Saul and the Evil Spirit

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Isaiah 55:1-3
• Hymn — O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Sin
• Assurance of Pardon — 1 John 1:9
• Scripture Reading — Acts 9:1-22
• Hymn — Amazing Grace
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus
• Sermon
• Benediction — 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13
• Hymn — A Shelter in the Time of Storm

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Sermon Title: Saul and the Evil Spirit

Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:14-23

I. The Reason for the Distressing Spirit

A. The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul (1 Samuel 16:14)

1. The spirit of kingship, previously given to Saul, now anoints David — there cannot be two anointed kings
2. This is not the Spirit of regeneration (cf. John 3) but a special endowment for the task of kingship, as seen with the craftsmen of the tabernacle and the judges

B. The Hebrew word for "evil" here carries the sense of harmful, distressing, and injurious — not necessarily moral evil or demon possession, but a unique and supernatural act of God

1. This is not to be reduced to mere clinical depression, as liberal scholars suggest
2. It is a genuine, uncommon, supernatural event: God sends a distressing spirit upon Saul as a consequence of his rebellion

C. Saul's rebellion against God is the root cause

1. Rebellion brings both subtraction (God's presence removed) and addition (torment introduced)
2. Saul is a microcosm of every unrepentant sinner — the torment Saul experiences on a small scale will be known eternally in hell (Luke 16:19-28)
3. The reality of hell is not contingent on one's intellectual persuasion of it; cf. Job 38-41 and Romans 9

II. The Remedy for the Distressing Spirit

A. Saul's servants offer a correct diagnosis but a deficient remedy (1 Samuel 16:15-16)

1. They rightly identify an evil spirit from God as the source of Saul's torment
2. Their remedy — finding a skilled harp player — was common in the ancient pagan world

B. Music is a sedative, not a cure — it treats the symptom, not the disease

1. The distressing spirit recurs: "whenever the evil spirit was upon Saul" (1 Samuel 16:23) — the band-aid must be reapplied
2. The true remedy would have been repentance and pleading for the Lord's mercy, as Peter urged Simon the Magician: Acts 8:22-23

C. The fall has brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 17)

1. Sin is the disease; therapy, medicine, music, and entertainment are not ultimate remedies
2. Christ is too often presented as a supplement rather than the ultimate remedy
3. The question to ask: what are you trusting as your ultimate remedy before the judgment seat of God? Only the robe of Christ's righteousness will suffice

III. The Restraint of the Distressing Spirit

A. God's providence brings David into Saul's court (1 Samuel 16:17-23)

1. The language "provide for me" in verse 17 echoes God's words in verse 1 — God's chosen one is sovereignly placed near the throne
2. The evil spirit itself becomes an instrument of providence, drawing David into the king's presence to learn the trade of kingship

B. David is described not merely as a musician but as a man of valor, prudent in speech, and one with whom the Lord is present — his effect on Saul goes beyond entertainment

C. The presence of God's people provides a restraint on evil in the world

1. As Dale Ralph Davis notes, Christ's people are salt of the earth — a divinely granted restraint upon decay, keeping the world from being worse than it is
2. Whether Saul is ultimately saved or not, he benefited from the means of grace embodied in David
3. A Christian's influence is not measured only in conversions — as we live for Christ in word and deed, we are salt to a spoiling world
4. Keep trusting and obeying; God uses his people as instruments of grace in the lives of unbelievers, and even a dying unbeliever may cry out as the thief on the cross: Luke 23:42