(upbeat music) - Well, we end the week with a good question that moves us into a discussion on what to think of things like fortune tellers and necromancers and palm readers and witches. Hello, Pastor John, my name is Kristen, a listener to the podcast in Norway. In 1 Samuel 28, Saul wants to contact Samuel through a medium, and he does, but how can this be possible?

You can't contact dead people. And all spirits, except the Holy Spirit, is from the devil. So why does not chapter 28 forbid it, and what are your thoughts in the realities at play in this passage? - Here's the short answer to Christine, and then I'll say just a bit more.

1 Samuel 28 has lots to say about consulting with necromancers and mediums who interact with the dead, and all of it is negative. And the point here, and throughout the Old Testament, is that God's people should not consult with mediums, not because there's no such thing as communication with the dead, but because it is an abomination to try to communicate with the dead.

The point is never in the Old Testament that it's impossible, but that it is wicked and sinful, and will bring down God's judgment if we do it. That's the short answer. The situation in 1 Samuel 28 is that Saul and David have been at odds for a long time, and David is rising in God's favor to be the new king, and Saul is becoming increasingly disobedient and unacceptable as God's king.

Back in chapter 15, Saul disobeyed God and failed to destroy the Amalekites. Samuel the prophet confronts him and says that God has now rejected him as being king. He's torn the kingdom away from him. He's gonna give it to David. Then Samuel says something very significant in chapter 15, verse 23, and it's very relevant to what's gonna happen over in chapter 28.

Saul had defended his disobedience by saying he intended to sacrifice some of the stolen things to God. And Samuel says, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, for rebellion is as the sin of divination." Necromancy, mediums. "And presumption is as the iniquity of idolatry, because you have rejected the word of the Lord.

He has rejected you from being king." So did you hear the reference to divination? Divination refers to trying to get revelation about the future and about God's secret plans by using demonic means or means that involve transactions with the dead. Samuel says it is in essence rejecting the word of the Lord.

The Lord's word is not enough. And Samuel says that Saul's disobedience, therefore, is like divination. It's like idolatry. He puts divination and idolatry in the same category, and that's the root issue in using mediums and necromancers. It puts the mediums and the necromancers in the place where God belongs.

God tells us as much as he wants us to know about the secret counsels of his plans for the future. So when the prophet Isaiah indicts the people for their involvement with mediums, he says it like this. When they say to you, "Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter," should not a people inquire of their God?

Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? This is why Samuel calls it idolatry. If we go to mediums to find out something about our life that God has withheld from us, we put them in the position that only God should have. This is a great abomination, and Samuel calls it idolatry.

Moses, in Deuteronomy 18.10, speaks like this when he goes after mediums. "There shall not be found among you anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord." So when we get to chapter 28 of 1 Samuel, we see that this is exactly what Saul does.

He does this abomination. Even though he has already cast out all the mediums from the kingdom, he disguises himself, he goes at night, so he knows he's doing a great evil, but he has sunk this low. He asks the medium, the witch of Endor, the medium, the necromancer, to call up Samuel from the dead.

Samuel has died in the meantime, and she does it, and he sees him, and she sees him, and they know what's happening. And Samuel confronts him and predicts he's gonna die in the battle because he's broken the law of God at every level and sunk to the degradation now of using an illegal medium.

This is the bottom of Saul's degradation, and that's the point of the chapter. He has sunk this low in spite of all God's privileges to him, and so in his next battle with the Philistines, he is a dead man. So the point of this chapter is not that necromancy and divination or the work of mediums is impossible, but that it is to be avoided at all costs by God's people because it is an assault on God's wisdom and authority and love and is therefore in the category of idolatry and rebellion and abomination.

So I would say to Christine, the Christian answer to witches and mediums and sorcerers and charmers and necromancers and the users of omens and divination and Ouija boards or anything like that, the answer is not that such things are unreal or impossible. We're not secularists, we're supernaturalists. The point is not that they're unreal, but that you should not in any case participate in them.

They are evil, they are idolatrous, they are rebellious, they are abominable, to use all the words that the Bible uses, and for that reason, they are to be renounced by the people of God. And those who use them are to be prayed for and pleaded for to step away from that kind of abomination.

- Yeah, powerful. If I recall correctly, this is a very similar line of thinking, I think that came up in the episode on what to do with people who claim to die, go to heaven, return to earth, and then write a book about it. That was back in episode number 302, when we talked about the book "Heaven is for Real." Thank you, Pastor John.

And the weekend for us is here, and this is my opportunity to encourage you to subscribe to our podcast and to find our audio feeds and search our episode archive and even reach us by email with a question that you may have on your own. Do all these things through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

Well, many of us know that God loves us. The shed blood of Jesus proves that God loves us. But does God actually like me? Or does God just put up with me? That is a profoundly deep question, and we're gonna address it when we return on Monday. Don't miss it.

Until then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you on Monday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)