Let me say "thank you," first of all because you asked a question that I think a lot of people wrestle with. You know, "If I've walked away from God; if I've done a dumb thing--I've messed up my life--can I ever be restored?" And the answer is "Yes!"

Restoration always comes when there is a recognition of sin and repentance of that sin. So when a person does something that really messes up their life and yet they recognize that they've done that and they feel sorry about that and they repent of that and they ask God to forgive them, God always restores them. What we don't see in this story is Saul ever doing that. What we see is Saul...on a couple of occasions Saul will say, "I have sinned," but he doesn't mean it because he goes on and he sins some more and it's evident that he's just playing with Samuel and, in fact, he's playing with God because he doesn't mean what he says when he says, "I have sinned." Anyone who comes to grips with their sin and repents of that sin can always be restored to God. Saul could have been. He just never came to grips with his sin.

Yes. Surely. It started with foolishness. You know, his son, Jonathan did something he didn't have to do. He attacked a Philistine stronghold because it was weaker than he was. Foolishness then has consequences and the consequences were that the whole Philistine army came together then to stand against his father, Saul.

The consequences led to Saul's impatience; he would not wait for Samuel to come and offer the offering to God. Impatience led to sin. He went ahead and offered the sacrifice himself and he had no right to do so.

Sin led to confrontation as it always should. Samuel came and said, "What on earth have you done?" That was the confrontation. The confrontation led to repercussions and the repercussions were that Saul would not have a dynasty--that he would be the first and the last of the sons of Kish to set upon the throne.

You and I judge this and say, "Wait a minute! David was guilty of adultery and he didn't get away with it. He came to grips with his sin and God did not judge him as harshly as perhaps it seems he's judging Saul here.

I think what we don't see here is how God views sin. What we do see is how we view sin. We categorize sin--this is A, B, C. This is really bad; this is not so bad. When you're dealing with God, the worst possible sins are disobedience. You know, when you disregard the character and the will of God, that's the worst sin you can commit.

And if God is going to rank sin...I don't believe He does, but if He is going to rank sin, He's not going to put lying, cheating, stealing, you know, those sorts of things at the top of the list. He's going to put neglecting Him at the top of the list. He's going to put disobedience to His clear command in the Word. That's what Saul did that David did not do. And I think that's why God came down so hard on Saul. Very good observation though.

That distresses me to, to think that a spirit could cause people to prophesy. The fact of the matter is that happens all the time. False prophesy comes from false prophets and false prophets are made false because they have a false spirit telling them what to say. During the period of the Greco-Roman empire, there was a whole class of people who followed certain cults, the Eleusinian cult for one. And these people believed that they were getting messages from God. And in their messages from God they were prophesying things God had told them to say. Fact of the matter is they were getting messages from Satan.

So what they were telling people in the name of God or in the name of good was actually a false message.

I think that is what is happening here. The distressing spirit comes upon Saul, he begins to prophesy, but it's the result of the distressing spirit and not the Spirit of God in him.

David on the other hand is simply living his life in a way that pleases God. He is behaving himself wisely. That is the key for this word sakal. And in living his life and behaving himself wisely, he is actually being used of God where Saul is being used of Satan at this point. Distressing spirit. And the worst thing is Saul didn't even realize it. His hatred of David, his jealousy, his bitterness had overcome him to the point he didn't even realize this distressing spirit had come upon him.

He probably did. He would certainly have the Pentateuch of the Old Testament, the first five books of the Law. He would have copies of that. If he didn't have actual copies to read like you and I have a Bible to take along, it's unlikely that he did that--but if he didn't have copies with him, he certainly would have spent time memorizing that and reading that as a faithful person of God when he went to the temple to worship so or when he went to the place of meeting of the Israelites to worship.

So he would be aware of what happened in the life of Moses. It's pretty evident in some of the things he says in some of his psalms. But the great thing about David is it was during that period of time when he was a simple shepherd boy when God was molding him and shaping him and that's why often the Bible says He took David from among the sheepfolds to make him the king. But what he was learning about being a king, he was learning while tending sheep.

Yes, I think when I say you learn valor, you learn how to express valor, you know. You don't take a course in valor 101. If it isn't in there, it's not going to come out. But in order for it to come out and for us to increase in valor, we have to have experience and experience comes . . . the way to make sure you don't make mistakes is to already have made those mistakes and from that experience, you don't make them again.

What he is learning is that he could actually fight if God was with him. And sure, Goliath was a big giant, but he'd already fought a lion and that's a pretty big thing too.