Featured 1 Samuel 28: Was the witch of Endor really able to summon spirits.....?

The narrative says God wasn't answering Saul through prophets.

 

Right, he wasn't. Both are true then. No prophet would answer Saul, and God allowed Samuel to come up.

 

So God WAS answering through prophets--just the dead ones. Well then, he already had the words of Moses that very clearly described Saul's condition, and prescribed a remedy.

Naturally, the demon brought up by the witch didn't point Saul in that direction.

 

1Sa 28:6 And when Saul enquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.

Up to that point. You're forcing the verse to cover future events, which it doesn't. It just said answered him not when he went to enquire.
So Saul went outside the lines and God let him have his way to damn him.
The Holy Ghost, who inspired the text, says Samuel.
When someone is disguised, the Bible tells us, it doesn't here.

But it's a minor point. I won't belabour it. You want to believe it's a devil, fine, that doesn't make you a heretic, nor me for believing what it says. However, you do thus lose revelation concerning the underground prison that was Abraham's bosom before the cross.

 

I have to agree with you here that the Lord permitted this one time!

 

It confirms that Old Testament saints, before the shedding of Christ's blood (since the law and animal sacrifices could only get a man so far), did not go to heaven, but their souls went down as captives in an underground prison, albeit a comfortable one, awaiting Christ to lead captivity captive and ascend on high.
It confirms that Abraham's bosom is down in the centre of the earth, not in heaven, at least before the cross.

It shows that angels (the gods which the necromancer sees in 1Sa.28:13) not only carried Lazarus down, but Samuel up.
It shows that a soul has the same image as the body and is thus anthropomorphical.

There's more in my notes but that's off the top of my head for now.

 

Which fits into the description Lord Jesus gave concerning rich man and Lazarus!

 

Precisely.

 

"theory"? I trow not. That's a fundamental with more verses backing it up than the virgin birth. Literally.

 

This one is more about hell specifically:

 

Wow, that was random.

 

To me, she was indeed able to summon spirits.
She had a "familiar spirit", and when Samuel appeared instead of him, she was frightened.

I don't believe so, unless to say that Samuel was called up from the beyond.
Also, see the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

There was a place where the Lord went after He was put in the tomb, to preach to the spirits in prison...
The same place He told the thief that he would be with Him in...

Paradise.

It was a place with a large gulf fixed between the righteous and the unrighteous.

 

Some people like to get their theology from the word of God alone, SBG.

They don't bring someone's pre-packaged explanations with them ( like John Wesley's, John Calvin's or John "Traditionalist"s ), but rather reject all that they have been taught by men, and simply trust the Lord to fix the broken stuff that was preached to them from pulpits over the years.
May it please you to stop accusing people that you disagree with,
of having approached His word with intentional bias ( or even unintentional bias ) that is somehow clouding their judgment?

That said and asked,
God's word tells us that Satan can and does take away the word of God from a person's mind ( Matthew 13:19, Mark 4:15 ) and that he does blind men's minds to the Gospel ( 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 ).
Perhaps you may consider looking to something a bit higher than systematic theologies to blame for the differences?

There are also these to consider:

Lack of study ( 2 Timothy 2:15, 1 Peter 2:2 ).
Lack of the Holy Spirit ( 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, 1 John 2:20-27 ).
Being carried about with every wind of doctrine due to lack of study or lack of the Holy Spirit.

Granted, men and their teachings about the Bible can have a large influence over especially younger believers...
But as a the child of God grows, they can and do learn to compare their teachers' doctrines ( true or false ) to what God's word says in every area.
They actually are led into all truth.

Why?
Because it is the Spirit of God who leads them ( Romans 8:14 ).

 

Ooo! I missed this.

The Bible says it was a serpent that spoke to Eve, but we know it was really Satan is disguise. The Bible doesn't tell us that.

The same way here. The Bible says it was Samuel, but we know it was really a devil in disguise.

 

The serpent was still...a serpent; it wasn't another beast that Eve mistook for a serpent. That analogy is not accurate.

1Sa 28:8 And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, yet in the same narrative, we are not told that some devil disguised himself as Samuel.
Not to mention that the supposed "devil's" speech justified God...an odd thing for a devil to do.

The Bible tells us of mistaken identities:

Gen 27:22 And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.
Gen 27:23 And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him.

Compare he discerned him not (Gen.27:23) to Saul perceived that it was Samuel (1Sa.28:14).

Gen 38:14 And she put her widow's garments off from her, and covered her with a vail, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place, which is by the way to Timnath; for she saw that Shelah was grown, and she was not given unto him to wife.
Gen 38:15 When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot; because she had covered her face.

1Ki 14:1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. 1Ki 14:2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people. 1Ki 14:3 And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child. 1Ki 14:4 And Jeroboam's wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age. 1Ki 14:5 And the LORD said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman. 1Ki 14:6 And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.

1Ki 20:38 So the prophet departed, and waited for the king by the way, and disguised himself with ashes upon his face.

1Ki 22:30 And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle; but put thou on thy robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself, and went into the battle.

2Ch 35:22 Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.

So now imagine the Holy Ghost not warning us, the reader, that it wasn't Samuel but a devil that spake to Saul.

Now compare. The Holy Ghost says it was Samuel:

1Sa 28:11 Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel.
1Sa 28:12 And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul.
1Sa 28:13 And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth.
1Sa 28:14 And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived [not "thought"] that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself.
1Sa 28:15 And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.
1Sa 28:16 Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?
1Sa 28:17 And the LORD hath done to him, as he spake by me: for the LORD hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David:
1Sa 28:18 Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the LORD, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day.
1Sa 28:19 Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.
1Sa 28:20 Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel: and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.

It's open-shut if I just go by the text, and not by what I imagine God would or would not do.

 

I'm not drawing an analogy. I'm pointing out the fallacy in your objection. You keep falling back on "the text says it was Samuel" and ignoring the abomination of which you accuse God in not acknowledging that it was just a form taken by the demon.

The Holy Ghost says it was a serpent, but it was still the Devil, or do you think it was a mere snake that bruised Christ's heel?

Did Christ bruise the head of a mere snake?

God doesn't always spoon feed us with the Scriptures.

 

The "text" is the word of God. Imagine telling someone "you keep falling back on the word of God", as if that were wrong.

I'm not accusing God of anything if God himself says it.

Anyway, as you wish. All the best.

 

One day, as I have, if you haven't already, you will hear a story from someone that you know; that attends your church, about how he or she saw the spirit of a child (most likely) who was taken, or of some other loved one, that spoke to them and assured them they were at peace. And then you will have the unpleasant duty of informing them that they were deceived, and that it really wasn't the spirit of the loved one. And this account of the witch at Endor will come up, and you will have undone the only authority that you have to say that it is impossible for the dead to speak to the living, that necromancy is always an abomination. Though you may not have meant to, you will have conceded that God will allow it in extraordinary circumstances. And then you've hallowed prayers to saints, the apparitions of Mary, and all other kinds of superstitions.

Now that's not the reason to say that the ghost of Samuel was really a deception. The reason to say it is because it's true. Necromancy is an abomination. Always. God will not yield on that. It would have been lest detestable, and you have better ground to say that God would honor a sacrifice to an idol than to say he would allow a witch to summon the spirit of Samuel.

And no, I don't wish that the narrative was more straightforward here. The serpent in the Garden was Satan. No one thinks otherwise, but no one ever asks the question, why isn't he identified as Satan? Why identify him by the form he took? God has His reasons. But notice also here, where the only interpretation in harmony with the Scriptures is that the apparition was not really Samuel, but a demon, he too is identified by the form he took.