This morning I am concluding a month of sermons on a somewhat rocky transition of leadership in early Israel, particularly, the saga of King Saul. The first week looked at the "election" of Saul; week 2, we made some observations from Samuel's farewell address in the "post election transition" of leadership; week 3, we saw how Saul "lost" the divine election ... how, in his "post-election behavior," in the name of, ah, serving the will of the people, Saul effectively divorced himself from the very source of his legitimacy as a leader. In that Scripture reading from last time, we were told that God rejected Saul as king. Saul lost his divine election; the spirit of God departed him and came upon a young man named David, although Saul did stay in office for a number of years after. Now, to bring us to today's message, I've bypassed some thirteen chapters which, once you have a grasp of the basic details and background, read like a gripping novel. These chapters are filled with stories of faithfulness and betrayal, with honor and treachery, with heroism and shamelessness, with action and intrigue; I encourage you to read them sometime. Now, in chapter 28, we come to the end of Saul's reign. Samuel has just died ... Samuel, the prophet of God who anointed Saul king, and the prophet from whom Saul heard God's word, is now gone. As we pick the text up in verse three, right after Samuel's burial, Saul learns that the Philistines are gathering for battle against Israel. So he assembles his army on Gilboa, where the great battle will take place. We read in verse 5 that, when Saul sees the immensity of the Philistine army, and he knows that this hoard of Philistines is basically coming for him, he is afraid ... "terror filled his heart." Verse 6, "He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets." God gives no answer to Saul, and Samuel isn't there anymore, either. Samuel is dead.

In this very dark hour of Saul's life, he faces three basic questions, questions that just about every leader, every person anointed by God (which includes every one of us) must face at some time or another. The first question Saul faced is this: "What do you do when your prophet dies?" What do you do when your prophet is no longer around? I'd venture to say that all of us have one or more "prophets" in our lives. You probably have a teacher, a pastor, a parent, a colleague, a friend, or even a spouse who taught you a lot about God's word, who encouraged you often in your Christian life, someone you looked to for approval or advice, someone who helped you get through the dark times. When you have questions, you seek out that person. When you need encouragement or comfort, you go to that person. When you have doubts, you at least have the confidence that your "prophet" believes. From that person you draw insights in facing the very difficult challenges in your homes, offices, communities, or wherever God has called you to serve. But what do you do when you lose your prophet?

One thing we do is to try to hang on to all the things we learned, as if the prophet never died, and say things like, "My mother always told me.... "If our old boss were here, he would say..." "My wife or my husband would have said..." "Pastor Smith wouldn't have liked that..." We try to remember what our prophet would have done or said or approved or advised. And there's nothing wrong with that; in fact, it is well and good to remember; but it should never stop there. That particular prophet is gone. What you need to do is to look for, or be open to, a new prophet who will have a new word from God for you. Our prophets are not God; they just tell us God's word. If our loyalty is to God, if we are earnestly seeking to obey God's word, we will recognize God's word when someone else speaks it. .

So far we've looked at two questions: (1) What to do when your prophet dies, (2) What to do when it is time to step aside. Now for Number 3. The third question implied by the text:: "What do you do when God is silent?" When Saul saw all of those Philistines coming against him, he prayed to God. But he got no answer. Nothing. Not a word, not a dream, no direction at all. All of us have moments like this. There is an overwhelming hoard of problems coming your way. You are terrified of what may happen; you can feel yourself on the edge of an black abyss. You dutifully go to God asking for direction, or help, or something, but it feels like your prayers just bounce off the ceiling or vanish into the air. What do you do? I do not know why God is sometimes silent when we pray to him, but I do know that divine silence creates the need for us to make a choice.

Saul chose a desperate route, he disguised himself and went to the witch. The image of Saul in disguise, pretending to be someone else, is a perfect illustration of the double life many try to live when they are fatigued, spent, overwhelmed and disappointed in God. They try to have a secret life. They have affairs. They do things that contradict everything they believe in. The witch was in Endor, which was behind enemy lines; it was in Philistine territory. In his desperation Saul ventured to a dangerous place, and consulted and compromised with one he knew to be evil; one who, in his clearer days, he had driven from the land. Again, Saul, in effect, became his enemy.

David experienced this silence from God as well; he wrote about it in Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God I cry out by day, but you do not answer; and by night, and am not silent." (Psalm 22:1-2). David, however, did not choose the path of "desperately seeking Saul." Right after these words of lament, David wrote, "Yet you are enthroned as the holy one; you are the praise of Israel, in you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them." David chose to trust in God, a God who does not always come when beckoned, yet the God Who still sits enthroned. Saul did not make that choice. We talk a lot about being good stewards of our resources and our blessings from God, and to give thanks to God for them. But we also need to be good stewards of our disappointments from God, perhaps especially so in these troubling times facing our nation. The choice is ours. Our disappointments can be opportunities for faith to take on heroic proportions, and for us to insist on believing in the God whose ways may not be our ways. Our disappointments can also be opportunities to destroy ourselves and everything we believe in, causing us to be like our enemies, imitating behavior that, in our clearer minds, we would never indulge. Again, the choice is ours.

I'm out of time; in fact, I'm afraid I'm overtime. This ends this series on the transition of leadership in early Israel. As we undergo this troublesome transition in our national leadership, may we continue to pray, and continue to heed the advice of Samuel (as well as choose the path of David) to serve and honor our true King, Who sits enthroned, no matter what may transpire around us.