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HOUSMAIL HM102 15
March 2003 KING SAUL AND
THE WITCH "Do not
turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am
the LORD your God". (Leviticus 19:31) King
Saul had become desperate. He was greatly afraid when he saw the size of the
Philistine army which had invaded the land. His sins had placed a great
barrier between him and God, and when he tried to enquire of God for advice
and help, there was no answer at all -- either by dream, or from the priesthood,
or through the prophets! So instead of repenting to put things right between
himself and God, he persisted in his own stubborn way and "defiled
himself" even further, by consulting a MEDIUM. It
is no light matter! God calls it ABOMINATION! (Deuteronomy
18:11-12 RSV) A DETESTABLE THING! (V12 RSV margin note) Of
course, to consult a medium for information from the dead is a futile
exercise. THE DEAD KNOW NOTHING! (Ecclesiastes 9:5) Worse than that -- Isaiah says that to consult a medium is rejection
of God! (Isaiah 8:19) SAUL DIED FOR THIS SIN! That is given special mention in 1
Chronicles 10:13-14. CAN
WE WRITE IT OFF AS ALL MERE FRAUD? The
Bible is silent about that. So we don't really need to answer that. More to
the point, we don't really need to explain it away as "all fraud"
for the sake of our own "doctrinal comfort"! What
we do need is to BELIEVE what God says about it! DON'T DO IT! And stay away
from those who do! Stay away from "SEANCES"! Stay away from all
other "occult practices". [That includes things like Ouija boards, tarot cards, crystal
ball gazing, divining, tea leaves, fortune telling, astrology, phrenology,
black magic, white magic, sorcery, etc.] They are NOT mere "harmless fun"! God
calls them all ABOMINATION. There is Biblical evidence (Acts 16:16-18) as well as lots of
anecdotal evidence, which indicates that in the worst cases, they can cause
severe mental harm to those who get involved -- And the Bible says plainly
that they are SINS which will cost you your Eternal Life! (Deuteronomy 18:9-12, Revelation 21:8, Revelation 22:15) Of
course, there can be no doubt that there are indeed countless FRAUDS
operating in this field, preying on the grief of those who have lost loved
ones -- or on the curiosity and excitement of those who get a thrill out of
the "power buzz" which comes from experimenting outside the sphere
of "ordinary" human experience. (Pride of life?) At
least to the average normal untrained eye, it would seem that there can
SOMETIMES be MUCH more involved than a clever deliberate "FRAUD".
There can SOMETIMES appear to be "forces" at work for which there
is no obvious easy explanation. It would appear that sometimes the Medium's
"trance" can be a real "altered state of mind", and that
in that condition, they can sometimes "discern" information in
amazing detail, from "sources" NOT available to the average person. However,
even if there are cases where more than "ordinary fraud" is
involved, that does NOT mean that we can use them to contradict what the
Bible says elsewhere about the state of the dead! WHAT
HAPPENED IN THE CASE OF THE WITCH OF ENDOR? "NATURAL"
FRAUD OR "SUPERNATURAL DECEPTION"? The
story in 1 Samuel 28,
sounds like a description of a fairly "standard" seance -- pretty
much the same as those which still take place in our day. I
speculate that in this particular case, the witch was dealing in what we
commonly call "the supernatural" -- "FORBIDDEN powers of the
mind", not commonly experienced by everybody -- but sometimes found in a
few whose abnormal minds are afflicted with this particular "occult
ability". WAS
IT REALLY SAMUEL THAT THE WITCH SAW? Read
carefully. Saul had already asked the witch to "call up Samuel".
But note that SHE said she saw only an "old man" covered by a
mantle! (1 Samuel 28:14) It
was SAUL who jumped to the conclusion that this "something", which
the witch SAID she saw, was Samuel! Mediums
claim no power to "raise the dead. Most often, all they claim to do is
contact the "spirit" of a dead person in the so called "spirit
world", through another "spirit" which they call their "familiar
spirit". Since the dead have no conscious existence, for Samuel to
appear personally in any form, it would have been necessary for God to first
raise him from the dead. THAT
seems extremely unlikely -- indeed impossible. Would God co-operate in
ABOMINATION by raising Samuel from the dead, to provide Saul with information
from such a forbidden source? SAUL was much too eager and deceived Himself.
And the Witch built on that! As for recognising Saul? THAT wouldn't have been
difficult! How do you "disguise" a man who stands head and
shoulders above all others in the land? WHAT
WAS IT THEN THAT THE WITCH ACTUALLY SAW? WE
DO NOT KNOW! For
those who think they MUST have an answer, I speculate that it was
"something" from within the "distorted" mind of an
unfortunate woman afflicted with an "ability of the mind" which God
labels ABOMINATION, and which He forbids the use of. But PLEASE note that
word "speculate". It can never be more than that! What
it was, and where it came from is not really important to the story.
Otherwise it would be recorded with the rest of story. Whatever
it was, and wherever it came from, it was NOT Samuel making a personal
appearance. Remember? "The dead know nothing"! That leaves us with
the only possible alternative. Real -- or imagined -- deliberate fraud -- or
a bit more than that -- it was "something else", which IMPERSONATED
Samuel! CONCLUSION I
suspect that this story was never intended to become a theological
battleground about the rights and wrongs of "Conditional
Immortality". That is a sidetrack down which too many have already
travelled. Its
major purpose is to sound a warning: Those who do
such things SHALL NOT inherit the Kingdom of God. On
the positive side -- Saul's personal disaster, became Good News for US! The
dynasty passed to David -- from whom our Messiah Jesus is descended. Allon |