That something seems to be working or simply is—even when it is at odds with God’s account or God’s warning—does not mean that it indeed is true; or that it is indeed working as perceived. CASE IN POINT:
1. Evolution (It seems to be when in fact it is not): The Israelites were forbidden by God from making inquiries from mediums and spiritists, and King Saul expelled them from the Land of Israel. Yet after Samuel died and Saul sought spiritual advice from God and did not receive it, he asked for and was taken to a medium so he would seek consultation with the spirit of the dead prophet.
After a tense moment with the medium, she proceeded to fulfill Saul’s request. The Bible said that “when the woman saw Samuel (his spirit, that is) she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, ‘Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!'” (1 Samuel 28:12) and Saul reassured the woman of her safety and asked her to continue and she did. Saul did not see the spirit of Samuel but from the woman’s description of who she saw, the Bible 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? The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today. The LORD will deliver both Israel and you into the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.”
Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel’s words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and all that night. When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, “Look, your servant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do. Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.” He refused and said, “I will not eat.”
But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch. The woman had a fattened calf at the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast. Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate. That same night they got up and left.”(1 Samuel 28:14-25).
Saul and his sons died in that war as the spirit he consulted at the medium assured him. That it was God pronouncing His judgment on Saul was not disputable. However, that it was Samuel (his spirit, that is) speaking to Saul is also unquestionably because the Bible said in a few places that it was Samuel. Does that mean that the mediums really contact spirits and the dead? That too is not in dispute.
Why then did God prohibit the Israelites from using this means off spiritual advice? God did not create man to interact with spirits in the natural. The only spirit man is authorized by God to seek and interact with is the Holy Spirit. The angels of God can be sent by God to interact with man, but man does not go looking for the angels because he is not equipped to invoke an encounter between himself and the angels.
Only God determines the need for that kind of interaction and arrange for it. Man reaching out to interact with spirits is the dark side, and is prohibited. Man could attract spirits out of his own will but nothing good could come out of that since it is a forbidden interaction. People easily get mislead from that kind of interaction with spirits as the authenticity of the very spirit contacted or the message they give could not be substantiated even by the medium or spiritist. Men can never guarantee that whatever they see or hear from spirits is true. Consider the following Scripture:
“For three years there was no war between Aram and Israel. But in the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to see the king of Israel. The king of Israel had said to his officials, “Don’t you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us and yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aram?”
So he asked Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to fight against Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “First seek the counsel of the LORD.”
So the king of Israel brought together the prophets—about four hundred men—and asked them, “Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?” “Go,” they answered, “for the Lord will give it into the king’s hand.” But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no longer a prophet of the LORD here whom we can inquire of?” The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat,“There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.”
“The king should not say such a thing,” Jehoshaphat replied. So the king of Israel called one of his officials and said, “Bring Micaiah son of Imlah at once.” Dressed in their royal robes, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting on their thrones at the threshing floor by the entrance of the gate of Samaria, with all the prophets prophesying before them. Now Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had made iron horns and he declared, “This is what the LORD says: ‘With these you will gore the Arameans until they are destroyed.‘”
All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing. “Attack Ramoth Gilead and be victorious,” they said, “for the LORD will give it into the king’s hand.” The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him,“Look, the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably.”
But Micaiah said, “As surely as the LORD lives, I can tell him only what the LORD tells me.” When he arrived, the king asked him, “Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or not?”
“Attack and be victorious,” he answered, “for the LORD will give it into the king’s hand.” The king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?”
Then Micaiah answered, “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the LORD said, ‘These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.’“
The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?”
Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. And the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’ “One suggested this, and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “‘By what means?’ the LORD asked. “‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. “‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the LORD. ‘Go and do it.’
“So now the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you.” Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. “Which way did the spirit from[a] the LORD go when he went from me to speak to you?” he asked.
Micaiah replied, “You will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room.” The king of Israel then ordered, “Take Micaiah and send him back to Amon the ruler of the city and to Joash the king’s son and say, ‘This is what the king says: Put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely.'”
Micaiah declared, “If you ever return safely, the LORD has not spoken through me.” Then he added, “Mark my words, all you people!”
Ahab Killed at Ramoth Gilead So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up to Ramoth Gilead.30 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.
Now the king of Aram had ordered his thirty-two chariot commanders, “Do not fight with anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel.” When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they thought, “Surely this is the king of Israel.” So they turned to attack him, but when Jehoshaphat cried out, the chariot commanders saw that he was not the king of Israel and stopped pursuing him.
But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver, “Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I’ve been wounded.” All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died. As the sun was setting, a cry spread through the army: “Every man to his town. Every man to his land!”
So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there. They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed),[b] and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the LORD had declared. God allowed His prophet Micaiah to discern the spiritual deception that had befallen Ahab’s prophets—four hundred of them at the same time. God had allowed a spirit to infiltrate Ahab’s pool of prophets and lie to all of them that King Ahab should go to a war where he was going to be killed. And King Ahab believed them and went to the war.
Yet the king made sure that if Micaiah was correct, it would be Jehoshaphat the king of Judah who was lending a helping hand that would be killed in his stead: King Ahab went to the war disguising himself as a regular soldier leaving the king of Judah as the only one dressed as a king. But not even his clever disguise and dubiousness saved him from the fate God had pronounced on him through His prophet, Micaiah.
From these passages, it becomes clear that unless it is God who sends a spirit to interact with a man, that man could be fed lies and deception by the spirit. The spirits which a medium or a spiritist conjures up could be anything God decides to let it be just to. God is in completely in charge of everything that happens in His universe.
The only way man can guarantee himself success in this world is if he obeys God’s commands and lives within God’s limitations. Continuing to seek that which is prohibited by God constitutes disobedience to God and would only lead man to trouble. That is why the Bible says: “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,14 and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.”(1 Chronicles 10:13-14).
It is simply lame that men in their newfound confidence would continue to push the so-called “Theory of Evolution” as the source of life on earth, and the origin of the universe as a whole.
Pushing the Theory of Evolution as the fact of our existence is a direct equivalence of men contacting the mediums and spirits because they believed the practice has real utility and works; because both are insults to God and are blinded pursued by shortsighted men (and women) who are so much more interested in profit that they are about the truth. And because what they practice brings in huge financial rewards and popularity, they pursue it with reckless abandon.
The practice of divination, seeking omens and contacting the spirit of the dead is as old as man himself and had been practiced from the ancient times. That is why the Bible made so many references to them in condemnation.
The theory of Evolution arose with the emergence of science as the leading anti-God. While many have embraced science as a mantle of great services and benefits to the human life, others saw a chance in it to create a diversion from having faith in God and pursuing eternity as God intended for mankind.
Instead this people sought to draw most of humanity away from God while at the same time filling their pockets with unimaginable wealth. They quickly convinced world governments to put their weights behind them and promote evolution in all the places of learning as the true source of everything in the universe and the world.
So by tying the acceptability of this preposterous theory with everyone’s ability to make a living, the world had no choice but to submit to it. And it has worked very well for them just like the practice of divination, seeking omens and making contact with the spirit of the dead worked in ancient times. In the ancient times when these practices were prevalent, even kings and the elites swarmed to mediums, spiritists and diviners to increase their wealth and their longevity.
And these days, we have all been taught the art of Wall Street investment and the sudden wealth it could bring into our lives and that whets our palettes in anticipation. With eagerness to grab a portion of the windfalls for ourselves, we never hesitate to back a company with strong earning potential regardless of what the company is all about.
We have all chosen profit over godliness. We are all rallying around profit potential and market forecasts from the so-called experts that how well our investments complements our morality is not even something to consider. And with the wealth we give to these companies, they force everybody to accept every scientific theory out there: they make the governments teach them in schools and universities.
And in the name of equality at the workplace, they prevent Christians from even bringing up the name of God at workplace, making it virtually impossible for anyone to refute the filth they spread around the world in the name of science. And if you seriously and openly challenge these theories, you are stripped of your job to punish you to know to remain content with receiving a salary next time somebody was kind enough to give you a job. And the world will not stop until it gets everyone to deny the existence of God or at least become neutral to it.
The world scientist who are provocatively pushing the theory of evolution as the source of life on earth and the origin of the universe are the equals of the mediums and the spiritist of old in that they both saw something that appears to work but really does not—something that brings them huge profits and fame—and could not easily be taken away from them by anyone; so they stuck to it and continue to push it for more popularity.
There is the case of a man called Alexander suing Apostle Paul in Ephesus, and causing him and his friends great grief.