Jentezen Franklin - Saul's Last Supper
Welcome to Kingdom Connection. Thank you so much for joining us today. I know God has a word in store that I believe is gonna lift you and encourage you and give you strength and bless you in remarkable ways. You know the church is on a comeback. The body of Christ is on a comeback. And I believe today's message is going to proclaim in your life that God is able to bring you a comeback. Open your ears, open your mind, He's ready to speak.
In 1 Samuel 28:3, Samuel dies, and the Bible said Saul had put out the mediums and the spiritualists out of the land. He put out the witches, the spiritualists, the mediums, the fortune tellers. He put them out of the land. But in Verse 5, watch, "Saul saw the army of the Philistines, and he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly". Notice the driving thing of Saul's life changes here; fear. Fear. His heart trembled. "He inquired of the Lord", Verse 6, "and the Lord did not answer either by dreams, by Urim," I'll explain that in a moment, "or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, 'Find me a woman who is a medium that I may go to her and inquire.' And his servant said to him, 'In fact, there is a woman who is a medium at Endor".
The King James says a witch. "Saul disguised himself. Put on clothes. He took two men with him. They cam to the woman by night, and he said, 'Please conduct a seance for me and bring up for me one that I shall name to you.'" This is interesting. I'm gonna keep reading it 'cause I want to. "And the woman said to him, 'Look, you know what Saul has done.'" She did really know who he was yet. He disguised himself. "'How he has cut off mediums and spiritualists from the land. And why do you lay a snare for me to cause me to die?'" She's saying this is a sting operation. I'm expecting the F.B.I. to bust through the walls and arrest me because what I'm doing is illegal. "And he swore to her by the Lord," he took the name of the Lord in vain right here, "And he swore to her by the Lord, 'As the Lord lives, no punishment will come upon you.' And then the woman said, 'Whom shall I bring up from the dead for you?'" Bring up for me Samuel from the dead.
The woman saw Samuel, and she cried out with a loud voice. She saw something she wasn't ready for. She saw something. She had done this many times, and she knew what it was to deal with spirits and deal in the dark world with spirit guides and channelers and forces that would appear in that cave. She understood. She had seen them come in hoods and demonic powers to lead and guide and tell, there are people who have been empowered supernaturally by demonic spirits. It's not a game. "He said to her, 'What is his form?' and she said, 'It's an old man coming up, and he's covered in a mantle.'"
Can I preach right there? The mantle was the prayer shawl. It was Samuel. God is hijacking a seance. You think the devil is in control 'cause they've got their blood of chickens and doing voodoo, and this God says nothing can keep me out. If I wanna come, I can come. I can hijack a seance. I'm preaching my whole sermon. I've gotta calm down. "What is his form? It's an old man coming, and instantly Saul perceived it was Samuel. He stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down. Samuel said, 'Why have you disturbed me from bringing me up?' Saul answered, 'I'm deeply distressed.'" Here it is again; fear. "'The Philistines were against me,'" listen to these words, "'God has departed from me and does not answer me anymore by prophets or by dreams.'"
Go with me to the Valley of Jezreel. There is a mountain called Mount Gilboa. The Philistines have cornered King Saul. His boys, his sons including Jonathan are with him, his own flesh and blood, heir to the throne. The army of Israel is back in a corner. They are completely surrounded in a valley by the Philistines, and there is no escape, and here this tall, handsome young man named Saul who was the first king of Israel. I can see him as he stands in the moonlight, and he looks out and from a distance he is wrapped in that garment of gloom. He is riveted with fear as he sees the campfires from a distance and the torches of the Philistines, and he hears the laughter and the mocking knowing that there's no escape and in the morning that more powerful and strong army is about to meet him and his army, and he's tormented with the fact that God has departed from me, and he hears me no more.
And in a moment of desperation, the fear of death, the dread of life after death in the condition that he is in he says, "Is there not a medium that can give me direction? I'm so desperate. God won't answer me, and I need to know God's plan for my life". And in that moment, they said there is a witch at Endor. It's a cave, and he at that moment decided to connect with the prince of darkness. He at that moment by entering in where that medium was, and this is so important because he knew the spirit of God because he knew the anointing of God. He had holy oil poured on him by the greatest prophet arguably of the Old Testament, Samuel. He had been so affected by that oil that it turned him into another man, and he had a heart, the Scripture said, that had been touched by God. He prophesied, and the people even said, "Is Saul now among the prophets"? He was such a worshipper that he began to dance and sing with them.
Now this man who had felt the presence, experienced the anointing knew the joy of the Lord, know the presence of God, has now turned and connected with the prince of darkness, turned a cave into a sanctuary of satanic worship, and there he turns, and he says, "God won't speak to me in dreams". Because of my disobedience, because of my rebellion, because of my constantly not listening to God time after time after time.
Point number one of this little sermon is this: if you do not listen to God, if you repeatedly disobey and do not listen to God, He may stop speaking to you. That story teaches you simply that if you don't listen to God, He may stop speaking to you.
Notice, point number two is this: when you can't reach God, God can still reach you, and the theologians, this is a hard one to understand. This is a hard story to understand. God clearly forbids people to participate in talking to the dead, in consulting the dead, in palm reading, and fortune telling, and astrology, and fortune telling, and reading of palms, and channeling, and crystals, and talking to rocks, and praying to statues, whether it be Buddha statues or whatever and burning incense. This is spiritual idolatry, and it is extremely dangerous for especially someone who knows the living God, someone who has experienced the presence of God, someone who knows the Word of God. You are not in the same category. This Scripture teaches you, you do not go and touch certain things. You are in great danger to mental breakdown, spiritual breakdown, emotional torment, fear, and terrifying emotions tormenting spirits can begin to take over your life.
I don't know how any way to sugar coat this one. I've gotta tell the truth like I feel it today. When I look at this story, and I see it, we think that witchcraft is something that's only extreme and it's radical and it's out there, but you know, it really doesn't affect our life, and yet when Paul wrote to church in Galatians, he said, "Who has bewitched you to believe another Gospel"? You've turned away from the cross, and you've turned away from the truth, and you've turned away from the holy living, and you're believing another Gospel, and I wanna know. You need to understand the word bewitched means the evil eye. You're under the influence of the evil eye. He warned that witchcraft was a work of the flesh. He names it right besides sins. He says and all the works of the flesh are adultery and fornication and lying and drunkenness, and right in the middle of it he puts witchcraft.
What is witchcraft? Rebellion is as of, the Scripture says this in Samuel, rebellion is as of the sin of witchcraft. Rebellion against what? Against spiritual authority. There's righteous authority. Listen to me carefully. There's righteous authority, and there's unrighteous authority. Righteous authority is enforced by the Holy Spirit. Unrighteous authority is enforced by demonic powers, and both are real and both have power and influence in what you give yourself to. You either are going to stay under the righteous authority of God's Word, or you do like Saul and you step over into the dark side. Then you come under the authority that is unrighteous authority that is evil.
We see in the story that if you will not listen to God, He may stop speaking to you. I wanna say this. We see in this story, number two, that if you can't reach God, God can still reach you because He hijacked a seance and came through it. God can use demons. He's in control. Devils are not in control. He can hijack any circumstance. While you're smoking crack or shooting up or whatever you're doing, God can hijack that and cause you to have a dream or see something and show you who He is and what you need. He can hijack anything He wants to. If He can use a seance and a demon, He can certainly use any kind of situation you're in to get a message to you. He's using a preacher right now. You know, Pastor, I'm just kind of exploring, and Christianity just doesn't quite do it for me anymore, and I'm exploring New Age and a little Buddha helps me meditate and burn incense, and crystals are bringing peace to me. Yeah, they're bringing something to you alright.
I really need, you know, there's nothing wrong. I'm just playing. I love Jesus. I love Jesus. Jesus is alright with me, but let me just check a little bit of this and a little bit of the Far East stuff, and let me try this religion and that religion. You do it to your own detriment. He was desperate for the plan of God but not for God. God is not bound. He can reach you, but you must open the door. Now, let me show you where this story ends, and I said all of that to get to this good part. He falls to the ground. He's just heard his death sentence. It's in the middle of a cave of a witch. He's in the dirt, and he can't get up, and she speaks and she in Verse 23, "the woman urged him to eat, and he rose from the ground," Verse 24, he had not eaten, "and now the woman had a fatted calf in the house. She hastened to kill it. She took flour, kneaded it, baked it, bread unleavened, so she brought it," Verse 25, "so she brought it before Saul to his servants," listen, "and they ate," they ate, they ate, "and then they arose," watch these words, "and went away into the night".
I feel like the Lord showed me this. I don't know how this came up except the Lord, and here it is. The story ends interestingly with a meal. The witch persuades Saul before he leaves the cave to eat a meal. We could call this "Saul's Last Supper". It's his final meal, and it's interesting that the Bible said after he ate it he went into the night. He went into the darkness never to return. He would the next day commit suicide by cutting himself to death by stabbing himself with a sword, by bleeding out.
Then my mind, I believe, was inspired to go to the Lord's Supper, the last supper that Jesus would have with His disciples, and Satan was there too at that table because the Bible said when Judas ate that last meal, after he had ate it, the text said, "and Satan entered him from that moment forward," and he goes out of the Last Supper of Jesus into the night, the Scripture said, in the night into the darkness to never return. He would sell Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and ultimately become so despondent that he would tie a rope around his neck. He was in such darkness like Saul in that cave, so afraid, so terrified, so mentally tormented by the powers that he had trafficked with and their messages that just like Saul he took his own life and hung himself.
And then the Lord really showed me something that blessed me, and He said do you wanna know what the hope of the world is? They don't have to enter into that dark night. They don't have to take their life or cut themselves or bleed themselves or hang themselves or hate themselves because I entered into the darkness for them. When did He do that, Pastor? Look at the story of the Crucifixion, "and it was the sixth hour". That's 12 noon. Jesus, the Savior, the one who had never committed a sin, He entered into the darkness. He went through a midday midnight for you, for three hours from 12 o'clock in the afternoon to three o'clock in the afternoon. The earth went black. It went pitch dark. It was like nighttime. It was evening time. It was darkness in the middle of the day. It was a midday midnight, and Jesus entered into that darkness.
What happened to Saul when he went into the darkness? He was separated from God forever. What happened to Judas? He was separated from Jesus forever. What else happened? The sins overcame them, and they had to pay the price, the penalty of their sins. Jesus entered into the darkness for you, and what happened, He was separated from the Father so that you don't have to be, and He cried, "Why have you forsaken me? The cross hurts, but it breaks me even more that I feel separated from you," and Jesus says, "I entered into the darkness, and I was separated from God for you so you don't have to be, and I carried your shame, and I carried your guilt, and I carried your sin, and I nailed it to the cross, and I entered into a midday midnight for you".
He suffered the judgment from God and bore my sins. Jesus went into the night so I could go into the light. He was separated from the Father so I could be won, called by His name. So, I'm at the end, but if you have reached out to the occult or any other religious thing other than Jesus Christ and the Word of God for guidance, I just break the curse. You came to the wrong service. If you're a witch, I'm glad you're here. I'll put what I've got up against anything you've got.
I know there's power in the name of Jesus. I know there's no demon that can stand in the presence of the One who rose from the dead. If He can conquer the grave, He can conquer anything. I break the curse of horoscopes. I wrote it down, and I can preach it like I want to. I wanna get it right. I break the curse of any horoscope, Ouija boards, tarot cards, crystals, witchcraft, Eastern religions, palm readers. I break it off of every person under the sound of my voice and the ramifications of that action I put it under the Blood of the cross, and we march out of that cave of witchcraft into the light of the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah, somebody shout! Like Saul. I heard the Lord say to me, "If you will say this under my authority and in my anointing, I will back this up this day". And I wrote these words down yesterday, "I rebuke Satan's attempt to destroy the home and the children and the children's children. The power of Satan is broken". Somebody needs to take authority. Somebody needs to quit playing with the name and the Blood and the cross and understand the authority we have. Woo! Let the home be filled with the glory of God again in the name of Jesus I pray.