CBFC Worship Service 8/23/2026

Um and to to be in God's Word and to celebrate after the service with you and to eat food.

I'm so thankful for all of you.

Ella and I both have been so blessed by this community and family, and so it's just really a blessing and a really exciting thing to get to and do that.

Please stay after and join us if you don't have anything going on.

We are continuing in 1 Samuel chapter 28 this morning.

1 Samuel 28 · chapter mention

We're going to do the whole chapter if you want to find your way in a copy of God's word to 1 Samuel 28.

I think most of us kind of instinctively divide the spiritual world into three main categories.

On the one side, there's what we might call like God stuff over here, going to church, reading your Bible, prayer, singing worship songs, taking communion, sharing the gospel, all of that is on the God stuff side.

And then all the way on the other side of the spectrum, there's what we might call like the devil stuff.

Like Satanism, witchcraft, occult rituals, seances, whatever else the government's been up to.

There are these two sides of the spectrum.

And then most of us envision this large ordinary space, this middle category with everything in between.

There's Sunday afternoon naps, there's Monday morning at work, there's whatever's in your bank account, what you watch on television, what you scroll through on your phone, your everyday interactions with your children or your coworkers, small arguments and disagreements with your spouse, and a million other little ordinary things.

Like is whether I take a nap this afternoon, Jesus worship or Satan worship.

Well, neither, right?

It's just it's just ordinary life.

There seems to be this enormous middle category that's basically spiritually neutral territory.

And of course, we know there are right and wrong ways to do those things.

You can handle money well or poorly, you can have righteous or sinful anger.

You can take a 20-minute nap or a six-hour nap and neglect your family.

Don't do that.

But even when we sin in these areas, we tend to think of them as just that, as ordinary types of sins.

Like I got a little angry, I was greedy, I looked at something I shouldn't have looked at, I lied to him, I got jealous of her, I refused to forgive them.

Those things are wrong, of course, right?

But they're not witchcraft.

They're not demonic, they're not Satan worship.

That's way, way over there.

So I keep pointing to like you guys, you're not.

You just happen to sit on the what I've designated as the Satan side of the room for this morning, but picture picture the spectrum.

That that distance that we put between ourselves and the devil stuff over here is comforting.

And this morning we're coming to what may be, I think, the darkest and strangest chapter in all of 1 Samuel.

In it, Saul, the king of Israel, is going to disguise himself and sneak through the darkness and find a witch and ask her to use demonic powers to summon the dead.

This is about as far over on the devil stuff side of the spectrum as you can get.

And that's what makes it so easy for us to read 1 Samuel 28 and think, what in the world does this have to do with me?

That's not something I struggle with.

Like I maybe you've experienced greed this week, maybe you've lost your temper, maybe you're carrying bitterness against someone, or you've slipped back into sexual sin again.

But I doubt many of you spent Friday night trying to summon the dead.

Right?

Can someone say that?

Okay.

So Saul can feel really far away from us when we read a story like this.

But I think Jesus wants us to see something in this story this morning.

Because he's already told us something about Saul that makes this chapter much more uncomfortable.

Thirteen chapters ago, before Saul ever went looking for a witch, before he ever asked anyone to summon the dead, Saul committed what probably looked like a much more ordinary, middle category sin.

God told him to do something, and Saul decided to do it his own way.

He was supposed to wipe out the Amalekites and their livestock, and he withheld the king and some of the livestock for a sacrifice for God.

He's trying to be religious, but he compromises slightly on God's commands, and in fact rebels against God, and Samuel tells him that his rebellion is as the sin of divination.

For Samuel 15, 23.

His compromise is as witchcraft.

And now, 13 chapters later, the man whose rebellion was like divination is now literally practicing divination.

The one whose little compromise was like witchcraft is now literally practicing witchcraft.

Which suggests an unsettling question.

What if the distance between Saul's ordinary rebellion and Saul's demonic witchcraft is not nearly as great as we might think?

And even more unsettling, what if the difference and the distance between Saul and us is not nearly as great as we might think?

See, the Bible presents a world in which there isn't actually this comfortable, enormous, spiritually neutral territory between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.

But all of our lives have a spiritual direction.

Our use of money is spiritual.

It is spent for this kingdom or for that one.

Our sexuality is spiritual, our anger is spiritual, our bitterness is spiritual, our entertainment is spiritual, our secret desires are spiritual.

All of life is lived before God.

All of life is worship, and every act of obedience or rebellion has a spiritual direction.

And that's what Saul's horrifying descent into the darkness is going to show us this morning.

And if that's true, then our problem is much worse than we might have thought.

Because if sin is simply breaking some rules, then what we need is to behave better.

But if sin participates in a demonic rebellion against the kingdom of God, if in rejecting God's rule we have given ourselves to the satanic powers that oppose him, then we don't merely need improvement.

We need rescue and radical transformation.

We need someone powerful enough to enter the kingdom of darkness and to kick down the doors and conquer Satan and bring us out of it alive.

And that's where this very dark story is ultimately going to take us.

So let's read now together from 1 Samuel chapter 28.

1 Samuel 28 · chapter mention

I invite you to stand with me if you're able to honor the reading of God's Word in 1 Samuel 28.

We'll read the whole chapter.

In those days the Philistines gathered their forces for war to fight against Israel.

And Akish said to David, Understand that you and your men are to go out with me in the army.

David said to Akish, Very well, you shall know what your servant can do.

And Akish said to David, Very well, I will make you my bodyguard for life.

Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, his own city.

And Saul had put the mediums and the necromancers out of the land.

The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shunim, and Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa.

When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly.

And while when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets.

Then Saul said to his servants, Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.

And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a medium at Endor.

So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night, and he said, Divine for me by a spirit, and bring up for me whomever I name to you.

The woman said to him, Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the necromancers from the land, why then are you laying a trap for my life to bring about my death?

But Saul swore to her by the Lord, as the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.

Then the woman said, Whom shall I bring up for you?

He said, Bring up Samuel for me.

When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice, and the woman said to Saul, Why have you deceived me?

You are Saul.

The king said to her, Do not be afraid, what do you see?

And the woman said to Saul, I see a god coming up out of the earth.

He said to her, What is his appearance?

And she said, An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe.

And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage.

Then Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?

Saul answered, I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams.

Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do.

And Samuel said, Why then do you ask me?

Since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy.

The Lord has done to you as he has spoken by me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David.

Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord, and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day.

Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me.

The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.

Then Saul fell at once full length on the ground, filled with fear, because of the words of Samuel, and there was no strength in him, for he had eaten nothing all day and all night, and the woman came to Saul, and when she saw that he was terrified, she said to him, Behold, your servant has obeyed you.

I have taken my life in my hand, and I have listened to what you have said to me.

Now therefore, you also obey your servant.

Let me set a morsel of bread before you and eat, that you may have strength when you go on your way.

He refused, and said, I will not eat.

But his servants, together with the woman, urged him, and he listened to their words.

So he arose from the earth and sat on the bed.

Now the woman had a fattened calf in the house, and she quickly killed it, and she took flour and kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread of it, and she put it before Saul and his servants, and they ate.

Then they arose and went away that night.

This is God's word, he may be seated.

Lord Jesus, would you meet with us now by your Holy Spirit that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear what you wish to say to us?

Lord, make us not like Saul, unwilling to listen, but open our minds and hearts to believe and receive this good news with joy.

Rid us from distraction, Lord.

Uncloud our minds from sin and disruptions, from distress and anxiety, from the burdens of life and of our own sin, and allow us to behold Jesus Christ in his glory until he comes.

We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

This morning, I want us to look at this dark and final night in the life of Saul under three ideas.

The entropy, the enchantment, and the exorcist.

Entropy, the enchantment, and the exorcist.

To see the judgment that sinners receive for their rejection of God, the bondage to the powers of darkness that sin leaves us in, and the only one who can do something about it.

We'll begin with the entropy.

Entropy is a word that scientists use, and without getting into all the physics of it, that I really just don't understand.

Entropy basically describes the tendency of things toward disorder and decay.

Things fall apart over time, they corrode and collapse.

And you don't need to be a physicist to understand the basic idea, right?

You just need to own a home.

Leave your house alone for 30 years.

Don't repair anything, don't replace anything, don't clean anything, don't maintain anything.

What happens?

Does the roof get better?

Does the paint freshen itself?

Do the pipes gradually become more reliable?

No, of course not.

Things fall apart.

Same thing is true with your car, same thing is true with your body.

The universe shows us this weird thing called entropy.

And that's precisely what we've been watching happen to King Saul.

There's been a kind of spiritual entropy at work in his life.

He hasn't remained stationary in his relationship with God.

He has been deteriorating, falling deeper and deeper into sin as his soul is decaying and his kingdom is collapsing all around him.

Saul basically has two great fears, David and the Philistines.

And now both of them are gathered together to make war against him, and the threat is enormous.

And when Saul looks out and sees the tremendous Philistine army, verse 5 says, He was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly.

His heart trembled greatly.

That's the phrase that was used of the Philistines before Saul demolished them in chapter 14.

But now it's Saul who trembles, and Saul who will be demolished.

So he does his good religious duty, and he asks God for help.

And then come some of the most terrifying words in this entire book.

Verse 6 The Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets.

Nothing.

Saul cries out to God in his moment of need, and heaven is silent.

And we find out why when we hear from Samuel later in verse 18.

Uniquely, this seems to be a single case in which a dead person is actually raised.

Other necromancers in the Bible and throughout history have uh seemed to have done this by demonic powers not actually raising real dead people.

Um but this is a unique case in which God has allowed the dead to be raised, and Samuel himself speaks to Saul in verse 18, and he says that the reason is you did not obey, literally, the Hebrews, you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh.

God has not been unwilling to speak to Saul.

Saul has been unwilling to listen to God.

Yahweh spoke to him again and again and again.

He gave him Samuel and the prophets, who he disobeyed and disregarded and drove away.

He gave him the priests with the Urim and Thummim, these sacred stones used for discerning the will of God.

And Saul slaughtered the priests.

God gave him his written word.

And where is there any mention in all of 1 Samuel of Saul, even once consulting the Word of God or reading from the scriptures?

Not once.

In chapter 15, Samuel told him explicitly, Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.

Verse 23.

And now Saul is experiencing the terrifying fulfillment of those words, the fulfillment of his own actions.

For years God spoke, and Saul would not listen.

And now God says, Fine, have it your way.

Have it your way.

This is one of the frightening realities of God's judgment in Scripture.

God's greatest judgment upon sin is to give sinners over to it.

We talked about this a little bit in Sunday school.

That's the repeated language of Romans 1, where Paul says that humanity exchanges the glory of God for idols, and therefore God gave them up, verse 24.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and God gave them up, verse 26.

They refused to acknowledge God and God gave them up, verse 28.

That is God's judgment.

It's giving them up to themselves.

And that's terrifying because of the entropy of sin.

Sin destroys, it devours us, it decays our souls.

It doesn't sit quietly where you put it.

It corrupts our desires and hardens our hearts and darkens our minds and carries us further and further into destruction and despair, farther than we ever intended to go.

Saul didn't wake up at one morning as a good Israelite boy and say, I want to go hang out with witches and perform necromancy and demonic rituals in the night.

No, he ended up there because that's where sin takes you deeper and deeper.

That's what sin does.

That's what happens when God gives you your own way, and you're freed to run headlong into whatever your heart desires.

Sin is dangerous, it is destructive, and it would consume our hearts forever if we had our own way.

We sometimes picture hell as though it were filled with like repentant people desperately pounding on God's door, begging to love him and be reconciled to him, while a cruel God refuses to let them in.

But the judgment of God, as it's presented to us in Scripture, is not Him relentlessly torturing repentant people as they beg for forgiveness.

It's far worse.

It's it's God mournfully saying, Fine, have it your way.

And giving them over to themselves, to their own self-destructive sin that they have willingly chosen, letting them go to chase after it and destroy themselves with it forever.

The gates of hell, it's often been said, the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

It's not God refusing to relent from punishing people, crying out for forgiveness.

It's more like a dog being held back from its own vomit by the leash of God's grace, which he eventually releases and says, have it your way, and allows sinners freely to run after and consume the very thing, the repulsive, sickening sin that will lead to their ruin.

And Saul is a portrait for us of how terrifying the destructive, decaying entropy of sin is.

When God gives him over to the path that he has chosen, Saul doesn't remain where he is.

He goes deeper and deeper into new depths of self-destructive rebellion until he is participating in witchcraft, enslaved to his own sin and ultimately dead.

And that brings us to our second point, the enchantment.

And here's where Saul's story gets even more unsettling.

Because this isn't the first time the Bible has shown us Saul's rebellion as witchcraft, as we've seen 13 chapters ago, when Saul compromises on God's commands, Samuel tells him that his rebellion is as the sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

That was chapter 15.

And now we're in chapter 28, years later, and the man whose rebellion was as divination is practicing divination, and the man whose little sin and small compromise was compared to idolatry has now traveled through the darkness to participate in a pagan occult ritual.

There is no God over here, Satan way over here, and this enormous neutral territory in between where most of ordinary life happens.

The Bible simply doesn't give us this middle category.

All we do is worship.

And when we reject the rule of God, we don't become spiritually independent.

We give ourselves to something or someone else.

There are only two kingdoms, and to rebel against the one is to participate in the other.

To disobey the one king is to submit yourself to the other.

No sin is spiritually neutral.

It is not merely against God, it is for Satan.

It doesn't always look demonic, it doesn't always look like worship, but it is.

And Psalm 106 says they sacrifice their sons and their daughters to the demons.

The false idols are not merely wood and stone.

Scripture pulls back the curtain and says there are demons here.

Worship is spiritual.

And now look at our own advanced enlightened culture where unborn children are sacrificed by the millions in the name of autonomy, convenience, sexual freedom, self-determination, financial well-being, and tell me it's not demonic.

Changing the name on the altar doesn't mean we've escaped the spiritual reality behind it.

And it's not just abortion.

Take a look at the pornography industry.

A market that dominates this nation, and a market that is fueled by the disgracing and exploitation of women and children who have been degraded and abused into an inescapable slavery of shame as their masters and their pimps make a profit off of violating them publicly.

You don't think so?

Do the research.

The links between pornography and human trafficking are undeniable.

They don't want to be there, they're being abused, and we're participating in it.

It's demonic.

Oh no, not me.

I would never participate in something demonic.

I'm just a man at home with an iPhone.

As I fuel an industry that preys on the weak and abuses the vulnerable for my own gratification, as I celebrate the shameful ravishment and abuse and assault of women made in Image of God.

Tell me that's not a demonic attack against what Jesus loves.

God's word doesn't stop there.

Ephesians 4 says that even our anger is the work of the devil in our lives, which he uses to wage his attack against the kingdom of God.

Have you been angry this week?

Angry at your spouse, your sibling, your co-worker.

Scripture warns that this too is a rejection of the rule of God that submits ourselves to the demonic powers opposed to him.

2 Corinthians 2 tells us that unforgiveness for a believer is the work of Satan.

Are you refusing to forgive someone that you know you ought to?

Are you harboring bitterness against someone in your life or from your past?

Beware of participating in the satanic.

James 3 talks about bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.

The resentment you feel when she gets what you want, or the secret pleasure when he fails and is taken down a notch.

The need to be noticed, and James calls that kind of thinking earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

Paul in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 looks at something as respectable as wanting more money and says that that is idol worship.

Idol worship.

Which he defines in 1 Corinthians 10 as not merely worshipping inanimate objects, but as worshiping demons.

Do you desire more than you have or need?

Are you content, as Paul says we ought to be in 1 Timothy 6, with food and clothing?

Or do you want more?

Has your heart been bewitched and enchanted by this subtle form of demonic idolatry?

Mine has.

Reading this story.

Partially because of how tragic and devastating Saul's story is.

And partially because I see so much of myself in him.

And I feel, I was telling my wife this last night, I feel like I have stood in that very room and sought out the same darkness and have served idols and participated in a kingdom opposed to God.

And if you see yourself in that room too, then you know that our problem is much worse than bad behavior.

We've been enchanted and enslaved by demonic deceit.

We've believed the serpent's lies and served his idols and participated in his rebellion.

We don't need merely need improvement.

We need rescue and radical transformation.

We need someone stronger than the darkness, someone who can enter the enemy's kingdom, break his power, and bring us out alive.

Free us from it.

And that brings us to our final point for this morning: the Exorcist.

We got a glimpse of our rescuer back in chapter 16.

While Saul, basically from the beginning, was surrounded by and oppressed by evil spirits.

David, from his anointing as king, enters the throne room and expels them.

He sends them running.

And while he may not be like exercising or casting out demons per se, these details are included to give us a picture of the king to come.

And centuries later, the son of David arrives.

And have you ever noticed just how much of Jesus' ministry consists of him casting out demons?

He walks into enemy territory and the demons panic.

They recognize him.

They scream, they beg for help, and with a word, Jesus sends them fleeing.

In the thousands, legions, armies of demons run from him.

He expels them, he casts them out of whole regions of the earth.

Jesus describes his own ministry in Matthew 12 as entering a strongman's house, binding the strongman, and plundering his possessions.

Where Satan is the strongman, the world is the house he has tyrannized, and we are the captives inside, and Jesus Christ has come to kick down the door and to free us from the demonic powers that have once enslaved us.

1 John 3 8 says, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

That's why he came, not to make you a little nicer or to help you clean yourself up a bit or to give you some good advice.

Jesus came to destroy the works of Satan.

He came to crush that serpent's head under his foot, to break his power, to forgive the sins by which he accuses us and to free the captives that he had once enslaved.

And he has done this by entering the darkness himself.

As Saul took off the robe of his royalty and entered into the darkness of the night, Jesus did the same, not to participate in sin, but to conquer it.

Jesus, though God, in some sense took off the robe of his royalty and cloaked himself in our humanity, entered the darkness of our cursed world and took our sin upon himself.

And as Saul was forsaken by God, Jesus too was willingly forsaken.

Not for any sin of his own, but for the sins of the world that he willingly absorbed into himself.

And on the cross, darkness covered the land.

And the perfectly obedient Lord cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And heaven was silent.

Jesus entered our darkness.

He bore our guilt, he took our curse, he endured our judgment, he died our death, and then he rose from our grave, crushing the power of death and triumphing over the powers of darkness.

Listen to this, Colossians 2.

You who were dead in your sins, God made alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our sins by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

He disarmed the demonic rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Christ.

That is the hope of the gospel.

For broken, helpless, enchanted, enslaved sinners like us.

Colossians 1, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Church, He has delivered us.

Not He might deliver us.

Not He will if you can clean yourself up enough or hold on to your faith long enough.

He has delivered us.

If you are in Christ, if you have been baptized into Jesus, have trusted in Jesus, you have been transferred.

You used to belong to that kingdom.

You participated in its rebellion, you believed its lies, you served its idols, but you don't belong there anymore.

Christ has come and kicked down the door, he's cast out the wickedness, and he has rescued you from the power of Satan.

And Satan cannot have you back.

He may tempt you, he may accuse you, he may mock you, you may stumble horribly and shamefully into sins that belong to the old kingdom.

But your sin does not and cannot undo the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for you.

If you are in Christ by faith, you are forgiven.

Not partially, not periodically, not provisionally, but forgiven, period, totally.

Every lustful thought, every bitter word, every jealous desire, every greedy impulse, every shameful thing you've looked at, thought about, or done, Jesus Christ bore it all, and because he was forsaken for you, you will never be forsaken by God.

Never.

Saul heard silence.

But you have a father who continually says from his word, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Brothers and sisters, hear your heavenly father saying to you this morning, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Saul was rejected from the kingdom.

Jesus says of his sheep, No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Brothers and sisters, hear the Lord Jesus Christ saying to you this morning, No one will ever snatch you out of my hand.

Saul found himself enslaved to darkness.

But by Christ's Holy Spirit, you have been called out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Brothers and sisters, hear the Holy Spirit saying to you this morning, I have called you out of darkness and into my marvelous light.

So Paul can ask in Romans 8 that we looked at this morning, what can separate us from the love of Christ?

Trouble, persecution, death, angels, demons, spiritual powers?

And the answer, nothing.

Not Satan, not demons, not your past, not your future, not your worst failure, not death or hell itself.

Nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So if you saw yourself standing in that room with Saul this morning, don't despair.

Look to Jesus, the great exorcist who has cast out demons, the serpent crusher, the strongman binder, the devil destroyer, the risen and ascended king.

Yes, the darkness is real.

But Jesus has conquered it.

And he is coming again soon to cast it out of this earth forever for those who belong to him.

Trust in Jesus and wait patiently and eagerly for his return.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, there is no one like you.

You rule the universe with supreme authority over all creation, physical and spiritual, over life and death, over sin and righteousness, over angels and demons.

Lord, you rule our lives, and so we ask that you would speak to our hearts right now, everyone in this room, that we would not be Saul and harden our hearts to your voice, but would listen to you, Lord, and be awakened by your grace and your infinite compassion toward us.

Lord, refresh us and renew us with the good news of your death and resurrection, that we might leave here strengthened and encouraged by you, by who you are, and by who we now are in you.

Thank you, Lord.

It is in your name we pray and for your glory.

Amen.

You might be dead in your transcrash.