1 Sam 28:10, And Saul vowed to her by the Lord, saying, "As the Lord lives, there shall no punishment come upon you for this thing."
This morning we are at another point of how much the fallen nature of humanity is set into its own depravity. At every juncture of decision-making turns within the mind of fallen mankind, the choice against God is at the fore-front. In past studies, we have seen how this king of Israel would turn away from honoring God and seek to make a way by himself. This is, sadly, one of the reasons that Saul figures so prominently in the Bible. 
We have the two early kings of Israel set in juxtaposition to each other, much like the manner of the conflict that rages within our beings. There is much about Saul which is inherently true of who we used to be in our old nature, dead to God and His Holiness. 
Then, after our salvation experience through the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, there is now our new nature in evidence. The issue is that the dregs of that old nature rears its ugly head in the course of our walk on this earth. While we want to be like David, with a heart after God, there is that residual scum which tries to besmirch and cast aspersions against the reality of the One Who is now living His life in us.
The saddest part of this conflict is what was evident in the account of Saul as he tried to hear from God. When that was unsuccessful, he then participated in a vile action that he considered to be a valid means toward making a decision in the midst of a terrible trial and circumstance. The sadness in this is that he did not consider it to be anything other than an expression of his superstitious habits to deal with the course of his walk on this earth. 
He tried to hear from God. Then, because of his continual disobedience, which added to that thickening wall of hardness of heart, he tried to mix in the manner of this world’s spiritualism. 
Because he did not hear from God, the king of Israel, knowing that this was the habit of what should be done before going into battle, then made the decision to go into the lair of the enemy. He consulted a medium, one who was supposedly versed in the means of bridging the two realms, that of the here and now and that of the after life. We know that Saul had previously tried to eliminate this manner of spiritism. This was rather unsuccessfully in the fact that he was able to so easily consort with a spiritist at this point. 
Accordingly, when Saul sought out this medium, she was very much afraid of what could happen to her. She was, initially, put off and trying to have nothing to do with this man who was seeking her supposed abilities to deal with the dead and departed. 
However, after Saul swore by the name of the Lord that nothing would happen to this medium, the very passage of our consideration, she then worked on his behalf to bring forth Samuel. This only served to pronounce upon Saul, that which the king already knew, that the kingdom would be taken away and given to David. 
Saul knew this in his heart. That is why he so furiously and viciously and tenaciously sought to kill David throughout all those times of David’s having to hide in the wilderness regions, and then finally escaping to the Philistines. Despite this knowledge, Saul superstitiously tried to make contact with the Lord through even the use of a medium to bring forth Samuel from the dead. There was that mixture of spiritualism in looking to Jehovah, and the spiritism of this age which will only serve to show the desperation of those who should know better.
Very often, we are guilty of this same mixing of spiritual elements. We know the Lord and we pray to Him and we read His Word and we praise and we worship Him. We gather with our fellow believers and we speak the language of our spiritual nature. 
Then, we may find ourselves trying to mix in the things of this age. It may not be to the extent of which we witness with Saul, but we still seek to find the best of both world views in the course of our walk here and now. 
We know the truth, and we know better, much like Saul. However, there is that enticement, that ritualistic draw which brings forth that foul measure of how we allow ourselves to be drawn to the darkness of this age with all its lies and lures and snares. It stretches forth those awful, painful, wrenching and tearing talons to embed its claws into our flesh and into our minds. 
We find ourselves proclaiming with our mouths that same curse of our self life which swears so falsely by the name of Yahweh. We put God’s name on our godless activities and proclaim that it is all in order that the result will be a good one. We try to use earthly means to show that our lives are different and special because we know best what would honor God, despite our defiant disobedience. We proclaim with our mouths that He is to be honored while we work with our minds and our hands all that is other than honoring to Him. 
We need to take pause in the course of how much we are truly after His honor and His glory, or after our own manner of gaining the riches of this age. The inner battle between the heart of Saul and the heart of David raging within our beings needs to be set into the course of complete surrender and submission to God. This is in utter opposition to the seeking after those things which will elevate our self, our habits, our customs, our ritualistic superstitions above the life of Christ Jesus. Our mouths make the claim that what we are doing and who we are is solely by the Name of the Lord. Yet our minds and our lives are anything but. Much like Saul, we may swear by the name of the Lord, but that is merely a customary vocalization of something that is far from our hearts and our minds. 
He made the statement …As the Lord lives… and yet his actions showed that he was not really set on this as truth. It was merely a matter of habitual vocalization on his part. As we will see, he used the same phraseology a number of times, yet it truly seemed to be merely a pattern of speech for Saul. He did not place much stock in it, because if he did, this woman would not have been consulted by Saul. She would rather have been put to death in obedience to the Lord God Almighty. Saul was mixing everything together into some manner of his own ideology that would appease his need to do things to accomplish his own self-centered edification as the king of Israel. 
We need to take stock of just how precious and to be guarded should be our use of the name of God in the course of our vocal expressions. There needs to be a sentinel installed on our tongue and over our mouths with respect to the flippant manner by which we even make claims to be a Christian, one who is purchased by the invaluable and precious and incalculably awesome, live-giving blood of the Only Begotten Son of God. There is a great dread that should fill our hearts and beings whenever we use the Name of the Lord with anything less than reverence and awe in our conscious awareness.
Please turn in your Bibles to Ex 20:7, as we will consider exactly what is at stake, especially in this day when the name of God is so callously and dismissively and frivolously bandied about with no true regard for the One so invoked. The Lord makes it very clearly to be understood that He will not brook such unfeeling and insensitive usage of that which is the most precious and beloved manner of appellation in the whole of this, His creation.
Ex 20:7, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. 
From the very beginning of His dealings with the Children of Israel as His chosen people, God made it abundantly clear and concise that in their use of His name, they should do so with reverence and with honor and with appreciation. This was for the fact of Who He is and all that He had done and was doing for them. 
They were freely able to call upon Him by name and to give honor to Him by name and to worship Him and tell of His goodness to all by the name of The Lord. But to misuse His name, to besmirch His wonderful name, to so falsely swear by the name of the Lord in the manner of the common usage of foulness and depravity, that would not go unpunished.
As an early example of how seriously this was to be taken, there was a fight between two young men in the camp. One of the miscreants used the name of God in the manner of offense before the holiness of The Lord. The result, for the entire camp of the Children of Israel to witness, is recounted for us in Lev 24:13-16. This was the point at which the Lord set into the hearts and minds of the nation exactly how seriously He took the manner and means of the heart of those who would speak forth His glorious and awesome name in such a demeaning manner. 
Lev 24:13-16, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all the congregation stone him. And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'If anyone curses his God, then he shall bear his sin. 'Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him. The alien as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. 
So serious was this matter that the Lord reinforced it again in His Word, in Deut 5:11, to those who would read and understand. He wanted it to be made abundantly clear to any and all that the name of the Lord is precious and to be honored with the every fabric of our essence. 
Deut 5:11, 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. 
This was so serious that it was equated with something else that Saul, in this morning’s reading brought forth. It is matter of how someone who would swear falsely by the Lord, using His name in vain, would have little reason to forgo any other prohibition of God along the lines of going to the mediums of this age. Consider the proscription against spiritists and mediums that was put before the people by the Lord in Deut 18:10-12. 
Where there is no respect or appreciation for The Lord, what would prevent some one like Saul from consorting with the elements and the spiritualistic voyeurs of this world? This was expressly forbidden and those so discovered were to be excised from before the people of God. Why would one, who would deliberately and defiantly use the Lord’s name in vain have a hesitation to do something else so expressly against the Word of God? Saul showed his distain for the Lord and for His name in precisely cavorting with a spiritist, even though the Lord considered the practice of this medium as detestable.
Deut 18:10-12, There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you.
Such was apparently the heart of Saul. He had come to the point in his resistance to God that he would do anything. He had no repentance to the fact that God was not pleased with the manner in which Saul had disregarded The Lord’s commands and direction. Saul rebelliously quit honoring The Lord with regard to His guidance in the course of leading the Lord’s people. It no longer mattered what the Lord said. Saul was going to do what Saul wanted and what Saul thought would bring him all that he deserved as the king of Israel. 
He was willing to completely set aside everything that had represented the Lord and seek even after the means of this age in order to hold onto the throne. Saul was set on the absolute derailment of the announced plans of God. Such was the growing impertinence and disregard that Saul harbored against Jehovah. 
Saul had seen first hand how real the Lord was. He had been privy to the manner in which to prophesy unto the Lord’s glory and power and majesty and goodness. Many battles had been waged with the Lord going before the Children of Israel. Saul, as king, went before the army into battle victoriously under the banner of the Lord God Almighty. Yet, in this matter, Saul was set on the course of keeping his legacy to the bitter end. 
One such example of the complete disregard for the name of the Lord as uttered by the then king of Israel is recounted in 1 Sam 19:6+7. This was after one of the initial attempts to kill David, whom Saul considered the usurper, the shepherd boy whom the Lord had chosen and whom Samuel had anointed as the next king of Israel. Saul was seemingly placated from that bloodlust by the wise counsel of his son, Jonathan. Jonathan recounted to his father just how much David meant to the people and to even Saul in the course of David’s courage in battle.
1 Sam 19:6+7, And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan, and Saul vowed, "As the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death." Then Jonathan called David, and Jonathan told him all these words. And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as formerly. 
Notice that Saul stated, concerning David, that …"As the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death." Yet, very shortly thereafter, almost to the end of Saul’s life, he was hotly pursuing David throughout the entire region of Israel in continual efforts to put him to death. Even as Saul voiced that oath, there was the inherent reality that he did not care about whether God was really alive or not. 
Saul wanted David dead. He would do everything within his means to thus deal with the one to whom the Lord had given the kingdom, as restated many times by the Prophet Samuel. Even when Samuel was dead, and the medium called forth to the afterlife, that was the message relayed to Saul. His words of oath in the name of the Lord meant nothing to him as the Lord meant truly nothing to this king. 
We will continue our consideration of this vital reality that when we speak the name of the Lord, it is to mean something tremendous. We dare never allow our mouths to voice anything but praise and adoration and honor and glory to God in the manner of the speaking forth of His precious name, now and evermore. So be it!
And Saul vowed to her by the Lord, saying, "As the Lord lives, there shall no punishment come upon you for this thing." Amen.

Guests		
	Today is Music Sunday at Greg and Nanette’s home
Tuesday Night Bible Study on Zoom
Women’s meeting Wednesday
Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting 

Other announcements?    

Birthdays:	
Today -		Robert McDonald
Tuesday -		Karen Hartman
Saturday -		Jillian Kling
			Mary Elizabeth Frain
Next Sunday -	Grace Stallings
Next Monday -	Jeff O’Reilly
Anniversaries: 	
Tuesday -		Joey and Sheridan Chilano
Saturday -		Ken and Karen Hartman
	
This morning’s benediction is Rev 1:8. "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." Amen.