Our Loved Ones by-Sylvia Britton
Many Christians will say that they have ‘seen a ghost’ or ‘felt a presence’ but they have a hard time fitting those experiences in with their Christianity. So its not an unusual thing for Christians to wonder about this topic.
God lets us know in His Word that there certainly are spirits in this world. You are probably aware of all the many references to spirits in the Bible that aren’t talking about the spirit of men. Here are just a few:
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12).
“That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.” (Matthew 8:16)
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons…” (1 Tim. 4:1)
What this whole topic boils down to is this…. What happens to people after they die?
Without getting into a lengthy discussion, lets say for the moment that people who have rejected Jesus Christ go to hell and people who have accepted the atoning sacrifice of Jesus and been forgiven go to heaven.
Scripture teaches that when we leave this life…… life continues either with Jesus or not with Jesus. Once we are in the place we have chosen by our acceptance or rejection of Jesus, we are there. We don’t go in and out of heaven or hell. There is no scripture that suggests that we do.
You can see that one’s concept of what happens after death has direct bearing on what happens to one’s spirit. We believe that the Bible teaches this concept:
“Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”
2 Cor 5:8
The Bible explicitly forbids that we attempt contact with spirits that pretend to be spirits of the dead :
“There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 18:11).
The Bible states that the dead do not have contact with the living (Luke 16:19-31). Therefore, if one has contact with or ‘sees’ or experiences a paranormal being, you can be sure its not great aunt Mary. Rather, it is a spirit pretending to be great aunt Mary. And this is why we are warned NOT to have contact with people who claim to contact the dead. We are actually contacting fallen angels, unclean spirits or demons. These are deceitful spirits under the control of the father of lies, satan.
Even though it is tempting to think that a spirit or ghosts is harmless, remember what they really are and remember that:
“…even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” (2 Cor 11:14)
The book of Isaiah calls these spirits ‘familiar spirits’. They are familiar with facts about deceased people and use those facts to draw other living people deep into paranormal activity and away from their relationship with God. They use signs and wonders, miracles, to draw people into experimenting with other forms of the occult like ouija boards, tarot cards, fortune telling, astrology and seances. Many times people are seeking contact with a deceased loved one and will use all these tools to find that loved one. And when they do, they are opening themselves up to influence by satan and his demons.
“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)
From experience, I can assure you that even Christians can sometimes become blinded and deceived if they are not walking in the Light as they should be.
In conjunction with the first question about ghosts, there was another question about Saul and the witch of Endor:
The scripture in question is in 1 Samuel 28.
King Saul goes to consult a medium. The problem though is that God’s law forbids contact with mediums (under penalty of death) and King Saul’s own laws have condemned it and had made all mediums leave his land. So obviously, he knew he was doing something wrong and he could be killed for it.
How does this apply to us?
What we know for sure:
If it were possible to contact the dead, it would be wrong to do so according to God’s Word. It is a radical offense to God to do so.
There are two ways of looking at this scripture:
#1 – Certainly God had the power to raise Samuel’s spirit from the place of the OT dead, but it would be against everything His Word teaches.
It is evident that satan made both the witch and King Saul believe that it was actually Samuel speaking.
#2 – God allowed the actual spirit of Samuel to appear and speak to Saul. This was a one -time occurrence used by God to carry out His will.