Lance Sawyer
First Baptist Church
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Sermon Transcription
July 7, 2013
“The Evil Spirit from God”
I Samuel 16:14
A while back I read a story about a little monkey that climbed up a coconut tree
that was right by a busy sidewalk. The little monkey climbed up and started
picking coconuts -- and what do you think he did with them? He started
chunking them at the passersby, pedestrians. The first man who happened by
felt – vroom! -- the coconut whizzing by his head. It scared him. He got mad.
He picked up the coconut and threw it back at the monkey and wished he had
something else to throw and he didn’t, so he started picking up rocks and
throwing them at the monkey. That was the first man. Finally he got his
frustration out and he walked on down the road, but the next fellow came by,
passed the same coconut tree, the same little monkey in the top had caught the
one the other man threw back, and you know what the monkey did. Aimed –
vroom! -- threw it right at the man but this man had a different reaction.
Instead of dodging the coconut, instead of grabbing it, getting mad, throwing it
back, this man caught the coconut, examined it, took a hammer, cracked it
open, drank the milk, ate the meat and made two bowls out of the shells.
In the same way as we are traveling down life’s highway, God often throws
things at us that we weren’t expecting. Have you noticed that? Some things He
throws and they hurt. Other things He throws to scare us, maybe even depress
us, but I wonder if some of those things might have some nourishment for us in
them if we’d catch them and open them rather than sling them back.
Well, in this passage I want to read to you today, God threw a coconut at King
Saul. He threw something at Saul that Saul didn’t like. Saul had a terrible
reaction when God threw this thing on him. I want to read about it to you. This
is I Samuel 16:14, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul,” and pay attention
to this, “And the Lord sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and
fear.” Do you hear that? God threw this spirit on Saul. Saul’s reaction -- he got
afraid, he got mad, he got depressed, and then just a few days later God threw
another coconut at Saul, and this time Saul started throwing back. Flip the page
over, I Samuel 18:10-11. “The very next day a tormenting spirit from God
overwhelmed Saul and he began to rave in his house like a madman. David was
playing the harp as he did each day, but Saul had a spear in his hand and
suddenly he hurled it at David intending to pin him to the wall, but David
escaped him twice.” See what happened there? God threw something on Saul
and Saul picked up what he had in his hand and threw it on somebody else. I
want to talk about that but I also want to talk about a troubling question that
may have already come up in your mind just reading that Scripture. If it hadn’t
emerged for you, I’m going to throw it on you. How is it possible that our good
God could send a tormenting spirit? Did we read that right? “God sent a
tormenting spirit.” It didn’t say Satan sent a tormenting spirit. It said God sent
it. Now if that bothers you, let me bother you even more. You read that in the
old King James, and it’s much more blunt than that. Here’s a coconut that’ll
knock you down if you’re not braced for it. What it actually says, rather than
tormenting spirit it says, “God sent an evil spirit to torment Saul.” Vroom! What
in the world is this about? Well, I’m sorry to totally disappoint you. I’m not
going to try and explain that in detail though I have worked through it myself,
but I know if I go into great detail explaining how an evil spirit could come from
God, I’m going to bore half of you and confuse the other half. But if you want to
talk about it, I’d love to chat about it with you. Here’s what I want to focus on.
What is the main principle behind all of this? What’s the main message that God
wants us to get this morning from that passage? Here it is. That tormenting
spirit that God threw on Saul, it was sort of like one those coconuts the monkey
threw at the man. It’s sort of like some of the things God throws on you when
you’re just walking through life minding your own business. How do you
respond when God hits you with something you didn’t appreciate and didn’t
want? Does God ever throw something painful your way, something that makes
you mad or maybe it’s something that makes you sad? Do you ever find yourself
asking, “Why is my good heavenly Father throwing such an evil thing on me?
What’s going on there, God?” Well, I’ve already told you it’s often a coconut and
you can choose to dodge it, get mad and throw it back on somebody, or you can
open it up, find some nourishment.
This reminds me of a true story told by my favorite teacher of preachers. His
name was Fred Craddock. Here’s what Craddock said. He said, “One morning I
woke up, walked out onto my front porch, my screened-in front porch, walked
out every morning with my cup of coffee just like I always do, but this morning
as soon as I stepped out onto the porch I heard this squawking, flapping and
banging sound, and I jumped and looked around and there was this little grass
bird that had somehow wiggled its way through a gap in the screen during the
night while it was dark and now this poor little fellow woke up trapped. The little
bird was already bumfuzzled and bedazzled and its feathers were all crooked and
his eyes were sort of crossed because he had been flying as hard as he could,
ramming into that screen door, bouncing off onto the floor, jumping up, flying to
do it again. Wham! Wham! Just over and over and over, and it was obvious he
didn’t know where the door was.” So Fred Craddock said, “I knew I had to help
him. I wanted to get him out of there so I opened the door. I opened the
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screen door and propped it wide. Here’s the way out! Go, go, go! But the little
bird wouldn’t move. The little bird was too fed up with trying to get out and
failing, and he decided there was no way out. I don’t know if he couldn’t see the
open door or if maybe he saw it but thought, ‘Oh, it’s probably a trick. If I try to
fly through that door I’m going to hit this invisible barrier.’ So the little bird just
sullied up in a corner and wouldn’t move.” But Fred Craddock wasn’t going to
give up. He said, “I went into the house and I brought out a broom and I
walked over to that corner where the poor little fellow was huddled up and I
started trying to nudge him toward the open door. He freaked out again. All of
a sudden he found the last drop of energy he had, jumping again, boom!
Finally, finally though waving his broom, flapping, signaling, Fred got that bird
out the door. Oh the bird flew up into the clear blue sky and lit on a limb right
there in the yard, settled down next to a bird who’d been perched there
watching the whole thing, and the little bird said to the other bird, ‘Did you see
that man with a broom trying to kill me?’”
Do you know that sometimes the tormenting spirit, sometimes the things God
throws at you, sometimes the broom that He seems to be trying to kill you with
is really the broom He’s trying to save you with? And what He’s attempting to do
is push you toward freedom, and that’s when you’ve got to decide, “Am I going
to recognize what’s happening here or am I just going to keep banging my head
against that screen over and over? Or am I just going to give up?”
Well, the evil spirit from God, could have done that for Saul. I really believe this
evil spirit from God could have been the broom that set Saul free. It could have
pushed him to freedom. It could have pushed him into a whole new way of
thinking to a fresh, bright new world, and you might want to keep that in mind
next time God throws a coconut at you. Keep that in mind, because what seems
like evil is often the hand of God painfully sticking – spurring -- pushing you to
do good things that you probably wouldn’t do otherwise.
You know, when we talk about transformation, do you know what I know about
transformation personally? My own personal experience, and talking to
hundreds of people. Most people will not make radical changes in their life unless
they are pushed, prodded, spurred and almost made to do it. They have to get
where they are so sick of running into that screen and bouncing off that they
finally start realizing that maybe this evil spirit from God has a good purpose and
maybe it’s leading me -- pushing me towards something else. You can know
this. Whenever you find yourself just overtaken by a strong emotion -- anger,
jealousy, rage or just really depressed. Negative things like that or positive
things like you’re just filled with love all of a sudden. You can’t figure out where
that’s coming from. Your heart just swells up and you start to cry. Do you know
what’s often happening? You have discovered some previously unknown truth
about yourself, about God that you never saw before, and through this coconut -
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- through this broom God is showing it to you. Now what are you going to do
with it? Are you going to realize that the tormenting spirit, if it’s from God and
it’s tormenting you, you can know that it’s not meaningless suffering. It’s
suffering that’s intended to get you so sick of the way you’re living, the way
you’re thinking, the way you’re operating in your relationships that you just, “I
surrender! Show me a better way, God.” But be careful when a coconut
whizzes by your head or when God gets a broom after you, because your first
reaction will usually be the wrong one. Your first one is to get mad, get mad at
God, get mad at some person. It’s everybody else’s fault, and as long as you do
that you can just keep banging your head into the screen. You can fly around
until you kill yourself. But here’s what you need to know. Here’s the reality. In
the Scripture, scattered here and there, especially in the Old Testament, this
strange force keeps popping up here and there and it’s a force that you might
call the dark angel of God. Have you ever heard that? The dark angel of God.
Did you know there was such a thing? According to the Old Testament there is.
Saul experienced it, and so did one other person I bet many of you know about.
Balaam, the prophet.
Here’s what the dark spirit of God does. He’s an adversary who comes against
you whenever you are on the wrong road. Whenever you’re headed in a
direction that is going to be self-destructive and you don’t realize it or you’ve not
been willing to face it. Whenever you’re out of God’s will and you’re just
barreling ahead in some terrible direction, the dark angel of God will come and
stand in your way like an adversary. That’s exactly what happened to Balaam.
Now remember Balaam. His story is in the book of Numbers. The deal was,
Balaam, the prophet, accepted a bribe and the bribe was he’d get paid a bunch
of money if he’d go and place a curse on the Israelites. So off he went on his
way to place his curse on the Israelites, but the Bible says God was displeased in
the way he was doing and the way he was headed. So God sent this angel who
stood in the way, blocking the way with his flaming sword, only Balaam didn’t
see him at first. The donkey saw him first, and take a lesson from that. When
you’re the one who’s on the wrong path and you’re so dead set that you’re going
to do this even if it destroys you, do you hear the insanity in that? “I’m going to
do this no matter what.” You’re probably going to be the last one to see what
the dark angel’s doing, but eventually you will.
Listen to these words. This is Numbers 22, Balaam’s story. This is the highlight
of it. Verse 31, “Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes and he saw the angel of
the Lord standing in the roadway with a drawn sword in his hand. And then
Balaam bowed his head and fell face down on the ground before him. ‘Why did
you beat your donkey those three times?’ the angel of the Lord demanded.” By
the way, Balaam took out his frustration over things he couldn’t understand. He
took it out on his donkey because his donkey was the closest person by. Who do
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you take your frustration out on? Who are you currently taking your frustration
out on? You’re the one who’s dealing with the dark angel. You’re the one who’s
getting out of God’s will. You’re the one who’s got all the wrong ways of looking
at things and it’s destroying you. But you take out your frustrations on the
donkeys in your life. Here’s what the angel said. “Look, I’ve come to block your
way because you are stubbornly resisting me. Three times the donkey saw me
and shied away, otherwise I would certainly have killed you by now and spared
the donkey.” Did you hear that? Do you know the dark angel will destroy you in
the end if you don’t turn aside, if you don’t recognize eventually what’s going
on? He’ll destroy you. He’ll destroy you or he’ll allow you to destroy yourself.
One or the other. “Then Balaam confessed to the angel of the Lord, ‘I have
sinned. I didn’t realize you were standing in the road to block my way. I will
return home if you’re against my going.’” Do you know what happened there?
Do you know what happened when Balaam turned aside, bowed down,
confessed his sins, said, “What do I do now?” You might say that’s when
Balaam caught the coconut. That’s when Balaam opened up the coconut and
found the nourishment that was there. He stopped throwing things. He stopped
beating things. He turned aside.
Here’s something you need to know about the dark angel, that evil spirit from
God. We might as well call it that. That tormenting spirit from God -- it really
will destroy you unless you change. Let me say that again. I’m not sure you got
it. That evil spirit from God really will destroy you unless you change. The only
reason He didn’t destroy Balaam was that Balaam realized what was going on in
time. Saul never did though. Saul never did. Whenever the evil spirit
tormented him, Saul just started throwing things, and you read it earlier. He
threw a spear at David. Why did he throw a spear at David? Because that’s
what was in his hand. That’s what he had to throw. What do you throw? What
do you throw at people when you’re feeling tormented? Probably not a spear
but I bet you throw accusations. You probably throw curses, insults, you’ll throw
whatever you’ve got. You’ll hurt a lot of people, but the person you’ll hurt most
is yourself if you’re on the wrong path. If there’s part of your life that’s out of
harmony with God, you’re just stubbornly insisting on doing it your way, you’re
not going to change, you’re not going to change, “This is the way I am. This is
the way I’ve always been. I’m not going to change.” Well, remember what I
said last week. If you insist on that, you get to keep it. If you want to go to
Hell, go right ahead. Nobody’s going to stop you, not even God. But He will
send a tormenting spirit who’ll torment your conscience. He’ll throw little bombs
into your relationships. He’ll cause explosions to happen in your work. All sorts
of things, not really trying to kill you but to help you see something’s got to
change -- because if this doesn’t change you it’ll eventually will kill you.
Saul knew something was wrong, and I’m guessing if there’s something wrong in
your life, some area where you’re out of God’s will, it may even be your attitude.
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Just stinking – thinking -- totally ugh -- just totally poison. A lot of people get
that and if you ever catch a case of poison thinking, I’ve got to warn you, it does
not get better with age. It gets worse. Some of the most bitter, noxious people
you’ll find are little old ladies, and also some of the sweetest, godliest people you
will find are little old ladies. But do you know the difference? One, somehow or
another, stopped slinging the coconuts back at everybody and they learned to
crack it open and eat, while others just got mad and kept slinging. Now why did
I say little old ladies? It’s because young ladies start out with the poison, and
there are plenty of young ladies and young men you’ve let poison, resentment,
rage, jealousy take root in your gut and as long as it’s there, every year you live,
it’s going to grow a little bigger until it eventually takes you over and destroys
you. That’s what happened to Saul. That’s why his story had a sad ending.
But here’s one thing about Saul. He did recognize there was a problem. I bet if
you don’t recognize it, somebody close to you does, and he realized, “Okay, I am
being tormented and I think God is involved in this somehow. I’ve got to get
some help.” Have you ever talked to somebody who gets their life into a mess
and they say, “Alright, I’m making up my mind today. I’m going to get some
help. Doggonnit, I’m going to get some help.” And they get some help, but
here’s what I find about the majority of people who go to counselors and pastors
and psychologists wanting help. They don’t really want to change. They don’t
want to change themselves. All they want you to do is help them rearrange the
chairs on the deck of the ship of theirs that’s already sinking. Do you know what
they want you to do? Here’s another way of saying it. They want you to take
some pretty white paint and paint their rotten, crumbling-down house. They
want something that’ll take away the immediate problem or soothe the pain
they’re in at the moment. Not very many people really want to change. Saul
didn’t want to change. Do you know how I know? I know it because of the
method of treatment he chose, because he chose a method of treatment for this
torment that would not require him to change at all.
Listen to this. This is Chapter 16:16-17, “Some of Saul’s servants said to him, ‘A
tormenting spirit from God is troubling you. Let us find a good musician to play
the harp whenever the tormenting spirit troubles you. He will play soothing
music and you will soon be well again.’ ‘Alright,’ Saul said, ‘find me somebody
who plays well and bring him here.’” Why do you think Saul was so quick to
jump on that solution? I’ve already told you. Because it was an easy solution
and it wasn’t going to require him to change anything. So what did he do?
Verse 22, “He called David. David, the harpist, came playing that beautiful music
and sure enough whenever that tormenting spirit troubled Saul, David would
play the harp. Then Saul would feel better and the tormenting spirit from God
would go away.” But if you read very much further, you find that though it
would go away, it didn’t stay away, because he had not dealt with it. Now when
it comes to the changes you’re wanting in your life you need to recognize that
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some forms of help really won’t help your problem. They’re sort of like harp
music. They’ll make you feel temporarily better, and listen, I am all for anything
that God can use in a therapeutic way in your life. If it is a medicine, if it is
counseling, if it’s a small group, whatever -- take all the help you can get from
other people but know this, know this, know this. There are some things that
nobody else can do for you -- you’ve got to do for yourself. You see, most
people who go to people in the healer profession wanting help don’t really want
to change. They’re hoping “Somebody’s going to be able to do something for
me. Somebody’s going to be able to do it for me. Somebody’s going to have
the magic answer and it’s all going to go away.” I’m sorry to disappoint you but
there are some things nobody, no matter how wise, how Spirit-filled, there are
some things they can’t do for you. They can soothe you. I mean, you can be
soothed through music. You might even be soothed through certain sermons
and you temporarily feel better, but that tormenting spirit, if you’ve not dealt
with him, he’ll be back. Oh, he’ll be back. The only hope is that you have this
fundamental life change.
Saul needed a drastic change. He needed something extreme. Do you know
who gets radical results in their life? People who take radical steps to change,
that’s who. I’ll put it another way. You want little bitty changes that hardly
matter at all, then you take little bitty, easy steps and tell yourself you’re dealing
with it. Do that! Little effort will yield little results. You’ve got to go extreme
sometimes. You’ve got to take drastic measures, especially when it’s so bad God
Himself is getting involved sending a dark angel to deal with you. What are you
going to do? You’ll do one of two things. You’ll either get mad and throw a
coconut at me for even bringing this up or you will catch this message and you’ll
hang onto it and you’ll take it home with you. You might even get a CD and
listen to it again. You’ll break it open and you’ll drink the milk and find that it’s
good medicine. You’ll eat the meat of the Word and find it’s very nourishing and
you’ll find something very useful in it. The first thing you’ve got to do is admit
there’s a problem. There’s a problem in your relationship. There’s a problem in
your thinking. There’s a problem -- there’s a poison in your soul but listen, if
that’s all you do, Saul did that. You’ve got to first admit it, then you’ve got to
take drastic measures. You’ve got to do new things.
Do you know one of the most important things I’ve learned this year? It’s
something I really didn’t want to hear as a pastor because I’m always giving out
information. Every sermon I’m giving you information. I finally realized that a
coconut had to hit me in the head one day and I realized, “Lance, information
does not produce transformation.” You can listen to sermons 24/7, and Christian
music, and that’s good. It’ll give you the right information, but transformation
will come only when you start doing. Don’t be a hearer of the word! Be a doer!
You’ve got to do something new. You’ve got to do things that’ll feel radical to
you if you want radical changes.
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Now, I’ve been talking a lot about transformation. I’m going to get three fellows
on the front to hold up our reminders for us [three men come forward holding
signs symbolizing the three life changes that have been emphasized the past
several months]. We’ve been talking about transformation. Don’t be conformed
to your old thinking patterns, the thinking patterns of the world around you. Be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, changing the way you think. Now
how does that happen? It does not happen by listening to sermons. You can
listen to this sermon until you wear the CD out, until you could preach it yourself.
But until you do something, until you do something new, probably something
you’re uncomfortable doing, nothing is going to change.
Now, we’re giving you three basic things to do -- three things we’re asking from
every church member -- an hour of worship. Hold it high, Matt, an hour of
worship every week, an hour of connecting with your small group Bible Study
every week. You know it’s surprising how many people come to church but will
not do this no matter how much they hear me say it. Do you know why?
Because they don’t want to go into that small group and have to get cracked
open. That’s part of it. It’s amazing how many people will say, “Oh, I want to
change my life. I want to change my life,” but they don’t really want to change
their life because they won’t do the things that would change their life.
Connecting – serving -- we just had a group come back from Latvia. I already
know that those people that went have been transformed. You talk to them,
you’re going to find that they are fired up and they’ve got a whole new vision,
whole new way of looking at the world and God and everything else because
they’ve served. When you serve, the attention gets off you and your little petty
problems and it gets on something bigger.
Now -- serve, connect, worship. Can you do that three times a week? If you’re
doing it, it sounds simple. Of course! But you need to know at least half of our
members are not doing those three hours. But most of those people will tell you
if you ask them, “Do you want to change your life? Do you want something
better? Do you want to improve your relationship with God?” “Of course I do!
Of course I do!” Yeah, but can’t even do that.
Now if you’re doing this and you’re still needing more, please talk to me because
there’s a whole lot more I can share with you to be doing. In fact, if you’ve been
doing these for years you need something more, something new, but we’re
keeping it basic here.
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