God is still opposed to magic!
06/05/2023 At the end of the year (2022) I was trying to finish a reading of the Bible and was in Revelation, the book of Revelation in the New Testament of the (NIV) Bible. While considering personal Bible reading, I think its good to go where you are led to read at a given time, or led to read for various circumstances, but the topic that I landed upon at that time was “magic”. I was in Revelation Chapter 18, the end of it, and there were 2 occurrences of reading about magic in Scripture that illuminated me in regard to the wickedness of magic 🧝♀️. Chapter 18 is about the wickedness and sudden destruction of Babylon. I realized that the “magic spell” mentioned in Revelation 18:23 was a perhaps even sarcastic statement that was made by a great angel from heaven. But my thinking on this, after reading the whole chapter (that’s important to do, by the way), is I would say that the “magic spell” the angel was referring to, was probably the sway that Babylon used to have on the world, now totally corrupted by impurity, idolatry of wealth, rebellion and unfaithfulness of the Babylonian people. The greatest problem, if is not idolatry itself, would be that people into witchcraft are noted as being directly tied to “Killing the prophets” and “all who been slaughtered on the earth” That’s problematic for holy prophets and mystics who are trying to follow Jesus in their prophetic abilities. I will rewind to chapter 9, where I wanted to shine light on the verse(s) that are speaking of those who do not die from the plagues sounded by the 6th ,🎺 the sixth angel: (verse 20)”The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands 👐 they did not stop worshipping devils, and idols of gold..(21) neither repented of their murders, nor of their sorceries (NIV translation says here “their magic arts”) nor of their fornications, nor of their thefts.” Their “sorceries” mentioned were referring to magic, making miracles with false gods, or using demonic power to produce a wonder; putting a spell on a person like to “curse them”, conjuring up dead people’s spirits by demonic power, using pagan means to predict futuristic events, etc: these are the same traits of magic we have in society today, they just usually are not represented as blatantly evil. I hope to introduce four main points as to why I hold to the belief that magic is evil, harmful, real, and detrimental to a believer’s walk 🚶 with God!
1. Magic Is Often Malicious and Always Deceitful!
In Isaiah, the 12th verse of chapter 48: “Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries; which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror” Isaiah was prophesying (sarcastically) to Babylon that “she” should continue in her idolatry. Because magic is consulting a god other than Jehovah – the God of Israel, in whom there is no darkness or shadow or wickedness – there is no filtering in the spirit to protect a person of faith, but there is the consulting of false gods with sometimes pronounced demonic power. This seeking and sorting with spirits other than God usually has malevolent results, such as sacrificing children in fire to a demonic entity, and/or killing true prophets of God. (Isaiah 47:10, 12) It is tied directly to idolatry (See First Commandment of the Ten Commandments), and submitting to false gods, which are demons (Psalms 96:5).
“Declare what is to be, present it – let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the ancient past? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me” (Isaiah 45:21).
2. The Origin of Magic is Untrustworthy and False, But The Powers Do Exist.
Because the source of which spiritists, psychics, mediums, sorcerers, witches, and other people that practice any kind of withcraft – is an Untrustworthy source, it cannot be trusted as ultimately being good. When a person receives a “foretold message” like from a psychic, the event may be often a curse that indeed might come to pass but may would not have been set if you had not gone to a non-Christian fortune-teller in the first place. How would you know the difference? A Christian prophet or prophetess needs to test a message (for all kinds of purposes messages are for) they receive by Scripture, church history, reason, tradition, and by testing the spirits. Also, matters have to be established by testimony of two or three witnesses, as well as there surely are various ways to test the message. Bible Scripture is the best one I know of. But what kind of filter system does a psychic have? No matter how elaborate their method is, or their # of sources – if they’re not intending to direct the receiving party to Jesus, they would surely be up to no good!
3. Society Both Sensationalizes Magic and De-Supernaturalizes it. This is a Travesty!
Our American society gets much of its understanding of ideas and culture of what “magic” is from England and from America itself. The topic of magic is popular as a subject, as it is found in adult movies, read in books as “fantasy magic”, sold in kid’s games, noted in songs and music scores, touched on in disney movies, video games, arcade games, interwoven in kids shows and movies on cable on Nick Jr and Disney Jr, (try to find kid’s shows with none in it and when you do, them please tell me!), it’s in dramas and plays, animated on cereal boxes, tennis shoes, underwear, and probably any garment-type sold! Sadly enough, I haven’t even mentioned Halloween yet!
Sadly enough, kids under the age of 18 are very impressionable, kids in college are super-impressionable but doesn’t seem as much as minors, and people 25 and older are as seems to me, least impressionable. How can a 30 year woman like J.K. Rowling write books on witchcraft at age 30 and expect target audience 10 years or even teen years to interpret something like witch
Rebekah's Reflections 