Who Do You Turn To?

1 Samuel 28, 31

Do you look to God for answers, understanding, or for fulfillment of your needs and wants? Or do you turn to other things? Do you seek to please Him first? Or do you first seek to take care of yourself, leaving Him as an afterthought?

Saul Turns to a Medium - 1 Samuel 28:3-25

God forbid the Israelites from consulting any other spirits or gods (Leviticus 19:31, 20:6-7). Anyone who made their living as a medium, fortune teller, witch, sorcerer, or spiritist was to be put to death (Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:10-12). If they wanted answers, understanding, or blessings they needed to go to their God. He was One who delivered them from Egyptian oppression, then guided and provided for them in the wilderness. So, it was a betrayal to worship or pray to another god or seek guidance or understanding from other spirits (Deuteronomy 6:10-15). This was before the Holy Spirit dwelt with each individual believer, but He still communicated with His people through dreams and visions, the Urim and Thummim, and the prophets and leaders who he came to directly.

Saul was one of those leaders who had the Spirit with him in the beginning (1 Samuel 10:10-13, 11:1-6). But he did not listen to God or obey His instructions. So, the Lord rejected him as king and aligned Himself with David, instead. The last known instance of a personal visit from the Holy Spirit was when He convicted Saul for pursuing David in the presence of Samuel and the prophets (1 Samuel 19:18-24). But when the king still tried to kill him, the Lord finally quit speaking to Saul altogether.

Though Saul seldom listened to God when He was talking to him, now that He wasn’t, and war with the Philistines seemed imminent, he desperately sought God’s instruction. In the past, Saul would have been able to ask Samuel what God wanted him to do (1 Samuel 15:16-23). But that was no longer an option since Samuel had recently passed away. Normally, God could have also revealed His will through the Urim and Thummim. But these items were held by the priests, and Saul had killed all but one of them. That one was now living with David and had the Urim and Thummim with him. (1 Samuel 22:9-22). Lastly, the king had banished all the spiritists, and they risked death if they came back into the land. So, if the Lord was not going to come to him through dreams or visions, Saul had no way to find out what God wanted him to do about the Philistines.

He finally decided to seek out a medium and ask her to conjure Samuel from the dead so he could ask him God’s will. The king’s servants knew of one who had fled to Endor, which was about four miles on the other side of the Philistine camp in Shunem. So, Saul disguised himself and went with two of his men to find her. The trip was too dangerous to let anyone know it was him. Not only would the Philistines kill him, but the woman would not contact the dead if she knew that the man who forbid it was the one asking.

When Saul finally reached her that night, he asked if she could conjure someone up for him. She reminded him that the king had banished all the mediums from the land and wondered if he was trying to trap her. But he swore in the name of God that she was in no danger. Apparently, she believed him, because she asked who he wanted her to call on. He said he wanted to talk to Samuel, so she called him up. But when he actually appeared, she was shocked. This reveals to us that either this woman was a trickster who never communicated with spirits in the first place, that they never took a bodily form, or that she only was able to contact Satanic spirits. We can’t be sure what she expected to happen. But it seems pretty clear that she did not actually expect to see Samuel.

When Saul asked what she was seeing, she said it was a god or spirit that looked like an old man wearing a robe. Saul knew this was Samuel, and somehow this also revealed Saul’s identity to the woman. When she asked why he had deceived her, he just told her not to be afraid and proceeded to focus on the man. Saul bowed down and honored Samuel, who immediately asked why he had conjured him up since it was explicitly forbidden by God. Saul said he was desperate because the Philistines wanted to go to war, and God wouldn’t answer him anymore. He needed to know what the Lord wanted him to do about his enemy.

It seemed to Samuel that Saul had answered his own question. The Lord had turned away from him. They were no longer on the same side. It was exactly as Samuel had told Saul when he was alive. God intended to take the kingdom away from him and give it to David because Saul didn’t obey. But since Saul seemed to want more than what he obviously already knew, Samuel told him that God would give Israel over to the Philistines, and by that time tomorrow, Saul and his sons would be in the grave with him. Saul fell on his face in fear because of what Samuel told him. He hadn’t eaten all day and was exhausted. The woman tried to get him to eat, but he refused. So, she told him that she had done what he asked and now she wanted him to do what she asked.

Finally, she and his servants convinced him to stay and eat. So, she slaughtered and cooked a calf and made some unleavened bread. Knowing there wasn’t time to let it rise, she didn’t add any yeast. When the food was ready, Saul and his men ate. Then, they went back home.

Not only do we not know what the woman expected to see when she called Samuel up, but we also don’t know exactly what happened. There is no other such instance in all the bible. So, we don’t know if God actually allowed Samuel to come back from the dead and talk to Saul, putting a recognizable body on his spirit, or if this was just a vision that God gave to both of them. Either way, it was definitely a miracle from God and not something the woman did.