Ghost are they real?

[Esaias]

God refused to answer Saul "by prophets"... until a demon-possessed witch made it happen?

1 Chronicles 10:13-14 KJV
So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord , even against the word of the Lord , which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it ; [14] And enquired not of the Lord : therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.

Saul was enquiring of a demon, the Bible EXPLICITLY SAYS SO. So who did he enquire of?

1 Samuel 28:15-16 KJV
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. [16] Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?

Samuel was dead and in the grave. The witch did not resurrect him, therefore Samuel did not show up at this seance. Saul did not see him, he had to ask the witch what was going on. By the way, the Greek text of the account calls her a ventriloquist. Moreover, the Chronicler explicitly says he enquired of a familiar spirit. A spirit definitely showed up, everyone is agreed. Nobody claims Samuel actually resurrected out of the grave. It was his spirit, people say.

A spirit indeed. A familiar spirit, according to the Bible.

She is a medium who makes a living conjuring the dead. Not bodily, but "spiritually". She is a ventriloquist, she peeps and mutters and speaks from her gut like channelers do as "the ghost of the dearly departed speaks". According to the Bible, it's a demon.

"But he prophesied to Saul!" Really?

1. "God has rejected you and given the kingdom to David." Something everybody already knew, it was why Saul hated David and was trying to kill him. Oops, not really evidence there.

2. "Tomorrow you will die." Oops again, not quite. It was actually a couple days later.

3. "And your sons will die, too, at that time." Three died the same day as Saul. One didn't. Oops again. Three strikes you're out?

"It says 'Samuel said".

How did Samuel speak? Was he really bodily resurrected? No? Then how did he speak? Through the medium who had a familiar spirit. Like all cases of necromancy, divination, "invoking spirits", etc.

But notice something:

Mark 3:11 KJV
And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.

Who fell down and cried and said? Unclean spirits, in and of themselves? Or the people who had the demons?

Mark 5:5-7 KJV
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. [6] But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, [7] And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.

Wait a minute, who cried saying etc? The speaker in this passage strictly and grammatically refers to the GUY. Yes the demons said it, but again HOW? Through the possessed. And the Bible describes it BOTH ways, as both the demons and the possessed person speaking. This is how disembodied spirits speak - through a host person.

Was the witch POSSESSED BY SAMUEL'S GHOST???? Possessed by the genuine spirit of a genuine holy prophet? That's what you have to believe if you believe the witch literally summoned Samuel for real.

"God brought Samuel up, not the witch."

Really?

1 Samuel 28:15 KJV
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.

The prophet seems to think it was Saul who brought him up. Doesn't sound like much of a prophet. Samuel gives no glory to God. Saul, by using a devil possessed witch, brought the prophet into the seance - ACCORDING TO THE PROPHET????

one more thing. The Bible says the dead know nothing and have nothing more to do with what's going on here in the land of the living. Therefore it can't be Samuel's ghost/soul/spirit. If it was, then David and Solomon couldn't and wouldn't have said what they said about the dead.

[Michael The Disciple]

Dom:

My point is not about the characters in the story. My whole point is what the author tells us about the who is who in the story. We are being told by the author who the characters are. The witch did nothing, she was shocked that she screamed, because now she was really in trouble.

Nails it IMO.

[votivesoul]

My store, which is normally 24 hours, is, starting 03/15/2020, indefinitely closing from 11pm to 6am. All employees on 3rd shift will continue to work, trying to help the store stay stocked and recover from the heavy traffic and sales during the day.

All WI school districts are closing this coming Wednesday. I am losing my service writer until at least April 6. Not sure how many other parents at the store are going to have to stay home to parent their children. We went from no allowed overtime to overtime available to all in less than a week.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

My store, which is normally 24 hours, is, starting 03/15/2020, indefinitely closing from 11pm to 6am. All employees on 3rd shift will continue to work, trying to help the store stay stocked and recover from the heavy traffic and sales during the day.

All WI school districts are closing this coming Wednesday. I am losing my service writer until at least April 6. Not sure how many other parents at the store are going to have to stay home to parent their children. We went from no allowed overtime to overtime available to all in less than a week.

They are wrecking the economy.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Esaias

They are wrecking the economy.

Nothing a good war can't resolve.

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by votivesoul

Nothing a good war can't resolve.

Question: Have you heard about private/public partnering with the fed.gov to manage and "safeguard" food distribution coming pretty soon?

Went to local Walmart today. Crowd looked like any other day at Walmart. But, literally NO tp or paper towels, bottled water almost gone except for Dasani and Great Value, all the bagged cereal was gone, all the center aisle frozen meats were gone (completely), the beef, chicken, pork and turkey sections were empty, all the bologna and hot dogs and bacon and cheese and hot links etc were wiped out. Saw a meat dept guy bringing out a pallet thingy to restock the chicken but he only had about 20 packs of chicken legs/thighs etc. His 6 ft tall dolly-wheeled rack only had about three racks with product on it.

Canned goods wiped out, rice and beans gone etc.

Beer aisle was expanded though and well stocked. The Deli looked normal. All the bakery items were in stock, fresh fruit and veggie section was fine.

Nobody even shopping in the clothing aisles.

Only had 4-5 checkout lines open, everyone was being funneled through self-checkout.

I've been through hurricanes etc. I know what empty shelves look like. But they come with massive crowds and people loading up carts with stock-up items. This is different. Kind of surreal. It looks more like a shortage than a run. Our local stores have stopped 24hr service, so they can "restock" at night, but I never see a crowd larger than normal and about 90% of shoppers are always just buying groceries, not stocking up. Weird.

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Question: Have you heard about private/public partnering with the fed.gov to manage and "safeguard" food distribution coming pretty soon?

Went to local Walmart today. Crowd looked like any other day at Walmart. But, literally NO tp or paper towels, bottled water almost gone except for Dasani and Great Value, all the bagged cereal was gone, all the center aisle frozen meats were gone (completely), the beef, chicken, pork and turkey sections were empty, all the bologna and hot dogs and bacon and cheese and hot links etc were wiped out. Saw a meat dept guy bringing out a pallet thingy to restock the chicken but he only had about 20 packs of chicken legs/thighs etc. His 6 ft tall dolly-wheeled rack only had about three racks with product on it.

Canned goods wiped out, rice and beans gone etc.

Beer aisle was expanded though and well stocked. The Deli looked normal. All the bakery items were in stock, fresh fruit and veggie section was fine.

Nobody even shopping in the clothing aisles.

Only had 4-5 checkout lines open, everyone was being funneled through self-checkout.

I've been through hurricanes etc. I know what empty shelves look like. But they come with massive crowds and people loading up carts with stock-up items. This is different. Kind of surreal. It looks more like a shortage than a run. Our local stores have stopped 24hr service, so they can "restock" at night, but I never see a crowd larger than normal and about 90% of shoppers are always just buying groceries, not stocking up. Weird.

A near-identical description of what my store looked like, right down to the same aisles and items sold out over the weekend. I even took some pics. The only difference is, was the large and obvious crowds. Almost as bad as, if not equal to, a 4th of July weekend. Not Black Friday bad, but close. I ran a register for nearly two hours Saturday morning. One lady purchased $756 of miscellaneous whatever she could get her hands on.

Today was better. Items were better stocked, and the crowds were down. Still out of tp and cleaning supplies, though.

Haven't heard anything about fed.gov partnering, though. I know top-level folks from Walmart were at the White House recently, including CEO Doug McMillion, who spoke at a recent WH press conference.