Welcome to the In-Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley from Monday, June 26.

Current culture pushes demonic and occult themes and entertainment.

But we must be aware of the very real dangers.

Today's podcast addresses these issues with a look at King Saul's attempt at talking with the dead.

Would you turn please to 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel 28,

and here is an incident where the Bible says that Saul, by the means of a medium, called up Samuel,

who was already dead, for a message to Saul.

And I want us to look at that passage to see what really happened here, because there are lots of questions about it.

And let's begin in verse 3 of 1 Samuel 28.

Now Samuel was dead and all Israel had lamented him and buried him in Rome, even in his own city.

And Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits and the wizards of witches out of the land,

so that the person, to whom he's going to, later on in this chapter, was one of those persons whom he'd been responsible for annihilating out of all the land, all the witches and all the mediums carrying on seances and so forth.

And let me just stop right here to say something, and I want you to remember this, if you forget everything else I'm going to say, because it may be the most important thing.

When you and I are right with God, the thing oftentimes we are against with the greatest intensity is the one thing Satan will hit you with when you start backsliding.

You just remember that. The thing that you are so absolutely adamantly opposed to when you begin the downward slide in your backsliding condition, watch out.

It may be the very thing Satan trips you up with, and that's exactly what happened here to Saul.

Here he was running them out of the land, and what happens? He ends up going to one.

That's amazing how many Christians are getting caught up in the occult, and some of these people who claim to be a part of the occult will tell you right now that they're Christians.

Some of them will tell you that they read the Bible, that they pray, that they believe parts of the Bible.

But there is so much deception in what's going on, that it's amazing how many of God's people, young people, college students, elderly people, every age level are being caught up, and it is so deceitful, so cunning, the way the curiosity, all of us have curiosity.

There's nothing wrong with curiosity as long as it's controlled, but when people offer you something they cannot give you without involving you in something you don't want to be a part of, then we're in danger.

Satan can use natural curiosity to get you in serious trouble, serious trouble, because there are demons, there are demonic forces, and we can't say that there is no evidence of any power in demonic forces.

...