1 Samuel 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.
Saul spoke out of sore distress because the Philistines were making war against him and God had departed from him and answered him no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams, and therefore he called for Samuel that he might make known what he should do. He felt alone and defenseless because God had forsaken him, and he was afraid and greatly troubled as the Philistine army threatened Israel. His fear and sense of abandonment stood in contrast to Gideon's faith in God when facing the Midianites.
The one who answered was not the real Samuel brought up from the dead nor a messenger from heaven. God did not bring Samuel from the grave, and Satan was not permitted to disturb his rest or resurrect him. Saul inquired of a familiar spirit through the woman of Endor, and an evil angel impersonating the dead imitated Samuel's appearance and speech. Thus Saul vainly turned to a messenger of hell for the guidance he had once rejected from Samuel. The dead know nothing and hold no communion with the living, their thoughts and their love and hatred having perished, so no departed friend returns to speak.
Although false, the apparition correctly stated Saul's fate and doom. Its message urging him toward ruin came from Satan, not from God. Saul had let Satan lead him as a willing captive little by little until his perceptions were blunted and he could be led into crime, and Satan now exulted in Saul's confusion by spreading a correct description of his end before him.
By giving a correct prediction of Saul's end through the woman of Endor, Satan sought to get rebellious Israel to trust the sorceress, turn from God as counselor, be instructed by his cunning, place themselves under his guidance, and thereby sever the last link holding them to God. Satan still presents himself under the guise of departed friends to gain control of minds, true to his cunning when in the form of a serpent he deceived Eve. The ancient system of magic at Endor is the same as what is now called modern Spiritualism, with heathen oracles continued in spiritualistic mediums, clairvoyants and fortune-tellers whose lying words mislead those who refuse light from God's word. The account warns that claimed power to reveal the future can lure people away from God, for God has revealed in His word what is essential to know and given a safe guide, while seeking knowledge He has withheld leads people to despise what He has revealed.