Brief:
Most ghost sightings are deceptions, but there have been times when spirits
have come back from the dead.
Intro
Question
Have any of you ever
seen a ghost?
Do you think ghosts
are real?
We’ve been reading
about how David fled from King Saul and has been living in the desert and then,
in the country of the Philistines.
Scripture: 1 Samuel 28:1-20; Psalm 6:5; Isaiah 38:10-11, 18-19; Matthew
27:52-53; 1 Peter 3:18-20; Luke 16:19-31
Is this really the
spirit of Samuel coming back from the dead, or is it a trick of the medium?
In this case, we have
to assume that it really was Samuel being summoned because we are given no
indication that the event was inauthentic in any way. The key here is that
Samuel had to be summoned. He wasn’t wandering the earth or haunting his old residence.
Where was Samuel
being summoned from? He surely wasn’t in Hell, and he wasn’t in Heaven yet. So,
where was he?
David isn’t imagining
singing in any Heavenly choir when he dies. He thinks that he will never again
praise God once he has passed on.
The words that have been
translated in these verses as “death,” “grave,” and “pit” all come from the
Hebrew word, Sheol.
Samuel was being
summoned from Sheol, or death, the place where all Old Testament persons had to
wait until Christ died for them. And Samuel is only summoned for a brief period
of time. He is still bound in death after this and unable to communicate or to
leave death without being summoned again.
When we die, we don’t
go to Sheol. We go to Heaven or Hell. What is the difference between Samuel and
us? Why did he go to Sheol and we go to Heaven or Hell when we die?
The difference is
that Samuel and everyone else in the Old Testament were living before Christ
came, and we are living after Christ came. Death is the punishment for sin.
Because Jesus had not yet come in the Old Testament, Samuel had to stay dead
for his punishment. But for us, we have been forgiven. Jesus died on the cross,
taking the punishment for our sins on Himself. So, when we die, our punishment
has already been taken care of. We can’t stay dead because Jesus has already
died for us.
It’s kind of like
baseball. In the game of baseball, you can’t have two runners on the same base.
Either one has to move forward, or the other has to go back. They can’t occupy
the same base. It’s the same way with Jesus and us. Jesus has already occupied
our place in death, so when we get there, death makes our spirits move on. We
can’t stay there. We have to either go to Heaven or to Hell, based on the
decision we have made.
So, our souls are
free to move past death and go on to Heaven. Even though our bodies die, we’re
not really dead. Our spirits live on through death and don’t have to stay in
death like the spirits of the people of the Old Testament did.
That’s us. But now,
we have to go back and ask: What happened to the people of the Old Testament
who died before Jesus came? Do their spirits ever get to move on past death
like ours do? Does Samuel ever get to live again?
And the answer to
that question is Yes. In fact, their spirits have already moved on.
Everyone who lived
before Christ was stuck in death. Once He died and was resurrected, they were
free to move past death. Jesus had come to occupy their place, and they had to
move on. You see, Jesus’ death wasn’t just for us. He wasn’t defeating death
for us only. He was dying for Adam and for Cain and Abel and for Noah and for
everyone who had died before He came.
Jesus went and
preached to the people who were dead, all those people who had died in the
Flood. His Spirit spoke to their spirits and told them the good news of why He
had come. He gave them the opportunity to place their trust in Him for
salvation. Jesus preached to the dead so that their spirits could live again.
The second mention of
ghosts in the Bible is found in a story told by Jesus.
In this parable,
Jesus is portraying Lazarus and Abraham as being in Sheol but in separate
parts. These two characters are still in Sheol rather than Heaven and Hell
because Jesus hasn’t died yet.
When the rich man
begs for Lazarus to return as a ghost and to speak to his family, his request
is denied. Not because it is impossible, but because it is impractical. The
sending of people back from the dead is simply not done. It is ineffective in
persuading people to repent.
God did allow Samuel
to be summoned from Sheol, and maybe God allows the spirits of dead people to
appear sometimes, but this parable tells us that it doesn’t happen very often. For
the most part, people who are in Heaven or Hell will not leave those places
again until the time of Christ’s second coming and the final resurrection.
So, what about ghosts
that we see today? If people usually do not return to appear as ghosts to us,
what are the ‘ghosts’ that people see?
I believe that the
ghosts we see today are not people at all but demons disguising themselves as
our loved ones and the random dead. The reason they do this is to cast doubt on
the reality of Heaven and Hell. If the demons can make us believe that people
become ghosts and wander the earth for a time, then it takes away some of the
urgency of our eternal fate. It makes it seem like Heaven and Hell aren’t so
immediate. We don’t have to worry about it quite as much. We can finish what we
were doing on earth first. We can avenge our murderer. We can say good-bye to
our families first.
Whereas these are all
nice and comforting thoughts, they aren’t the reality. We don’t have any more
time after we die. We can’t change our minds or repent or do things
differently. We only have one life to do what needs to be done, and we only get
one life to make our decision for eternity. When we die, that’s it. Time’s up,
and Heaven and Hell are all that’s left. So, we better live like we understand
that. Demons appearing as ghosts only seek to distract us from this fact.
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