Homilist 1 Samuel 28:11 Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up to you? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. I. THIS IS THE CRY OF A SOUL CONSCIOUSLY DESERTED OF GOD. "The Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets." 1. God does sometimes desert the sinner even in this world. "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." "Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone." 2. The consciousness of this desertion is the greatest misery. There is no orphanage so bad as the orphanage of a soul — a soul that has lost its God. It lives to sink deeper and deeper forever into ruin. II. THIS IS THE CRY OF A SOUL PROFOUNDLY CONVINCED OF THE VALUE OF A ONCE NEGLECTED MINISTRY. "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh, for if they escaped not," etc. III. THIS IS THE CRY OF A SOUL THAT HAD BECOME THE VICTIM OF DELUSIONS. The man's mind under a sense of guilt and Divine desertion had lost its balance; his intellect had been hurled from the throne, and his imagination, under the despotism of a guilty conscience, filled his soul with ghastly phantoms. Men talk of a sound mind in a sound body, but there is no sound mind without a sound conscience — a conscience freed from the sense of guilt, and attuned to the everlasting harmonies of right. Reason in the atmosphere of a guilty conscience is like the eye amidst the shower of pyrotechnic lights, dazzled with false visions. As we build up our houses and our cities out of the rough materials taken from the earth, so the imagination of a mind consciously deserted by God will build up its world of woe out of the corrupt materials of its own heart. IV. THIS IS THE CRY OF A SOUL PLUNGING INTO THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR. When despair comes, a hopeless darkness settles over the soul. The course of sin leads to despair. Every sin a man commits he quenches a star in the firmament of hope. The moral of the whole is this — the well-being of humanity consists in loving fellowship with the Eternal Father. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel.WEB: Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up to you?" He said, "Bring Samuel up for me." |
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