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The Deceitfulness of Mediums [1 Sam 28]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I would like to talk about the Witch of Endor. Was that really Samuel that was brought up, or was it something else?
HC: The question that is raised is concerning the Witch of Endor, that we read about in I Samuel 28. This is a passage that, if we read it just fairly superficially, we can come to the very distinct conclusion that Satan has some power over the dead, that he was about to raise up Samuel.
But when we read it more carefully, we find that it's not so at all, if we read it really in the light of everything that the Bible offers. Now you see, Saul, who is king of Israel, has reigned for forty years. And he has rebelled against God, and God's wrath is against Saul. And the prophet Samuel, who is the spokesman for God in that day, had died several years previously. And more than that, Saul would not even go to Saul in the closing days of Samuel's life. And after Samuel died, Saul more directly than ever would try to get information from any other source than from God Himself.
And so the Philistines are at war with Israel, over whom Saul reigned. And things are looking very bad for Israel. And so Saul goes to a medium, or to a witch, in order to ascertain what the future is going to bring, whether he is going to be successful in this endeavor, in this war with the Philistines.
It reminds us of some of our leaders in our land today, whom we hear about now and then, who go to mediums, in order to find out the future. Now this was really an abomination altogether. The fact is, God had commanded Saul earlier to kill all the mediums and the witches and the wizards from the land. And God had warned, in Deuteronomy, that the Israelites were not to have anything at all to do with those who were diviners or mediums or enchanters, or whatever.
But Saul is in rebellion against God. Saul is anti-God. And so in his desperation he goes to this witch, this medium of Endor. And he asks that Samuel be brought up, because he wants to talk to Samuel. And lo and behold, we read in verse 11, that Saul says, "Bring up Samuel for me." When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul." The king said to her, "Have no fear. What do you see?" And the woman said to Saul, "I see a god coming up out of the earth." He said to her, "What is his appearance?" And she said, "An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe." And Saul knew that it was Samuel. And he bowed with his face to the ground and did obeisance. Then Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" And Samuel goes on to tell him, in verse 19, "The Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hands of the Philistines."
Now when we read this casually, or superficially, it certainly looks like this medium was able to bring up Samuel, and that Samuel talked to Saul, and Samuel told him exactly what was going to happen on the morrow, that Saul and his sons would be killed, and the Lord would give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.
And when we go into the next couple of chapters, we'll find that this is exactly the thing that happened. Saul and his sons were killed, and Israel was defeated by the Philistines. And so it would certainly seem that the witch had been able to bring up Samuel.
But when we read it more carefully, we find that this is not really the case at all. First of all, how do we know this is Samuel? Well, what does the medium know about him? It just says, "When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice." Now Saul says to her, in verse 14, "What is his appearance?" In other words, "How do you know that this is Samuel?" And she said, "An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe."
Now do you see how if we want to see something we're going to see it? She wanted to see Samuel, because she was genuine in her ability to foretell the future. And as a slave of Satan, as an emissary of Satan, she had been able to do other things of this nature previously. And so she's convinced that this apparition that she is looking at, which looks like an old man, wrapped in a robe, that this is Samuel.
Now notice what Saul said. It says, "And Saul knew that it was Samuel." But what did Saul see? Well, we read here that Saul didn't see anything. The woman saw Samuel, which was really this apparition of an old man wrapped in a robe. And the woman said to Saul, "I see a god coming up out of the earth," and he said to her, "What is his appearance?" In other words, he didn't see anything. And yet because he was convinced, and completely deceived that she could bring up Samuel, therefore, when they saw this apparition that appeared to look like an old man, they were both convinced they were looking at Samuel. And Saul begins to worship and address him as Samuel. And God carries out this deception by simply going on and speaking, "And Samuel said to Saul," and so on.
Now how do we know it wasn't Samuel? Well, first of all, nowhere in the Bible does God indicate that Satan (and remember, this witch of Endor was under the power of Satan) has the power over those who are born again believers, to bring them up from the dead. Only God can resurrect a person. Satan can never do this.
Secondly, where did Samuel go when he died? The Bible says that "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." Samuel was a priest of God, and he was in Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ, along with Moses and Elijah, and all the other believers that were there. And so he would not have come up. True, his body may have come out of the grave, if indeed there had been a bringing up here. But Samuel, in order to speak, would have had to come down from Heaven.
And so this whole thing was a hoax. This whole thing was a deception, worked out by Satan himself. This is exactly the way mediums operate today. They are convinced they are speaking with the dead, because Satan mimics the voice of the dead. Evil spirits mimic their voices. Evil spirits make tables move, and create certain other phenomena in haunted houses, and so on, because Satan breaks the barrier between the supernatural and the natural.
Now what about the fact that the evil spirit speaking through this apparition is able to foretell what's going to happen tomorrow? That, of course, is because Satan is part of the spirit world. Mediums today are frequently able to foretell the future with a reasonable degree of accuracy far beyond that which they could guess at. Somehow Satan has some knowledge of the future. We know this, of course, that whatever Satan's knowledge of the future is, it is going to be frustrated by God. Whatever events will be frustrated by God, in those events he will be incorrect.
It certainly was Satan's desire that the Philistines would destroy Israel, and destroy their king. And God allowed this to happen. And so Satan certainly was accurate in his prognostication, in his forecast of what tomorrow would bring. But this does not mean for a moment that this was Samuel speaking to Saul. It was Satan himself, or an evil spirit, speaking to Saul through this apparition of Samuel.
We must not have anything at all to do with the occult world, no matter how good or how holy it may be. Saul was convinced that this was Samuel. And since it was Samuel, he perhaps reasoned in his heart, "I did something terribly sinful in going to this medium, this witch of Endor. But here is Samuel, and that certainly underscores that maybe it wasn't as bad as it might have been." Saul may have reasoned this in his heart.
But God does not want us to have anything to do with the occult. If we want to find anything at all about God, we must go to the Bible. The Bible reveals to us the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Prophet to whom we are to listen. And Christ calls Himself the Word. And the Word of God is what we read in order that we might know truth.
Well, thank you for those questions.