I haven't written a blogpost or even posted a video for a few weeks now. I've been experiencing SO many technical difficulties and after doing a bit of sleuth work have discovered that the culprit is none other than Telkom. I don't need to tell you that trying to get something put right with Telkom is not an easy task, so please bear with me.
Last time I posted a video, I shared with you my experiences with evil - and with evil spirits operating through people, in particular. In this post I want to briefly outline what the Bible says about these kind of issues. Are they real? Is witchcraft real? Are curses real? And if so, how should we protect ourselves from their influence?
What does the Bible say?
The Old Testament, in common with the ancient world, and with many part of the modern world such as Africa and the Caribbean, recognises there is ‘a transcendent dimension populated with a variety of immanent spiritual beings’. Yet its understanding of this transcendent dimension, and how we should communicate with it, is unique because it locates all spiritual authority in Yahweh, the God of Israel – and treats all supernatural power and knowledge obtained from any source other than YHWH as prohibited. Jesus recognised that evil spiritual powers were real and exorcising demons was a significant part of his ministry (e.g. Luke 8:2). Because we are part of Jesus' body, Christians today are in conflict with hostile spiritual powers, wrestling ‘[not] against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places’ (Ephesians 6:12). Yet all spiritual creatures are created beings and, though powerful, are all subject to Christ’s authority, as witnessed in Jesus’ earthly ministry (Mark 5:1–20) and in Jesus’ continuing ministry through the church, by his Spirit (Acts 16:16–18). As Paul writes in Philippians 2:9–11:
God has highly exalted him [Jesus] and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
To Christ, Satan must bow.
What should our response be?
Witchcraft practices, common in the Ancient Near East, are prohibited to biblical Israel (e.g. Leviticus 19:26; Deuteronomy 18:10–11). But the Bible’s prohibitions on witchcraft are not arbitrary. God’s good intention is for us to relate both to the ‘unseen real’ and the ‘seen real’ from the security of being in relationship with God, knowing him and trusting him for our lives and for the future. Accordingly, witchcraft is prohibited because it seeks to engage the spiritual world apart from God. As such, it pursues unrelational ways of trying to integrate the material and the spiritual realms. Witchcraft seeks to control and manipulate the spiritual and physical world; even if the purpose of the ritual is said to be benevolent. Control and manipulation spell death to any relationship and so witchcraft is the opposite of spiritual intimacy. As with any co-operation with the powers of darkness, we are robbed of our relational capacities. The subtleties of human character and personality are eroded. We become insensitive to others and lose the ability to read interpersonal signals and see our sin with clarity. Control and manipulation might look like cleverness but ultimately it isolates and dehumanises. Even so, giving up control, and the exercise of covert power, is hard.
The contrast between the biblical worldview and the world of witchcraft is well expressed in Psalm 91, which can be read as a celebration of the protective power of God over against demonic threats:
For he will deliver you … from the deadly pestilence; he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. (Psalm 91:3–4)
On this reading, the word translated ‘shield’ or ‘buckler’ (soherah, verse 4) refers to the encircling protection of God, inverting the idea of maleficent magic ‘surrounding’ a person. But this supernatural defence is all in the context of God’s ‘faithfulness’ (verse 4), of intimacy with God (‘Because he cleaves to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name’; verse 14) and being at home with him (verse 1). We do not need to know the future, or control events, or fear death, because we have intimacy with God, who is the end of all things.
Witchcraft, then, is a relational issue. It expresses our failure to enter into a relationship with God, to make discoveries about the spiritual and the material worlds in partnership with him, and to fully trust him with our lives and futures. Witchcraft robs us of spiritual reality. With a crooked finger, it points away from the speaking God who wants to be known, who always does everything that is necessary for us to enjoy a relationship with him – and who is not far from each one of us.
Are you guilty of witchcraft?
This, too, is an area where some of us might feel we have obeyed God’s commandment not to practise witchcraft, but where we in fact share the same attitudes as a witch. After all, we have seen that witchcraft expresses our desire to carve out a space where we can make things happen apart from God, and that ultimately, the manipulation of spiritual powers for our own ends is a form of human pride, which seeks to replace God with ourselves. Are we not all vulnerable to this?
We may not buy a ‘curse tablet’ on the Internet, to use against a rival. However, we are each guilty, at some level, of trying to manipulate people and events to bring about what we want, without trusting fully in God. We can all live in a way that gives us a sense of power and control, whilst denying God’s control and power over the minutiae of everyday life.
Do you have authority over demons?
Jesus does. So if you are in Christ, then you exercise that authority in his name. Never forget that Satan is a completely defeated foe, who licks the dust off Jesus' boots if Jesus commands him to do so. As one of the redeemed, you should never allow Satan to equalise with you and you should certainly never bow the knee to any of his suggestions.
I've just finished shooting the very last video of this whole Explore Your Story series. We have only 4 weeks left together and all 4 of those videos and blogposts are about Heaven! I know you're going to be encouraged, so look out for those.
Until next time,
Avante!
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