

 

Saul has lost his faith in God; he is in despair.  He is losing the plot and he turns to a medium.  Of course, this does nothing to halt Saul's decline.  So sad.  But what if?  What if Saul had turned?  What if he had turned to God?  What if he had thrown himself on God's mercy?  What if he had repented?  Well, we will never know.  But we do believe in a God of mercy who can redeem us from even the darkest situations.  Whether it is the spiritual darkness of occult involvement, or any other kind of darkness, God seeks to redeem and restore us.  He wants to redeem and restore us.  He reaches out to redeem and restore us.  The hand of God just has to be grasped in the darkness.

 

Pray with me:

 

Lord, I pray for those standing on the edge of darkness.  Give them the courage to turn back.  For those who have wandered in to the dark, give them the courage to reach out and grasp your hand.  Lead them back to the light and restore them.  I ask this in the name of Jesus who came to seek the lost.

Amen.

 

John Martin-Jones

 

Read the Bible in a year: Psalm 68:21-27, 1Samuel 26:1- 28:25, John 19:1-27