Sunday Message: "Gods, pigs, and witches, the world has gone mad!!!"

There are ways God teaches us- and there are ways God doesn't want to teach us.  Today's is a story about two of them.


If you have followed my Wednesday Bible studies, you may have noticed that there is a LOT of not-so-good information that you can gather from the old Jewish folklore.  I present most of it as a curiosity, a "what if", or to prove the motives of man as being less noble than those of God.  I avoid that here, because it would be too easy to say, "Well, Chris said," and I don't want that going on.  This week, I got a warning from the Spirit about two ways that happens, that we get taken the wrong way.  I have had a project in the back of my mind the last while.  I wanted to go back through the Jewish folklore and learn about the named descendants of Adam, from Seth through Noah.  Before I got into that project, though, I was "back issuing" through some of Dennis Miller's sermons, and he brought out this concept.

God starts the story of His Plan- which we usually call the Bible- in a telescoping manner.  He starts out in Genesis 1 with the story that in the beginning was a formless earth.  Why was it formless?  We don't know, because that isn't where the story focus is.  God goes on to the 6 days of Creation- and though there is a lot He could fill in about how we could have sun, moon, and stars created AFTER the earth, He leaves that to focus on the next step- the creation of man.  And after illuminating that just a bit, He leaves out any "Tales of Eden" and skips right to man's fall- and thus it is that more time elapses in the first 11 chapters of Genesis than have come yet even today.  Point being, God isn't writing a novel for our fascination- He's writing the story of our redemption- and continually focuses the story tighter and tighter until it gets to YOU.

And thus it is that while the folklore may seem fascinating, it is in the end a distraction.  But I wandered wide-eyed into the story of Seth anyway- a story so ridiculously stupid that I would have to set aside much of what I already knew to swallow most of it.  And I thought about what Miller had shown in the first two messages on a tour through Genesis and said, "This goes no farther."


Sunday morning, I listen to the regular scheduled (for me) message which was the end of the story of Samuel.  For those of you that don't know, Samuel's last appearance in the Biblical narrative is when the "witch" of En Dor brings his spirit back at Saul's request.  In this sermon, he brought up two statistics that really leave a mark:  In Italy, home of the Roman Catholic Church, fully one quarter of the adult population REGULARLY consult astrologers, mediums/psychics, or tarot readers.  And, there are more psychics in Italy than Roman Catholic clergy.

This despite the Bible clearly forbidding this:

9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God.

And Saul, as well went against this, which he himself had decreed as king.  Why did he do this?

First, he had made it clear to God that he was going to do things his way.  That is why Samuel left him and saw him no more right up to his own death.

Secondly, he had cut himself off from all the ways he could have gotten word from God.  He had driven out God's anointed successor, David.  He had killed the priests.  David himself had the Ephod, which contained the Urim and Thumin used to inquire of God; he had driven out or killed prophets, who were speaking out against him. 

And third, when it came down to it, when he KNEW he needed God's word to carry on, he didn't bow to God asking forgiveness from all this- he went to a psychic to "raise" Samuel.  Because SAMUEL had the relationship with God which HE would never seek.


Miller goes on to explain that for ONE time in history, God allowed this- not for Saul's benefit, but to show Saul that his sin was about to end in disaster.  He gave several reasons how we know that God did indeed allow this.

First, it had been prophesied years earlier by Samuel's mother- that God was the one who could bring down into the grave, and RAISE BACK UP.

Second, the medium was SHOCKED when she brought up Samuel, because it was the ONE time in her career it actually worked, rather than being either a trick of hers or a demonic "visitation".

Third, you know it was truly a Prophet that spoke- because everything Samuel told Saul CAME TRUE exactly as spoken.

As we look at that story, I want you to see two things.  One, God calls us to believe in Him, in what He put in His Word and leads us to by His Spirit- and to stay away from psychic hocus pocus.  That stuff only distracts from the story He is trying to get you to read about YOURSELF.

Second, if you are truly seeking His Truth, He will lead you to it.  When He knew I was going to attempt this week to read up on the folklore- and possibly get lost in a maze of BS- He made sure two things happened: First that I went back to listening to old sermons after not having done so in several weeks, and second, that both of those sermons contained the message about His focusing on the story He wants you to know.  Not to mention He capped it off with this week's sermon on mediums and other ways to get lost.  Easy for someone to say, "Chris, that kind of thing is just coincidence"- except when you are truly seeking Him, it happens ALL THE TIME.  God willing, I'll have another, concurrent story to show that very thing next week.