Something hit me when I was reading 1 Samuel 28. The Israelites believed in sorcery. It was a light-bulb moment. I mean, d'uh, they believed in mediums, seers, the supernatural. Ummmm, I sorta knew that, but until today, it didn't hit me what all that meant. And what it means now.
The Israelites were not unfamiliar with the supernatural. They believed in all the miracles that God had shown them. It was personal for them. But it also became easy to believe in the supernatural that wasn't from God. So the people went to mediums.
I just never fully comprehended what that meant. Saul sent all the mediums and spiritists out of the country. And then he went to one. And the medium was afraid. She said, "“Look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?” (1 Samuel 28:9) Saul convinced her she would be okay and then he asked her to raise Samuel's spirit. Which she did. Yikes! This woman is doing something supernatural that didn't come from God. And that's when it hit me, Satan can make things happen, too. Things that look like they are supernatural, from God.
Wow! And right now, there are people who do things that look amazing. Things that look like miracles, that are miracles. But they are not always from God.
So it's not strange to believe in the supernatural, but it is a sin to practice things apart from God. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.
I do believe God still performs miracles today. But I don't think that everything that is a miracle now is from God.
There was just something about this passage in 1 Samuel that brought it home to me.
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