“When you enter the land
which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to
imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall
not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his
daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one
who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a
sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a
spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.” (Deuteronomy
18:9-11)
Recently I was asked to speak
at a seminary. Before the meeting I had lunch with a couple
of the professors, one of whom had spent many years as a
missionary in Taiwan. The former missionary recounted a
story that illustrates the reality of the spirit world. Here
is the story in his words:
A twelve-year-old boy in
Taiwan was having strange experiences. He felt as though
someone was often following him but when he turned
around, he saw no one. Often in the morning after a
fitful sleep he would have bruises and tell his parents
that someone had been hitting him in the night as he
slept. His parents took him to medical doctors who could
find nothing wrong with the boy. Finally, they took him
to a blind fortune-teller – one who had a reputation for
his effectiveness in perceiving the spirit world.
This fortune-teller told the boy and his parents that
the boy was born as a twin and that the other twin had
died at birth. This was of course known to the parents,
but few other people knew about this as they had kept it
a secret. The fortune-teller went on to say that the
boy’s problems were caused by the spirit of the deceased
twin who was angry about being neglected. His parents
had not been faithfully worshiping him and providing for
him in the spirit world. Therefore, this spirit was
punishing them by harassing their son (his twin). The
solution was to set up an altar for the spirit of the
deceased twin, worship him with food and incense, and
burn spirit money on his behalf. When the family did as
they had been instructed, the boy’s strange experiences
ceased.1
One might ask, “How can it be
that this worked”? The answer is that Satan has good reasons
to make it work. The spirits tormenting the child were doing
what evil spirits delight to do. The fortune-teller is
connected to real spiritual knowledge. The spirits told the
fortune-teller of the twin. The spirits gave him the
“prescription” and other spirits quit their tormenting
because by doing so, they have immersed that whole family in
the animistic beliefs of spirit worship. Imagine how solid
would be their beliefs and how unlikely would be their
turning to Jesus Christ. Divination and spiritism work --
that is what makes the danger so great. Deceptions that do
not “work” have a short shelf life.
The Nature and History of
Divination
Old Testament scholar Eugene
H. Merrill gives a general definition of divination: “The
phrase ‘practicers of divination’ refers generally to the
whole complex of means of gaining insight from the gods
regardless of any particular technique.”2
Here is another definition:
“[The] practice of making decisions or foretelling the
future by means of reading signs and omens”3
All pagan societies, ancient
and modern, practiced divination.... Various techniques were
developed to gain this knowledge. There is no logical limit
to the varieties of techniques that might work. These
techniques persist because they do work to some extent and
the spirits are all too willing to provide their
deceptive information....
The practice of astrology
arose because planets were anomalies in that they took a
different course of movement than the stars. People used to
examine the liver or entrails of animals to gain information
from the gods. This is mentioned in the Bible: “For the
king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the
head of the two ways, to use divination; he shakes the
arrows, he consults the household idols, he looks at the
liver.” (Ezekiel 21:21)....
Not all forms of divination
had to do with reading anomalies. Some forms were means of
making direct contact with spirits. Necromancy is one
of them. “Necromancy, consulting the spirits of the dead
(Lev. 19:31; Isa. 8:19; Isa. 19:3), is a way of obtaining
foreknowledge from a supernatural source which was illicit
among the Jews . . . but licit amongst all other peoples.”6
What divination is always looking for is secret
information whether about the past, present or future.
Divination is often linked
with sorcery, enchantments, and other practices. For
example: “Then they made their sons and their daughters
pass through the fire, and practiced divination and
enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the
sight of the Lord, provoking Him. So the Lord was very angry
with Israel, and removed them from His sight; none was left
except the tribe of Judah” (1Kings 17:17, 18). ...
Why God Forbids Divination
The Bible forbids divination
because it involves lusting for secret knowledge that
God has not chosen to reveal. “The secret things belong
to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us
and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words
of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). This desire for
forbidden knowledge has it roots in man’s first sin. Here is
what the Serpent said: “For God knows that in the day you
eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like
God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5). He tempted
Eve with a desire to know what God had not chosen to reveal
and thus transgress the boundary between Creator and
creature. Eve and then Adam succumbed to this temptation
(Genesis 3:6). Divination is an ongoing attempt to gain
forbidden knowledge.
There are only two legitimate
sources of knowledge available to us: 1) the things revealed
by God, 2) that which can be learned through general
revelation. What is revealed by God is contained in the
Bible. General revelation is limited to what can be learned
through the physical senses and rational implications of
what is seen in the creation.
What is forbidden is secret
information, not available through ordinary means of
learning and not revealed by God. Divination involves
various techniques to gain this spiritual information. For
example, in the case of the child who was brought to the
fortune-teller, had there been an inquiry and the results of
careful investigation found that the child had a twin
brother who died, that would be a legitimate source of
information. What influence if any that fact had on the
child could only be discerned as far as evidence and
rational implications could provide. However, the
information from the fortune-teller, though “true” at least
in the fact of the death of the twin, is still forbidden
because it came through divination.
The fortune-teller
illustration shows why divination is forbidden. It
works because of the operation of evil spirits. Evil
spirits are willing to give out some factual information as
long as it serves their purpose of telling a bigger lie.
People get sucked into the occult because of the accuracy of
the secret information they gain.
I have interviewed people who
had participated in séances. In some cases specific
information was given about a deceased relative that the
necromancer had never known. This information convinces the
clients that they are actually contacting their deceased
relatives. However, demons have this information and can
dispense it to cause people to believe a greater lie. In
some cases the lie is that the deceased relative is in a
“better place” in spite of the fact that they had never
believed the gospel. This perpetrates the lie that all
people go to a “better place” and therefore there is no need
to repent and believe the gospel. This serves the purpose of
the deceiving spirits who make the séance “work.”
What is important to keep in
mind about divination is that there is very good reason why
people in diverse cultures throughout human history have
practiced it: it works! This is what makes it so
seductive. To naively claim that it is not real and doesn’t
work will never get people to give up divination. What needs
to be known is that these methods are forbidden because
they do give access to the world of the spirits.... They
are deceiving spirits and they have been practicing their
deceptions for thousands of years.
Their primary aim is
to keep people away from a relationship with God through
Jesus Christ. If they fail to keep people from coming to
Christ, their secondary aim is to deceive them into
embracing false doctrine, thus distorting their
understanding of God’s revealed truth.
Divination is Rebellion
Consider what the prophet
Isaiah had to say: “And when they say to you, ‘Consult
the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,"
should not a people consult their God? Should they consult
the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the
testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it
is because they have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:19, 20). The
murky world of secret, spiritual knowledge is characterized
by unclear “whispering and muttering.” Seeking such secret
information is the equivalent of failing to consult God who
has revealed His truth objectively in His word. Those who
are not satisfied with what God has chosen to reveal go to
other spiritual sources. This, as we shall see, is rebellion
against God.
What diviners do is forbidden
because diviners do not speak for God. Deuteronomy 18
contains a list of forbidden practices:
There shall not be found
among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass
through the fire, one who uses divination, one who
practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a
sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a
spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever
does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because
of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive
them out before you. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)
What Moses goes on to say
shows that these practices were an alternative to listening
to God’s chosen spokesmen. “For those nations, which you
shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft
and to diviners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not
allowed you to do so. The Lord your God will raise up for
you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen,
you shall listen to him” (Deuteronomy 18:14, 15). ...
The “prophet” that God would raise up is Jesus Christ (See
Hebrews 1:1, 2; John 5:37-57; and Acts 3:22, 23).
Moses was the one through
whom God gave the law. The prophets did not add to the law
of God, but exhorted from it and predicted the future. They
specifically prophesied of the Messiah, the prophet Moses
predicted. According to Hebrews 1:1, 2, Jesus Christ has
spoken to us in these last days in full and final
revelation. Going beyond what was given in the Old Testament
and spoken by Christ and His apostles in the New Testament
is rebellion....
In 1 Samuel 15, Saul refused
to listen to God. He took spoil when God commanded him not
to. This is what the prophet Samuel told Saul: “For
rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination
is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the
word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king”
(1Samuel 15:23).
...Those who willingly and
purposely go outside what God has chosen to reveal put
themselves under the judgment of reprobation. This means
that God allows them to be deceived:
[T]hat is, the one whose
coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with
all power and signs and false wonders, and with all
the deception of wickedness for those who perish,
because they did not receive the love of the truth
so as to be saved. And for this reason God will send
upon them a deluding influence so that they might
believe what is false, in order that they all may be
judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure
in wickedness. (2Thessalonians 2:9-12)
Like Saul, those deceived by
antichrist’s signs are led astray by their own lusts. The
diviners and spiritists cater to the desires and lusts of
sinners. God sends the deception not directly, because God
cannot lie, but indirectly by giving Satan permission to
unleash deceiving spirits on his victims.
In the Greek, the passage in
Thessalonians says, “that they might believe the lie.”
The definite article is important because it points to the
lie that Satan told in the Garden, “you shall be like God,
knowing . . .” The lie points to forbidden knowledge. In
this passage it is in antithetical relationship to “the
truth.” In its simplest form, the lie points us to
secret knowledge that God has not revealed and the truth
points us to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who practice
divination are departing from the gospel for the sake of
learning what God has not chosen to reveal. They end up
deluded by the lie!
Divination and False Prophets
...There are three tests of
prophets given in Deuteronomy: 1) if they use forbidden
methods they are false (Deuteronomy 18:10-12), 2) If
they make a prediction that does not come to pass they are
false (Deuteronomy 18:22), and 3) If they make a true
prediction yet lead the Israelites away from faithfulness to
God they are false (Deuteronomy 13:1-5).
....Balaam failed two of the tests given in
Deuteronomy. He was a false prophet according to Deuteronomy
18 because he used forbidden methods. ... He also failed the test of
prophets given in Deuteronomy 13:
If a prophet or a dreamer
of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a
wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true,
concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go
after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us
serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that
prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the Lord your God
is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy
13:1-3)
...False prophets are linked
with divination in this passage: “Then the Lord said to
me, ‘The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I
have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to
them; they are prophesying to you a false vision,
divination, futility and the deception of their own minds”
(Jeremiah 14:14). These prophets were telling the
people what they wanted to hear, that the judgment that
Jeremiah was predicting would not come to pass (Jeremiah
14:15). They were soon proven false. The point is this:
God’s people need to be able to distinguish between prophets
and diviners. The criterion for doing so is objective and
not subjective. The false prophets were diviners whose
source was subjective: “deception of their own minds.”
The True Role of the Prophet
The true prophet in the Old
Testament had several important roles. One was to exhort the
people to faithfulness to the Law of Moses, which contained
the stipulations of the covenant.... Another role
was that of predicting the future. The topics of their
predictions included the future of Israel and her
relationships to the nations, oracles against the nations,
and the details of the coming of Messiah, the “Prophet”
about whom Moses spoke. Prophets also gave specific
prophecies to kings and specific guidance at key times in
Israel’s history.
As we have seen, if they did
not preach
covenant faithfulness they were false, if they
did not accurately predict the future they were false, and
if they used forbidden techniques they were false. True
prophets were not practicers of divination. They were called
by God and inspired by the Holy Spirit. Their source was not
special techniques to plumb “the divine” to gain secret
information, but God who sovereignly spoke through them.
There was no prophetic, secret technique that could be
taught to others. Since it was God’s inspiration that gave
them their words, their words were true.
God’s Ordained Means
There was big problem with
false use of dreams during Jeremiah’s ministry. For example:
“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy
falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a dream, I had a dream!’”
(Jeremiah 23:25). The false prophets tried to gain
legitimacy through their dreams, though they were departing
from God’s revealed will:
“How long? Is there
anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy
falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their
own heart, who intend to make My people forget My name
by their dreams which they relate to one another....The
prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let
him who has My word speak My word in truth."
(Jeremiah 23:26-28)
...In summary, if a practice is
a forbidden form of divination, it is always sinful and is
never a “neutral” method. If a practice is allowed or
ordained under certain circumstances, it still must be
scrutinized. Even God’s ordained means can be abused....
False Claims of Christian Diviners
Divination is any technique
for gaining secret or hidden information that is not
ordained in Scripture. Its practice is sinful and forbidden.
People who do not want to be restricted from using
divination techniques offer two arguments: “methods are
neutral,” and “God can use anything.”
From the Scriptures we have
shown that the first claim is unbiblical. Methods are not
neutral. Let me share an example. Most people would agree
that the Ouija board is a form of divination and forbidden
for Christians. But what if someone devised an Ouija board
that was just like a real one, only was covered with Bible
verses. Two people could put their hands on the pointing
device and allow whatever forces make the board “work” to
point to the appropriate verse. This, they would then take
as God guiding them. This may seem absurd, but is a
logically valid thing if indeed “methods are neutral.” As a
matter of fact, those who use the practice of closing their
eyes, allowing their Bible to flop open, and sticking their
finger into it to find a verse for guidance are using a
similar technique....
The claim that, “God can use
anything” is misleading. Though technically true, it is
misleading in that there is a distinction to be made between
what God has the power to use and what God ordains. There is
also the fact that God can use something that is against His
moral will and still bring judgment. God actually did use
the Witch of En-dor, but it was a very bad thing for Saul.
God can use evil for good purposes, but it is a very bad
thing for the doers of evil who are thus used.
[See Evil]
What is truly important is
that we determine from the Scriptures what God’s will is
and submit to that....
Conclusion
Divination is forbidden not
because it does not work, but because it does. It works to
put people in touch with spiritual forces and secret
knowledge. ... The evil spirits who dispense this
information intend to keep people from coming to God through
Messiah. They also seek to deceive Christians into thinking
that what has been provided through Christ is insufficient.
They are very good at what they do.
Fifteen years ago I was
hosting a pastor’s meeting, hoping to appeal to pastors to
preach and teach the Bible accurately. A pastor came to the
meeting who had recently been to see the Kansas City
prophets. I asked him what happened there. His reply was
that a prophet had been able to correctly identify his
ministry though he had no natural source of this
information. I asked how he did so. The answer was that the
prophet had the man hold up his hand with his fingers
spread. The prophet saw colors emanating from the hand that
revealed which of the “five-fold” ministries he had. I said
to him, “That is aura reading which is from the occult.” He
answered, “God can use anything and besides he was right.”
What was so very wrong about
that was that the secret information did nothing other than
convince the pastor that Christian aura reading was allowed
and that he had met a true prophet. The pastor knew he was a
pastor before he went to the prophet, he did not need secret
knowledge to show what was known by ordinary means. This is
the same sort of procedure that many practitioners of
divination use to convince their victims that they have
legitimate powers. There are dozens of “Christian” versions
of divination being practiced in the church today. The next
issue will expose several of them.
What we must do is forsake
the lust for secret knowledge and put ourselves under God’s
ordained means of grace. God will use His ordained means to
give us all the healing and help we are going to get in this
life. By submitting to the gospel through faith we are
assured of the future resurrection unto eternal life.
To see the entire article
with the End Notes, please go to Issue 82:
http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue82.htm
Copyright © 2006 Twin City
Fellowship
Other articles by Bob DeWaay:
True and False
Unity
Faulty Premises
of the Church Growth Movement |
Redefining the Church
Recovering Reformation Theology
|
Discernment in
an Age of Deception
The Dangers of "Spiritual
Formation" |
The Emergence of Imaginary
Eschatology
“Church Health
Award” from Rick Warren or Jesus Christ?
|
Theophostics |
Bob DeWaay is
the Pastor of
Twin City Fellowship, a
non-denominational evangelical Church in Minneapolis, MN:
"We are a
body of believers who attempt to live our Christian
faith according to Acts 2:42 by devoting ourselves to
prayer, fellowship, searching the Scriptures, and the
Lord’s Supper. Our mission is to equip the saints for the work of
ministry and to reach the lost with the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. We do this through expository preaching, study
of the Scriptures, publications, our website and
neighborhood outreaches."