I am in process of new installment on trip to NYC and will post tomorrow--time ran out on me.
I Samuel 28: [6] And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams nor by Urim, nor by prophets.
[7] Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.
Saul is rejected; God is done with this guy. In verse 7, Saul's now going to participate with evil," explains Alex Kurz.
Verse 8: [8] And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee.
On Halloween, you have all these kids roaming the neighborhood, extorting everybody's household, wearing disguises. I wonder where the Celts and the Druids got the idea of disguising themselves when you're dealing with somebody with a familiar spirit who's interested in conjuring up the souls of the dead. Personally, I think somebody stole it from I Samuel 28:8.
Saul put on a costume before he made contact with this witch. As a type, you know what the king of Israel is doing? He's hiding his identity. He's at a horrible point where he's really wickedly insane due to chronic rebellion; his hardheartedness.
There's a lot of typology (the Lord uses types, shadows and figures in teaching the nation Israel) in verse 8 about the nighttime. He takes off his identity and now he's going to join the unfruitful works of darkness.
Verse 9: [9] And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?
Historically, God called the Gentiles "snares." Kind of interesting. The tables are turned on Saul and he is now taking up this sad identity. He's becoming a substitute for the witch. He's becoming the witch! He's doing everything the pagans did--the witches and the warlocks and so on.
The Lord's view of Saul is, "You're the necromancer." Gentiles were always called snares, thorns and thistles to the nation of Israel, and Saul is a pagan. I'm not going to say he's acting like one, because in chapter 28 he IS a pagan at this juncture.
Verse 10: [10] And Saul sware to her by the LORD, saying, As the LORD liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing.
The Lord said 'thou shalt not use the Lord's name in vain,' and that's what it means. That means you don't swear an oath using the Lord's name.
By the way, Saul's a false prophet. We know from I Samuel 18:10 that Saul is a prophet. What he's doing is saying, 'I swear to God.'
What's fascinating is the witch is not put to death; Saul is. There's a dynamic here. God is communicating something to Saul about who he now is.
Verses 11-12: [11] Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. [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.
I do not believe this witch had any supernatural power to call anyone, let alone Samuel, out from the dead. I Samuel 2:6 says, [6] The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.
No human being has a supernatural capacity to conjure up the souls of the dead. My opinion is a familiar spirit, they do COUNTERFEIT someone's identity, but they don't have the supernatural capacity to call someone out of hell, or for that matter, Samuel who is Abraham's bosom.
Notice what Samuel says to Saul in verse 15: [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.
Samuel isn't giving the witch any credit. He's saying, "You, Saul, you're the necromancer, you're the wizard who has dsquieted me."
The Bible view is this woman's really a nobody and Saul is held fully responsible for what's taking place.
Going back to verse 12, when it says 'the woman cried with a loud voice,' something happened which she never witnessed before. Guess who really is coming up from the dead? It's Samuel.
She screams in terror. The loud voice is evidence that suggests this was out of the normal; it was extraordinary.
Verse 13: [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.
No indication she was terrified by that. Personally, I wonder if she was used to seeing this. If she is a medium with familiar spirits, she's making contact with fallen angels.
There are good gods (small g) and there are bad gods (small g). This woman doesn't appear to be terrorized by the gods; she reacts to seeing Samuel. This is a miracle God is performing, not by the witch but in spite of the witch. She's not the issue here.
It's interesting that she says, "I saw gods ascending out of the earth." There are passages in the Bible showing a correlation between the spiritual realm and the physical realm and I take this as she's familiar with seeing these entities coming up out of the earth.
Psalm 83:1-8 lists the 10-nation confederacy the Antichrist will lead against the extermination of God's people, Israel. These 10 nations are under 10 kings (the 10 toes) who are not ordinary human beings. They're actually fallen angels. They're made of iron and they're trying to mix with clay.
Verse 9-10: [9] Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison:
[10] Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.Think about that for a second. Here is a prophecy regarding the future 10-nation confederacy under the command and leadership of the Antichrist. When you talk about the gods, you're talking about these fallen entities and what we have is this appeal, "Destroy them."
Why Endor? What happened at Endor?
Judges 5:19-20: [19] The kings came and fought, then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; they took no gain of money.
[20] They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.These are fallen angels. There's some wild, bizarre activity that's taking place in the stars that influences and impacts the battle taking place on the earth.
I kind of wonder, well, because of the impending battle and potential destruction of the nation of Israel, is there this unseen Satanic activity just as we witness here in Judges 5.
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From daemon to Beersheba
“Satan, the real master of the New Age, delights in mysterious code words and phrases because they allow his agents, when questioned, to escape public censure by hiding behind a verbal mirage.”
-- Texe Marrs, author of Dark Secrets of the New Age.
Much of the New Age plot behind the “modern versions” of the Bible is accomplished through either omitting or changing God’s use of phrases and words—including the connotations of words—to make verses support Satan’s cause.
One of hundreds of great examples is the change of the word “devils” to “demons” in the New King James Version, along with the other corrupt bibles published since the King James Bible.
In Webster’s dictionary, “demon” is defined as “a tutelary divinity,” while the word “devil” comes with the explanation, “In Jewish and Christian theology, the personal supreme spirit of evil and unrighteousness.”
Madame H.P. Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society and recognized as “the mother of the New Age Movement,” once wrote:
“[T]he Church is wrong in calling them Devils. . .[T]he word demon however, as in the case of Socrates, and in the spirit of meaning given to it by the whole of antiquity, stand[s] for the Guardian Spirit or Angel, not a Devil of Satanic descent as Theology would have it. . . Demons is a very loose word to use, as it applies to. . . minor Gods;. . .there are no devils.”
Indeed, in The Theosophical Dictionary, demon is said to have “a meaning identical with that of ‘god’, ‘angel’ or ‘genius’. Under the word “demon” in The Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology, Socrates is quoted as saying, “[A] voice has been heard by me throughout my life. . . I call it a God or a daemon.”
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To the Greeks, the word “daemon” meant “demigod” and Socrates taught that a daemon was a “spiritual something that put him on the road to wisdom.”
In her 1993 book, New Age Bible Versions, author Gail Riplinger writes, “All of the world’s religions, except biblical Christianity and Judaism, believe that those entities which the Bible calls evil spirits are demigods, worthy of veneration or placation.
“In the West, New Agers are told that Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘ascribe[s] some measure of importance and success to his prompt obedience to the wise Daemon’s direction.’ Eastward, Buddhists tell of ‘good demons,’ mosri sho shu and mischievous demons, nushi sho shu. . .
“By switching to the globally acceptable ‘demons’, new ‘International’ versions follow their admitted philosophy of choosing words which ‘allow each reader to decide for himself’ what a verse means. God, however, has already decided. . .
“(New Testament) Greek dabblers may jump to the floor with reference to the Greek’s use of both diabolos and daemonium to refer to Satan and the devils, respectively. Any objection to translating two different Greek words as one English word fails disastrously since new version editors themselves translate two different Hebrew words, shed and sair, as one word ‘demon’.
“Scholars who live in glass houses should refrain from throwing ‘original language’ stones, particularly when their house of cards appears to have been designed by a New Age architect.”