SAUL'S VISIT TO THE WITCH OF ENDOR.
By Rev. J. Bunyan Lemon
IN your "Asked and Answered" column of September 26, you gave your opinion of 1 Sam. 28:7–25, relating to Saul’s visit to the witch of Endor. This passage of Scripture seems to puzzle more people than a hundred other portions which are more difficult to understand. Why is this so? I believe it is because the number of church members who are secretly believing in the possibility of communicating with departed friends, through some such medium as fortune-telling, or spirit-rapping, is much larger than we think. Suppose we take the Revised Version, though there is but little difference in the two versions at this point, and make a strictly literal interpretation of these statements, the result will show that the record is similar to other records of the present day; that there is no miracle in it, and that Samuel did not appear as represented by the witch, though that which appeared to be Samuel did appear. Notice:— 1. Saul did not come to the witch until all other means of communicating with the heavenly world were apparently cut off from him. Lesson 1. When God refuses to accede to your requests, go to a witch and see if you cannot force him to do so. Lesson 2. By this means you will also have the prerogative to choose the messenger who shall bring you his message, and this may be of great advantage to you. Saul chose Samuel. 2. When Saul made inquiry for one possessing a “familiar spirit” he specified that it must be a woman. Question 1. Are not all witches women? 2. Are not all witches ignorant women? 3. Are not all witches poverty-stricken women? 4. Are not all witches women who are not Christians? 5. Are not all witches of suspicious moral character? 3. When Saul went to the witch he disguised himself and went in the night. Lesson 1. When you go to a fortune-teller be sure and keep it a secret. Not that it will affect her story, for she will find you out as she did Saul, but it might affect your standing before the world, as it would have affected Saul, had his armies seen him put off his royal armor, and don a beggar’s suit to seek counsel of war from a wretched old woman living in the back alleys of Endor. Lesson 2. When you go, be sure and go at night, for the evangelist John, in the third chapter of his gospel, according to the nineteenth verse, shows you the great advantage to be gained thereby. 4. When Saul selected his messenger he also indicated the direction from which he must come. “Bring me up Samuel.” Moral: Always select a messenger from the regions below, for he will be more apt to come. Besides, if your messenger should come from above, it would appear as if he came from heaven. That would be a sin against heaven. 5. Saul believed it was Samuel who was speaking with him, although he had no good reasons for believing so. Moral: Always be ready to believe whatever a fortune-teller may tell you, no matter how false it appears to be. She told Saul:— 1. That Samuel came up. Samuel was [according to the popular theology—EDITOR SIGNS] in heaven, and therefore ought to have come down. 2. That Samuel was still an old man. If because a man dies in old age he is ever afterwards to be old and decrepit, and walks the golden streets leaning on a cane, then how much better to die young, so you are not too young, so as to need someone to carry you. 3. That he was dressed like Samuel. Are we to infer that in the next world our dress will still have a striking similarity to the style we adopted here? If so, O ye fashionable women, what a striking contrast there will be in heaven between you and your great grandmothers! 4. That his manner of speech was that of Samuel: “Why hast thou disquieted me?” Poor Samuel! He comes against his will, but he is compelled to come nevertheless. He is more of a slave now than when he was on earth, for no witch could have ordered him about then. He is not at rest, as we supposed. He is subject to the summons of all the witches in the earth. If this was Samuel who appeared, the heaven in which he dwells is not the heaven of the New Testament. How do I explain the apparition? Why need I explain? Paul says, “And no marvel; for even Satan fashioned himself into an angel of light.” 2 Cor. 11:14, Rev. Ver. Then why could he not have fashioned himself660into a representation of Samuel? In fact, the prophecy here attributed to Samuel has upon it the stamp of Satanic authorship. For it is part truth and part falsehood, with just enough truth to obscure the lie. Satan knew that God had forsaken Saul, that Saul's army was about to be crushed, that the only hope of success for Saul was in Saul's courage and perseverance, and so both of these are taken away by the message Satan brings him in the name of Samuel. It required but little ingenuity in Satan to predict the defeat and death of Saul, which result men look upon as a marvelous piece of prophecy fulfilled. 6. By going to the witch Saul gained nothing, but lost everything. See his downward steps:— 1. He disobeyed God and God departed from him. 2. God having departed from him, he seeks the companionship of a witch, leaving his royal robes behind as if conscious of his degradation, finds her home in the back alleys of Endor, where his officers who had scoured the country for witches had failed to go. She lives in a stable with her calf, and upon the dirt floor of that hut in that unkept alley the stately king of Israel fell full length upon the ground as the last atom of his courage is taken away by the message he receives. O ye angels, look down upon the scene! The king of Israel is fallen too low! But he has one more step to fall. 3. “He fell upon his sword.” 1 Sam. 31:5. The end has come. I believe it is possible for some men as well as women to become so wicked as to have so intimate a relationship to the devil that he imparts to them some things which his wide-awake eyes have seen in our past lives. He may also tell them some things which his shrewdness enables him to see must come to pass as a result of forces already in operation. But further than this he cannot go. No witch, fortune-teller, Spiritualist, or necromancer, has ever gone further than this. One lesson taught us in the Scripture, however, is that all who turn into this gate are in great danger of speedily committing spiritual and physical suicide, like Saul.—Rev. J. Bunyan Lemon, in Baptist Examiner.