Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this day. It is Friday, and Sunday is coming. Sunday is the Lord's day. It is the day of celebration and worship of the Risen Lord.
In 1 Samuel 28 we continue to look at the life of King Saul. He made some serious wrong turns in his life, mainly whenever he chose to disobey God’s commands. At this point in his story, he was running out of options. Samuel, God’s prophet, had died, so Saul could not go back to the man who anointed him as king for advice or help. Earlier in his reign Saul expelled all the mediums and spiritists - people who try to contact the dead through ceremonies - from the land. I Samuel 28:6 reminds us that God was no longer speaking to Saul through any of the usual means. To top it all off, Israel’s old enemy, the Philistines, decided to mount an attack. Saul was the type of king who needed somebody to give him direction and let him know what he needed to do, but Saul had burned too many bridges behind him. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. To Saul, it looked like taking a wrong turn is his only option.
Because Saul took a wrong turn, he ended up on the wrong road: attempting to call up the dead to discover the future. Though traditionally known as the Witch of Endor,this woman was, more accurately, a medium. That is, she was someone who claimed to be able to call up dead spirits. God condemns these occult practices in the Bible:
Leviticus 20:27 ‘A man or a woman who is a medium, or who has familiar spirits, shall surely be put to death; they shall stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.’ ”
Isaiah 8:19 And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards,…,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?
There are always a few who dabble in these forbidden arts, and Saul was able to find one of them. The scene was as eerie and dark as any ghost story. Saul crept out at night and in disguise to ask for this medium to call up the spirit of a dead person. This woman was at first suspicious, but Saul promised her his own personal vow of protection. The irony is heightened by his promise in v. 10 …as the Lord lives… and by the name he calls for: Samuel, the prophet of God.
Through the medium, Saul spoke to Samuel with a tone of pitiful urgency. . . "I don’t have anyone else to turn to, Samuel! Please tell me: What should I do?"
What happened here? Did this woman really call up Samuel’s ghost, or was it a demon? Can a person really communicate with the dead? Clearly Saul took a turn onto the wrong road when he called on the medium. The danger of taking a wrong turn is that it will almost always lead you down the wrong road. It may lead you down the dangerous road of the occult.
Millions of people today are involved in all kinds of occult practices, from witchcraft, or Wicca, to astrology to full-fledged spiritism. A lot of these areas range from the harmless to the silly, but we must not forget that the devil is real, and the occult is dangerous. It is one thing to read a novel that mentions a witch and yet another to try and practice witchcraft. It is one thing to read your horoscope like a Chinese fortune cookie - it’s another thing to really believe your life is controlled by the stars. It’s one thing to believe in life after death - it’s another thing entirely to try and communicate with dead spirits. You and I might not take the occult too seriously, but both God and the devil do. God warns us that if we get involved in the occult, we are taking a wrong turn onto the wrong road.
We do not have to delve into the occult to get on the wrong road. Any time we try and find our own way without God we are turning down the wrong road. God wants to guide us through life not on our terms, but on His. He calls us to walk by faith, not by sight, nor by magic. He calls us to trust Him to give us wisdom and direction for the future. Only when we walk by faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord, our Savior, and our Shepherd can we be sure we are walking down the right road.
In Christ the Way.
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHmiFaX_pk
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