Did Israel’s King Consult with a Witch?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Well, we end the week with a good question
00:00:05.720 | that moves us into a discussion on what to think
00:00:08.520 | of things like fortune tellers and necromancers
00:00:11.440 | and palm readers and witches.
00:00:14.220 | Hello, Pastor John, my name is Kristen,
00:00:16.200 | a listener to the podcast in Norway.
00:00:19.120 | In 1 Samuel 28, Saul wants to contact Samuel
00:00:22.260 | through a medium, and he does,
00:00:24.400 | but how can this be possible?
00:00:25.940 | You can't contact dead people.
00:00:27.800 | And all spirits, except the Holy Spirit, is from the devil.
00:00:31.520 | So why does not chapter 28 forbid it,
00:00:34.400 | and what are your thoughts in the realities
00:00:37.000 | at play in this passage?
00:00:39.200 | - Here's the short answer to Christine,
00:00:41.200 | and then I'll say just a bit more.
00:00:43.520 | 1 Samuel 28 has lots to say about consulting
00:00:48.520 | with necromancers and mediums who interact with the dead,
00:00:53.880 | and all of it is negative.
00:00:56.340 | And the point here, and throughout the Old Testament,
00:00:59.460 | is that God's people should not consult with mediums,
00:01:04.460 | not because there's no such thing
00:01:07.020 | as communication with the dead,
00:01:09.440 | but because it is an abomination
00:01:12.180 | to try to communicate with the dead.
00:01:15.220 | The point is never in the Old Testament
00:01:18.160 | that it's impossible, but that it is wicked and sinful,
00:01:22.960 | and will bring down God's judgment if we do it.
00:01:25.820 | That's the short answer.
00:01:26.980 | The situation in 1 Samuel 28 is that Saul and David
00:01:31.980 | have been at odds for a long time,
00:01:33.860 | and David is rising in God's favor to be the new king,
00:01:37.320 | and Saul is becoming increasingly disobedient
00:01:40.400 | and unacceptable as God's king.
00:01:42.940 | Back in chapter 15, Saul disobeyed God
00:01:46.320 | and failed to destroy the Amalekites.
00:01:48.900 | Samuel the prophet confronts him
00:01:51.880 | and says that God has now rejected him as being king.
00:01:56.020 | He's torn the kingdom away from him.
00:01:58.640 | He's gonna give it to David.
00:02:00.380 | Then Samuel says something very significant
00:02:03.380 | in chapter 15, verse 23,
00:02:07.340 | and it's very relevant to what's gonna happen
00:02:08.940 | over in chapter 28.
00:02:11.280 | Saul had defended his disobedience
00:02:14.340 | by saying he intended to sacrifice
00:02:16.940 | some of the stolen things to God.
00:02:18.960 | And Samuel says, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
00:02:23.960 | for rebellion is as the sin of divination."
00:02:29.500 | Necromancy, mediums.
00:02:32.940 | "And presumption is as the iniquity of idolatry,
00:02:37.380 | because you have rejected the word of the Lord.
00:02:41.060 | He has rejected you from being king."
00:02:43.700 | So did you hear the reference to divination?
00:02:46.700 | Divination refers to trying to get revelation
00:02:50.380 | about the future and about God's secret plans
00:02:53.780 | by using demonic means or means
00:02:56.220 | that involve transactions with the dead.
00:02:58.860 | Samuel says it is in essence rejecting the word of the Lord.
00:03:03.860 | The Lord's word is not enough.
00:03:07.340 | And Samuel says that Saul's disobedience,
00:03:09.740 | therefore, is like divination.
00:03:11.660 | It's like idolatry.
00:03:13.380 | He puts divination and idolatry in the same category,
00:03:16.900 | and that's the root issue
00:03:18.900 | in using mediums and necromancers.
00:03:21.220 | It puts the mediums and the necromancers
00:03:24.780 | in the place where God belongs.
00:03:27.680 | God tells us as much as he wants us to know
00:03:30.940 | about the secret counsels of his plans for the future.
00:03:34.900 | So when the prophet Isaiah indicts the people
00:03:38.380 | for their involvement with mediums, he says it like this.
00:03:41.700 | When they say to you, "Inquire of the mediums
00:03:44.500 | and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,"
00:03:46.860 | should not a people inquire of their God?
00:03:51.860 | Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
00:03:56.180 | This is why Samuel calls it idolatry.
00:03:59.380 | If we go to mediums to find out something about our life
00:04:03.940 | that God has withheld from us,
00:04:06.460 | we put them in the position that only God should have.
00:04:10.220 | This is a great abomination, and Samuel calls it idolatry.
00:04:14.700 | Moses, in Deuteronomy 18.10,
00:04:19.100 | speaks like this when he goes after mediums.
00:04:23.060 | "There shall not be found among you
00:04:25.700 | anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes
00:04:30.380 | or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer
00:04:35.140 | or a medium or a necromancer
00:04:38.060 | or one who inquires of the dead,
00:04:40.140 | for whoever does these things
00:04:42.520 | is an abomination to the Lord."
00:04:46.660 | So when we get to chapter 28 of 1 Samuel,
00:04:51.660 | we see that this is exactly what Saul does.
00:04:56.900 | He does this abomination.
00:04:59.580 | Even though he has already cast out
00:05:02.420 | all the mediums from the kingdom,
00:05:05.020 | he disguises himself, he goes at night,
00:05:09.140 | so he knows he's doing a great evil,
00:05:12.780 | but he has sunk this low.
00:05:15.860 | He asks the medium, the witch of Endor,
00:05:19.020 | the medium, the necromancer, to call up Samuel from the dead.
00:05:23.260 | Samuel has died in the meantime, and she does it,
00:05:26.500 | and he sees him, and she sees him,
00:05:28.820 | and they know what's happening.
00:05:30.820 | And Samuel confronts him and predicts he's gonna die
00:05:35.460 | in the battle because he's broken the law of God
00:05:38.740 | at every level and sunk to the degradation now
00:05:41.700 | of using an illegal medium.
00:05:44.960 | This is the bottom of Saul's degradation,
00:05:48.860 | and that's the point of the chapter.
00:05:50.460 | He has sunk this low in spite of all God's privileges to him,
00:05:55.460 | and so in his next battle with the Philistines,
00:05:59.220 | he is a dead man.
00:06:01.660 | So the point of this chapter is not that necromancy
00:06:05.340 | and divination or the work of mediums is impossible,
00:06:09.180 | but that it is to be avoided at all costs by God's people
00:06:14.180 | because it is an assault on God's wisdom
00:06:19.500 | and authority and love and is therefore in the category
00:06:24.060 | of idolatry and rebellion and abomination.
00:06:28.300 | So I would say to Christine,
00:06:30.780 | the Christian answer to witches and mediums and sorcerers
00:06:35.780 | and charmers and necromancers and the users of omens
00:06:42.260 | and divination and Ouija boards or anything like that,
00:06:47.500 | the answer is not that such things are unreal or impossible.
00:06:52.500 | We're not secularists, we're supernaturalists.
00:06:56.940 | The point is not that they're unreal,
00:06:58.780 | but that you should not in any case participate in them.
00:07:03.780 | They are evil, they are idolatrous, they are rebellious,
00:07:06.660 | they are abominable, to use all the words
00:07:09.380 | that the Bible uses, and for that reason,
00:07:11.940 | they are to be renounced by the people of God.
00:07:16.740 | And those who use them are to be prayed for and pleaded for
00:07:21.740 | to step away from that kind of abomination.
00:07:25.860 | - Yeah, powerful.
00:07:27.020 | If I recall correctly,
00:07:28.260 | this is a very similar line of thinking,
00:07:30.880 | I think that came up in the episode
00:07:32.380 | on what to do with people who claim to die,
00:07:35.220 | go to heaven, return to earth,
00:07:36.780 | and then write a book about it.
00:07:38.380 | That was back in episode number 302,
00:07:41.100 | when we talked about the book "Heaven is for Real."
00:07:44.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:46.060 | And the weekend for us is here,
00:07:48.500 | and this is my opportunity to encourage you
00:07:50.420 | to subscribe to our podcast and to find our audio feeds
00:07:53.340 | and search our episode archive
00:07:55.020 | and even reach us by email with a question
00:07:56.580 | that you may have on your own.
00:07:58.540 | Do all these things through our online home
00:08:00.300 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:08:04.500 | Well, many of us know that God loves us.
00:08:07.460 | The shed blood of Jesus proves that God loves us.
00:08:11.620 | But does God actually like me?
00:08:14.320 | Or does God just put up with me?
00:08:15.940 | That is a profoundly deep question,
00:08:18.900 | and we're gonna address it when we return on Monday.
00:08:22.100 | Don't miss it.
00:08:23.380 | Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:08:25.380 | Have a great weekend, and we'll see you on Monday.
00:08:27.820 | (upbeat music)
00:08:30.400 | (upbeat music)
00:08:32.980 | [BLANK_AUDIO]