Occultic Danger

If you have your Bibles with you today, I'd like for you to turn with me, if you would, to 1 Samuel 28.

We're going to be looking first at verses 1-7. Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, his own city. And Saul had put the mediums and the necromancers out of the land. The Philistines assembled and came and encamped at Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets. Then Saul said to his servants, seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.

And his servant said to him, behold, there is a medium at Endor. Someone asked Ken Ham, a couple of days ago, why God would allow what's going on in America to be going on right now. And he answered this way, he said, what's happening to America?

Well, you can't murder millions of children, throw God out of schools, have numerous lukewarm compromising churches, have mostly compromising Christian institutions, condone all sorts of sexual perversion, shake your fist at God, and God not act. It's a sad situation that we're in today, but the Lord is with His church. He is with His true church, and as Eugene was sharing with us a moment ago, there is good news. Jesus Christ is coming back, and until He comes back, He is never going to leave us nor forsake us, no matter what happens to America.

America doesn't have to be here. The church does, and God will bless. Go with me to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we are viewing a tragedy in today's message. We are looking at one of the greatest examples of apostasy that we see in the entire Bible.

Saul started out great. He was anointed by Samuel to be the king of Israel. He sought you for guidance. He prayed. He took seriously the scripture, but then compromise entered the scene, and little by little, his love for self overshadowed his commitment to God. It wasn't long after that that a hardness began to develop in his heart. The calluses got thicker and thicker until he stepped over the line of no return. Father, it seems that the only time Saul cried out to you was when he was in trouble, and he didn't really want you.

He just wanted help out of his dilemma. And the time came when you refused to answer him. Saul then turned to the kingdom of darkness. That is apostasy. And may Saul's downfall be a warning to us not to play with sin, not to toy with the occult, not to give in to Satan. May we fight the good fight, finish the course, and keep the faith. Lord, this passage should drive every believer to his knees. Help us to stay true to you. Help us to trust only you. And we pray this in the precious and holy name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

You may be seated. We are right in the middle of a study of David, but the only way we can really understand the life of David is to understand the circumstances and the people who were influencing David. And one of the greatest influences on David was Saul. Now, Saul was the king, but he was a king on borrowed time. He had rebelled against God over and over and over and over again, and finally God gave him a promise. And that promise was that the kingdom of Israel was going to be taken out of his hand and was going to be given to a man after God's own heart.

And that promise was spoken to him through the prophet Samuel. And as soon as he heard that promise, he went into just utter paranoia. He was absolutely scared to death. He was always looking over his shoulder to see if there was somebody behind him that was going to stab him in the back with a dagger.

He was killing innocent people just to try to protect his own life. And there were all these questions that were swirling around in his mind. What's going to happen to me? Is my kingdom going to end?

And will I be killed? What does the future hold? Now, I don't know, but I have to imagine that there are some of you that are here today that have been in situations in life where you've gone through a long period of your life and everything's been pretty good.

Everything's run smoothly. Everything's just kind of gone regularly. And then all of a sudden, in a time when there had been no crises and no big things happening, something comes into your life that causes the bottom to fall out of your world. And when that happens, you start asking questions. Lord, what's going to happen to me?

Lord, will I ever be happy again? What does my future hold? Now, in those times, we would really like to peer into our future and to see exactly what's going to happen to us in that future.

The truth of the matter is this. God has fixed it in such a way that He doesn't want us to know our individual futures. Now, there's things about our futures we can know, for we are told that we're not going to live in these bodies forever. Hebrews 9, verse 27 says, Another thing that we can know for certain is that Jesus Christ is coming back. Now, we don't know exactly when He's going to come back. We know He is coming back.

That is absolutely certain. Another thing we can know for certain is that in this world, there are going to be times of problems and troubles and suffering and frustration. And for the Christian, there may be some very difficult times.

Paul said all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But those are just general things. What I'm talking about here is the Lord doesn't really want us to know the individual personal things that will happen to us, the specific things He keeps from us. So we want to know these things. We want to know what's going to happen to my family, what's going to happen to my career, what's going to happen to my wife, what's going to happen to my husband, what's going to happen to my life itself.

I think most of us have rolled those questions over and over again in our mind and we think it sure would be great to know what the future, my future, my personal future would hold. I submit to you today that God knew what He was doing and He told us to leave our personal futures in His hands. You see, the Lord is the one who created us. He not only made us physically, He also made us mentally and emotionally.

And in His infinite wisdom, He knew that if we really had a total understanding of what was going to happen to us in our future, we would short-circuit. We would not be able to handle it. Some of you during this year, 2020, have gone through some tough times. Some of you have lost loved ones. Some of you have gotten sick yourself. Some of you have stared face-to-face with death.

Some of you have lost jobs and you've lost your financial security. Now what if you had known ten years ago that in this year, 2020, on some particular time during that year, that these terrible things were going to happen to you? If you knew that ten years ago, you might have lost out on a lot of strong, productive Christian living.

You might have lost out on a lot of joy because your mind would have been riveted on the calamity that was going to happen to you in the future. God knew that and that we just could not handle that, that we wouldn't be able to do it. Secondly, the Lord desires that we walk in faith. He desires that we trust Him on a daily basis. When God sent Abraham to Canaan land, into the Promised Land, He didn't give him a map. He didn't give him a six-month itinerary. He said, every morning when you get up, Abraham, you call upon Me and I will show you where to go.

I will tell you what you need to do. How much would we pray and how dependent would we be on God if we knew exactly what our futures held? But today, we look at a man who said, I don't care about all that. I don't care what God's best is for me.

I want to know what my future holds and I'm willing to do whatever I have to do to find it. So the story that we delve in today involves King Saul and a medium or a fortune teller. If I was preaching this sermon back in the 1950s, then I would probably get a totally different response than I would when I'm preaching it now. In the 1950s, we had this idea that we were just a scientific people and that we were beyond anything that's superstitious and so we wouldn't be concerned about that. We would say, that kind of stuff, the occult, is not relevant to us. Well, I'll tell you what, in today's society, things are not like that anymore.

I mean, it's amazing. You could go on your television and see the commercials just a few years ago and it seemed like every other commercial that came on was a commercial about your psychic hotline. Go to this, get your own personal psychic. Ouija boards and tarot cards became very, very important to people in these last few years and we have more witches today in America than we have ever had in our history.

Let me give you a very current example. Patrisse Cullors is one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. She is a professor at University of California in Berkeley. She is an avowed Marxist and she is also a necromancer. What is a necromancer?

A necromancer is a medium, it is a fortune teller, one who tries to communicate with the dead. Now, a couple of months ago, there was a riot that was taking place in Washington, D.C. Rand Paul came out of one building, and I don't know if it was the White House or if it was the Capitol building, but immediately he was encircled by this great mob and they started chanting, say her name, say her name, say her name. He had no idea what they were talking about. They were talking about Breonna Taylor. Breonna Taylor was a lady that had been shot to death in her home by a policeman. She had a criminal there in the house with her who was shooting at the policeman.

The police shot back, happened to hit her and killed her. Now, why the chant? What were they saying? This was a chant encouraging Rand Paul to communicate with the dead, to call on her name, say her name, say her name, say her name. Folks, this is nothing but pure and simple necromancy. It is condemned by the scripture. It has told us all the way through the word of God that this is something that is absolutely forbidden to us, and it is one of the key tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement. So if ever there was a time when 1 Samuel chapter 28 was relevant, I believe it is right now.

Now here's the setting for the story. Samuel the prophet had died and Samuel had been Saul's link to God. Samuel was a godly man. The Lord spoke to him and Samuel would relay God's truth to the king. And Saul is a strange bird. He had a fear of God, but the fear of God was not enough and wasn't strong enough in his life to make him repent. His life was one huge contradiction. He knew the truth, but he fought it every single day. Samuel has just died and the Philistines now are in Shunan and they have gathered their troops together and they were preparing to make a raid on King Saul and Israel and try to totally and completely defeat them. When Saul hears about this, he got absolutely scared to death.

His heart jumped up in his throat. He thinks to himself, is this the end? Is this the time when my kingdom is coming to an end?

Am I going to die? And I'm sure with that question went, am I going to go to hell? Five points I want to share with you today about the occult.

First one is the pull of occultic practices. Look at verses 5 and 6. When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets. Fear of the future scared Saul so badly that he could hardly function. So he prayed to the Lord, Lord, I need to know what's going to happen.

I need to know what the future is. And the Lord did not answer him. Now why did the Lord not answer him? Well, David said in Psalm 66 verse 18, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And that means that if we have unconfessed sin in our life that we will not repent of, then we can pray and God will not answer. Saul was willingly, intentionally, deliberately sinning against God and yet thinking that would have no effect whatsoever on his prayer life. James said that if we want our prayers answered that we must ask in faith nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like a wave in the sea driven by the wind and tossed. Let no man, he said, let no man think that he will receive anything from God if he's a double-minded man. Saul is not praying in faith, he is praying in sin and it is absolute futility.

God's not going to answer his prayer. So verse 6 says that God refused to answer by prophets or by the Urim or by dreams. And what is the Urim? The Urim and the Thumen were two flat stones that the high priest would wear in his ephod which was a garment that he wore over his chest. There were two pockets in it and he would have the Urim and the Thumen in the pockets. And they would help him to make a decision because they would let him know whether God was saying yes or God was saying no. But Saul had killed all the prophets except one, Abiathar, he was living with David and David's men so he wasn't with them so Saul had no access to use the Urim and the Thumen.

But neither was he getting direction from God by prophets and neither was he getting direction by God by God giving him dreams. But Saul was hearing nothing from God and there was a reason for that and that was a rebellious life and deliberate sin. At this point in time Saul should have seen it and what he should have done was repented. He should have confessed his sin right there. He should have fallen on his face before God and before his men apologized to his men and begged God for forgiveness and begged God to take him back into his arms once again to give him help.

But instead he said to himself, if God won't give me what I want then I'll get it from the other side. I will go to the occult. I will seek out a medium, one who has supernatural power who will tell me what I need to know about my future. There was a pull, there was an attraction there was a drawing of King Saul's heart to the occult.

I want you to know that same pull is in the United States today. I can't tell you how many people won't leave their house in the morning without reading their horoscopes. I can't tell you how many people today have three and four hundred dollar phone bills where they're calling up the psychic hotline each day. When people believe that they can get into the supernatural through occultic paraphernalia and methodology then that attraction is very, very real to them. The second point is the people of occultic practices. Let's look at verse seven. Then Saul said to his servants, seek out for me a woman who is a medium that I may go to her and inquire of her.

And his servant said to him, behold there is a medium at Endor. Now in verse three the scripture tells us that Saul had before this time run out all of the witches, the fortune tellers, the spiritists, the mediums. He had run them out of Israel.

Why had he done that? Because at one time Saul was at least a little bit trying to be obedient to the Word of God. And in God's law in Deuteronomy chapter 18 the scripture absolutely prohibits necromancy, witches, all these different things associated with the occult. And Saul knew that they had to be dealt with and so he ran them out of the land, would not allow them to be there in the land of Israel.

And he said that if spiritism is found out here in Israel that it is a crime that it will be punishable by death. But somehow there was one lady who slipped through the cracks. She slipped through the cracks. She was a medium, a necromancer who made efforts to communicate with the dead and she lived in a place called Endor. Now some of you are old enough to remember the television show Bewitched. And if you remember Samantha was the witch and her mother was also a witch and her mother's name was Endora. Now where did that name come? It was a name that was given to her because it was the hometown of this spiritist here in 1 Samuel chapter 28.

By the way, a man who used to be the high priest of the Satanic church in San Diego, California, a man who ritualistically killed children and offered them to Satan, a man who crucified a nine-year-old girl, cut her heart out and offered it to Satan, said that he entered into the occult because of the impact that the show Bewitched had on him. He said that he looked at that show and was so enthralled with the power that Samantha had, he said that he would have done anything in this world to get it. But anyway, there was a medium there in Israel who thought that she was hidden from Saul but when Saul asked if there is a medium around, one of the men in Saul's company said, Yes, I know where one is.

She's in Endor and I'll take you to her. And he did. He took Saul down to Endor and then watched him get together with this woman and watch Saul compromise his convictions. Saul was like an ox that was being led to the slaughter. He didn't care that this woman was demon-possessed. He did not care that God said that this is absolutely wrong.

He was so desperate to find out the future, he would have done anything to find it. Folks, the situation that Saul found himself in 3,000 years ago is not half as dangerous as the one that you and I are in today. Saul and his men did not have to worry about movies. They had subliminal messages about the occult all through them. They didn't have to worry about movies who just straight out would share the occult with you, trying to encourage you to not only condone it but to adore it. And I hear people saying every day, oh, well, it's just a movie.

That's no big deal. Listen. Constant exposure to the occult, whether it be through magazines, movies or television, will do one of two things to you.

It will either draw you into it, perking your interest, making you comfortable with it, or it will bring you to the point you feel like this is nonsense. This is just Hollywood. This is not real. There's no power behind this. We don't even have to worry about this. Just a fairy tale and walk away from it.

Folks, both of those attitudes are deadly. Third thing I want to see is the power of occultic practice. Look at verses 11 through 14. Then the woman said, Whom shall I bring up for you? He said, 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 were Saul. The king said to her, Do not be afraid.

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. He is wrapped in a robe, and Saul knew that it was Samuel.

And he bowed his face to the ground and paid homage. This practice is called necromancy. It means a communication with the dead. What does the necromancer do? They hold seances, and in those seances, they call upon the dead to speak and to communicate with them. Now normally, what occurs is this. A medium will address a dead person, and the demonic being will speak and communicate, imitating the person who is dead.

This still occurs today. I want you to think of the danger of this situation. Let's say there's a young teenage girl whose mother has died, and she is thinking about marrying a guy that's really nothing but a bum. And so she goes to a necromancer, a medium, and she says, I need to communicate with my mama to find out what my mama would have me to do. So they have a seance, and then the medium tells her, Well, here's your mama speaking. And your mama says, Yes, yes, you ought to marry this man.

This would be a great move for you. And what happens, the girl marries and absolutely destroys her life. Folks, there is no true communication with the dead. When there's a seance that goes on, it is either a made-up lie by the medium, or it is genuine demonic activity. In this situation, the Lord intervenes and brings up what I believe to be Samuel, the real Samuel. And I believe that he comes to speak to Saul, and I believe this is actually Samuel. Now, there's some godly men who do not agree with me here. And in fact, two of them that I hate that they don't agree with me, Martin Luther and John Calvin.

Richard Phillips, Matthew Henry, and many, many others do agree with me here, but let me read you what Richard Phillips said. He said, Moreover, the summoned spirit replied to Saul with the very message that Samuel had given him in life. The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand, given it to your neighbor David. A deluded Saul seeking comfort would not likely have conjured these words. And if Satan had appeared to deceive Saul, it is not obvious why he would have spoken such truth. Moreover, the spirit uttered a prophecy that came true.

Tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines. Speaking from the realm of the dead, the spirit expected to see Saul and his sons in the same realm on the very next day. So if I'm right, how do we know that this is not just a demonic impersonation?

How do we know that? How do we know this is not a demon that is just trying to imitate the prophet Samuel? I think we know that because the scripture actually says that this is Samuel. It doesn't say that he is a demonic impersonation.

It says that he is Samuel. Secondly, when the seance was going on and Samuel came forward, the lady cried out in a loud voice. It absolutely scared her. She'd never seen anything like this before. Before, when she had held a seance, she might have heard a voice that would have been a demon, or she might have made something up to deceive the person she's talking with, but she'd never seen anything like this.

It was a man in a prophet's mantle, and when Saul got a look at him, he recognized him as Samuel. Folks, there's no deception there. There's no lying coming out of Samuel's mouth.

He is speaking shocking truth to Saul. Please don't make the mistake that some people make by believing that there's nothing but superstition and con games going on here. Some of it in seances today is con games. It's superstition.

Some of it is just plain flat-out lie, but some of it is very, very real. The fourth point is the purpose of occultic practices. Look at verse 15 through 16. And Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up? Saul answered, I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams. Therefore, I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do.

And Samuel said, Why then do you ask me since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? The purpose of occultic practices is always the same. The person who allows himself to get into the occult has an emptiness, a void, a vacancy in his heart, and he's trying to fill it with the occult. If he's seeking to contact a dead spirit, then maybe saying, God, I can't trust you to deal with the grief that's going on in my heart because of this person, who has died, so I've got to go to the occultist, to a medium to try to soothe my heart. Or the person who goes to a medium to try to find out what the future is, is saying, I don't believe that God can take care of tomorrow.

I need to know the future so I can be prepared, so I can make myself ready. In other words, he's scared that God won't give him what he needs to take care of tomorrow's problems. A person who goes the route of the occult is saying, God is not trustworthy, and I have to go to the powers of darkness to get answers because I can't trust the creator of the universe. That's Satan's purpose, and his purpose is to deceive you into trusting him.

The last thing I want to mention is the penalty of occultic practice. Look at verses 18 through 20. Because you did not obey the voice of the Lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day. Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your son shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hands of the Philistines. Then Saul fell at once, full length on the ground, filled with fear, because of the words of Samuel.

And there was no strength in him, for he had nothing to eat, day and all night. Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Saul had sown rebellion and disobedience into his heart, and he had done it over and over and over again.

It's very interesting. In 1 Samuel, chapter 15, when Saul had rebelled against God, disobeyed him, Samuel came to him and said this to him. He said, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. He is saying, rebellion is just like the occult. What you are doing, Saul, now is acting like a witch.

That's what he was telling him. And folks, this is the last stage in Saul's reprobation. Saul had disobeyed God and disobeyed God and disobeyed God until finally God said, that's it. You stepped over the line. I will not speak to you again. You will get no answers from me.

And what happened? Samuel tells him the truth. Tomorrow, Saul, you're going to die. And your sons are going to die, and Israel is going to be defeated. What a fitting way to describe the penalty of using the occult. It always leads to death and destruction. It's not a game.

It is a truly horrible deception, and we don't get away with it. There will be a day of reckoning. Now, let me close with this.

People don't play with fire. God says that these things are abomination before Him, and there's a penalty involved that has a price that none of us want to pay. May God keep us looking for Him and looking to Him alone. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, what a sad situation we had to deal with in this passage.

But how relevant it is for all of us. Today we saw a man who purposely and continuously disobeyed You over and over again until he lost any sense of truth and error, right or wrong, good or evil. Father, that's what happens when we're given over to a depraved mind. We pray for mercy for ourselves and our loved ones, for we realize the danger in trusting our flesh instead of standing on Your Word. Help us to love You with all of our hearts, minds, soul and strength. Help us to remember that You said, if You love me, then keep my commandments. May we fear nothing but You. May we trust You completely. For it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.