Feeling the urgent need of a word from some quarter, “Saul said unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her.” Earlier in his reign Saul had endeavored to stamp out this appalling evil, but apparently it was still practiced secretly. What an inconsistent thing is poor flesh! It can wax indignant at one form of iniquity and can labor to suppress it while freely indulging in other forms equally offensive to God.
Even God's true saints are not free from this danger. Samuel told Saul after his disobedience in the matter of Amalek that “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:2323For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. (1 Samuel 15:23)). Why? Because it puts something in the place of God, and this Saul was continually doing in his career of self-pleasing.
Learning that there was a woman practicing witchcraft at Endor, Saul disguised himself, and with two of his servants went to her by night. When requested to bring up the man that he would name, the woman protested that it was against the law of the kingdom and that she might be put to death for her deed. Saul had the audacity to “swear to her by the Lord saying, As the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing.” The wretched man could not possibly go further in sin than thus to pledge the Lord's holy name in connection with a matter so hateful in His sight. All sense of the reality of having to do with God had utterly departed from him.