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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Bewitched: Halloween and the Rise of Spiritualism

And I want to start with our scripture reading, Leviticus chapter 20 and verse 6, which says, And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards to go a-whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.

A message this week is entitled, Bewitched, Halloween and the Rise of Spiritualism.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Lord, this is a special message, and so I am asking for Holy Ghost power now.

In fact, Father God, I ask that you bind the enemy.

I pray that you seal this message and protect it by the power of your Holy Ghost and by the host of heavenly angels.

And Lord, I pray that you would speak now as you have never done before.

We're gonna start our message in the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 28, and I will read through the verses quickly, but we'll, so we can get through all of this in 1 session.

1 Samuel chapter 28 and verse 3 says, now, Samuel was dead and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city.

Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land.

The story starts with kind of a parenthetical statement on 2 subjects that will be important to understanding the story ahead.

The first is that Samuel, the prophet of God, judge of Israel, whose mother gave him to the Lord at a very early age, had died.

Israel had lost a great leader and they lamented him for fear of the uncertainty that was ahead.

On the 1 hand was the prophet of God who had died, on the other hand the other parenthetical statement is that Saul, King Saul, the first king of Israel had put away those that had familiar spirits.

We'll define that in a minute and the wizards out of the land.

So in order to understand the story you need to know that Samuel has died, so the prophetic voice of the nation has been silenced by death, the sleep of death.

And those that would imitate such a voice or try to use non-godly forces to do so had been put out of the land.

And so the Bible gives us some information on the familiar spirits and on the wizards.

It says in Deuteronomy 18 and verse 9, when you are coming to the land which the Lord thy God gives you, thou shall not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

There shall not be found among you anyone that makes his son or daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard or a necromancer.

For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.

And because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out before thee.

Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.

For those nations which thou shalt possess hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners.

But as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do." Deuteronomy, in the law that Samuel would have understood, lays it out that, listen, you cannot use necromancy, which is the attempt to communicate with the dead, or diviners who try to seek the future through conversation and communication with evil spirits or what they thought might be the spirit of the dead.

In fact, God says that the reason time ran out on these nations was that they had gotten so into these sins.

In fact, the Bible says that the time of their iniquity was not full.

It wasn't time for Israel to go unpossessed.

But their iniquity filled up, and 1 of the key things is spiritualism.

Verse 28, back to the story, And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and pitched in Shunem.

And Saul gathered all Israel together and they pitched in Gilboa.

When Saul saw that the host of the Philistines he was afraid and his heart greatly trembled.

So when Saul sees that the Philistines have pitched their tents and that they have gathered themselves, Saul felt like he was in trouble at this point.

And let me tell you something, as a Christian, something's wrong when the enemy gathers against you and you are overcome with fear.

Saul is overcome with fear, and I wanna submit to you that this is a sign that Saul is about to make some bad spiritual decisions.

When fear is in control of your life rather than faith, you will turn to whoever for an answer or for protection.

1 Samuel 28 and verse 6, And when Saul inquired of the Lord, The Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.

My Bible tells me that when Saul went to ask God for direction, how do I deal with the Philistines?

In fact, no dream, no prophets could help him, and nor by Urim.

And these, when you look at the Jewish encyclopedia and biblical encyclopedias, they describe these as stones that would have been on the breastplate of the pie priest's robe.

Some say the tradition has it that they would light up to give answers.

When David at the same time as this story is in Ziklag dealing with things, he takes the ifad that the priests use and prays and gets his answer.

But when at the same time, when Saul is praying, he hears nothing.

The stones don't light up if they lit up.

Some say that they use them like lots, and they like casting lots and they would throw the stones.

But however you look at it, Saul had been cut off from God and that's important God was not speaking to Saul anymore 1st Samuel 15 why was God not speaking to Saul anymore because he did not drive out the Amalekites And when he was confronted with it, when Samuel found him and heard the animals and saw the King Agag of the Amalekites, Saul said, listen, I've done everything you said.

And Samuel says, then what is this bleating of sheep that I hear in my ears?

Samuel lies and basically says the people did it in 1 Samuel 15, 20, and 21.

And in 22, Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord.

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

It is better to obey God than to sacrifice a whole bunch of stuff to Him.

In other words, if you're not obeying God and you're sacrificing that you show up to church on Sabbath like you're doing God a favor, it'd be better you obeyed Him.

If you think you're gonna come to church and do praise and worship and sing and jump around and that's gonna make you have a relationship with God and why you're disobeying God, my Bible tells me to obey is better than to sacrifice.

Verse 23, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

Stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

He rebelled against God and when Samuel rebukes him, he says, your rebellion against God is like the sin of witchcraft.

We're going to talk about the rise of spiritualism and witchcraft in America today and in the world.

And I want to tell you that 1 of the reasons this happened is because we are a society in constant rebellion against the things of God.

Because you've rejected the word of the Lord, Samuel told him, God has rejected you from being king.

When Saul realizes that God is not listening to him because of the sin he committed, we jump back to 1 Samuel 28 and verse 7.

It was because he did not deal with the Amalekites the way God had told him.

The Amalekites had snuck up behind Israel as they were marching and took out the weakest ones.

God was so mad and he said, 1 day we are going to deal with them for what they did.

So of course now Saul says, listen, verse 28, first Samuel 28, verse 7, then said Saul unto his servants, seek me a woman that has a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and inquire of her.' And his servant said to him, Behold, there is a woman that has a familiar spirit at Endor." Here it is.

First of all, we know Saul's rebellion, Samuel told him, was like the sin of witchcraft.

So that means that this spirit of witchcraft in a sense remained, it lingered.

The proof of that is he was supposed to have put out all of those with familiar spirits and all of the wizards, but when he asks for 1, And here's the thing, as the king he would never have asked for a woman with a familiar spirit if he wasn't aware that 1 was around.

Which means the second thing that Saul did was that he did not really follow through in following the edicts of Deuteronomy and putting these people out.

And worse than that the men with him don't even, they don't even, they don't even hesitate.

What is the meaning of a familiar spirit?

A sorcerer or a necromancer who professed to call up the dead to answer questions were said to have a familiar spirit.

Such a person was called by the Hebrews an ob, which properly means a leather bottle.

For sorcerers were regarded as vessels containing the inspiring demon.

They were called ob, and in my culture in Jamaica there's a thing called obia, and I'm curious if it's connected, But it's called an ob, and what it means is that the person becomes like a leather bottle and it holds the spirit of the demon.

The Hebrew word was equivalent to the Pytho of the Greeks and was used to denote both the person and the spirit which possessed them.

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Bewitched: Halloween and the Rise of Spiritualism

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