During Samuel's time, Saul had expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land, but other than the few times when he prophesied, Saul was never one to hear the voice of God clearly. When his heart was filled with terror at the Philistine threat, he did not hear from God so he decided any word was better than none. He knew it should not appear that he was consulting other spirits so he disguised himself. He asked the seer to bring up Samuel and a ghostly figure appeared. “What does he look like?” he asked.
“An old man wearing a robe is coming up,” she said.
Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.
Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”
“I am in great distress,” Saul said. “The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has departed from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do.”
Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has departed from you and become your enemy? - 1 Sam. 28:13-16 NIV
Saul was like so many of us. We hear the voice of God once or twice in our lives, but then we go on our merry way. Once God's hand is on our lives, things change, we prosper, we seem to be in control and we are no longer concerned about what God would speak into our lives. It might be something we don't want to hear after all, and we're doing so well on our own. Then when things don't go as we plan, we cry and plead for a word from the Lord but there is none. We stopped listening long ago and now it is almost impossible for God's word to get through all the barriers we have erected in between. We consult horoscopes and people who will prophesy over us, but it is all in vain. Ghostly voices can never replace the voice of God.
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