Last October God impressed upon my spirit to read His word. I must admit, I have never read the Bible in its entirety. God knew that. So, He had me to start with the New Testament and now I am reading the Old Testament. Folks, I have made so many discoveries, which I believe is ONE of the reasons God wanted me to read His word in its entirety. The Bible is the first communication God speaks to us. If you want to know how God thinks and His attributes, it is found in His word. As you start to read, the Holy Spirit will start showing you things and teaching you things about YOU, the World, and everything in between.
Consequently, as I am reading 1 Samuel 16:14, I knew the story of Samuel and King Saul was disobedient and the infamous phrase Samuel said to him, “It is better to be obedient than to sacrifice.” I knew the story. However, this time what jumped out at me was the second part of verse 14. We know that the spirit of the Lord left King Saul because of His disobedience. But I never realize, “…and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.” I have always associated evil spirits with the devil, Satan. We talk about demonic spirits and evil spirits and they are associated with the devil. I know God caused Pharaoh’s heart to be harden towards the Israelites while Moses was trying to set them free. We know God’s purpose in that was to show his power and might to ALL. We know the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, but it was not described as an evil spirit. We know Satan was there to tempt Jesus. It was also a beautiful illustration of when Satan tries to tempt us and how we should resist Him. So, I needed to delve into the purpose of the Lord sending an evil spirit to King Saul to trouble him.
Another beauty about knowing the Bible for yourself is you discover over and over there is nothing new under the sun, in which we find in God’s word. This is true. Although we are living in modern times, anything we face is not new to God. It may be new to us like COVID, but God was dealing with plagues since the beginning of time and some of them He sent purposely. So, King Saul has this evil spirit sent by the Lord to trouble him… Hmmmm.
Well, when the spirit of the Lord left King Saul, it was a sad day. A sad day indeed that the Lord sent an evil spirit in the place of His spirit upon King Saul. Folks, this is deep. Sometimes an evil spirit can come upon us because of our disobedience… There, I said it! Could it be, that we are struggling and having hard times because we are out of God’s will for our life? We want to blame Satan, but sometimes it maybe us and the bad choices we have made, like King Saul made. King Saul was miserable after the Lord’s spirit left him.
Without God’s spirit in our lives today, we are miserable beings. Some of us may not know the source of our misery, but in some instances, it may be the spirit of the Lord has departed from our lives. King Saul’s constant disobedience left him as a wretched man. His pride got the best of him. And although he would say he was doing things for God and making sacrifices unto the Lord, God saw King Saul’s heart. As a resulted God no longer wanted Saul to be king and had David anointed as king.
In this story we see the process of how God deals with situations. Overnight, David did not become king, nor was Saul overthrown in an instant. But we can see the hand of God in this situation as he works in Saul’s life, David’s life, and yes, Samuel’s life as he is God’s messenger in all of this. So sometimes God deals with us. His spirit may leave us and we too may go through some misery because of our disobedience. But we know if we repent, and turn away from our sinful ways, God can restore us back into His fold. Love & Blessings!