Jesus Vs. the
Occult
By
John Piper July
26, 1981
I
would like to begin this morning with a definition of the term occult. I designate
anything as belonging to the occult that involves dealings with the world
of spirits or of supra-normal forces which (dealings) are not oriented on
Jesus as he is revealed in the Bible. With this definition I am assuming the
reality of a spirit world and of mysterious supra-normal forces. I am assuming
that the church makes a grave mistake when it says that supra-natural phenomena
are restricted to another age or that only godly people can work miracles.
Such a mistake lays the church open to the power of evil precisely because
it refuses to recognize the presence of that power. The definition is also
intentionally very broad. I mean to include everything from the most blatant
Satan worship to the most commonly accepted use of horoscopes. As examples
I would mention séances, necromancy, and all forms of communicating with the
dead, PSI, ESP, and all forms of supra-natural psychic phenomena, real magic
(as opposed to simple sleight-of-hand tricks), fortune telling, the casting
of spells, wearing of charms, the use of ouija boards,
astrology, etc., etc. What I would like to show this morning is first, that
the Scripture forbids God's people to be involved in these practices, second,
why this is so, and third, what our positive alternative should be.
Scripture Condemns the
Occult
First,
let me lay before you the Word of God which clearly bans the occult from the
life of his people. We begin with the morning text which assembles more terms
for the occult than any other single biblical text, Deuteronomy 18:9–12. Moses
addresses the people just before they cross the
When
you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn
to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found
among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone
who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur (that is, an enchanter,
one who looks for and uses omens), or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium,
or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination
to the Lord; and because of these abominable practices the Lord your God is
driving them out before you.
Moses
mentions eight spiritist activities: divination,
soothsaying, augury, sorcery, the use of charms,
mediums, wizardry, or necromancy. These are not clearly distinct activities;
they overlap and are sometimes used interchangeably. What they have in common
is that they all involve efforts to obtain knowledge which is ordinarily hidden,
and the means of attaining it is through dealings with the spirit world or
with mysterious supra-natural forces.
There
is something else these eight activities have in common. The knowledge sought
is not out of idle curiosity but out of a desire to exert some power over
people or events. This is clearest in the term "charmer" in verse
11. The word means "one who binds a spell." This is the use of psychic
or spiritual forces to control another person or the course of events. This
is the goal, more or less, for all the other activities as well.
For
example, when the king of
Now
what does Moses say about such activities? First, in verse 9, he calls them
"abominations." This means that God regards them as detestable,
abhorrent, loathsome. It is a very strong word. We
will do well to ask ourselves whether some seemingly innocent activity we
are engaged in may be an abomination in the eyes of God. Second, according
to verse 12, the persons who do such things are an abomination to the Lord.
Not merely the activity but also the persons become abominable in God's eyes.
It is an unbiblical sentiment which says, "God only hates the sin, never
the sinner." When a person gives himself over to will, to delight in,
and to follow abominable practices, he makes himself abominable in the eyes
of God. Of course, this does not put a person beyond the reach of God's love.
The glory of divine love is that it reaches out to justify and to sanctify
precisely those whom God abominates because of their sin. Third, according
to verse 10, activities of the occult are ranked alongside infanticide, the
burning of children as sacrifices. This particular sin is probably mentioned
in this context because we all feel in our stomachs that such a thing is loathsome.
The point is, then: view charms, horoscopes, ouija
boards, fortune telling, magic, and PSI with just as much loathing. Fourth,
according to verse 12, the Lord dispossesses and destroys those who practice
these things. That is, they eventually fall under his judgment, as the nations
did who were driven out by
Clearly
then, from Deuteronomy 18, it is contrary to God's will that his people engage
in any activities of the occult. But it may strengthen our admonition if we
show that this teaching has a broader base in Scripture than just Deuteronomy.
The word "Deuteronomy" means "second law." It is a restatement
and expansion of what had been laid down by God at
Later
on in the history of
Isaiah
was one of the prophets God sent to
Thus
says the Lord your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: "I am the
Lord who made all things, who stretched out the heavens alone, who spread
out the earth—Who was with me?—who frustrates the omens of liars, and makes
fools of diviners . . . who confirms the word of his servant, and performs
the counsel of his messengers."
God
frustrates omens and makes fools of diviners, but he confirms the word of
his chosen spokesmen. Then in 47:12, 13 Isaiah uses biting irony to point
out the folly of looking to the occult for help.
Stand
fast in your enchantments and your many sorceries,
with which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you may be able to succeed,
perhaps you may inspire terror. You are wearied with your many counsels; let
them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the
stars, who at new moon predict what shall befall
you.
Woe
to those who dabble in astrology and look for guidance to their horoscope,
and strive to know what the day will bring. The judgment of God will fall
on such people, as Isaiah says in 2:6,
For thou has rejected thy people, the house of Jacob, because
they are full of diviners from the east and of soothsayers like the Philistines.
If
we turn to the New Testament we find nothing to change this divine rejection
of the occult. On the contrary the rejection is confirmed. For example, in
Acts 19:18 the results of Paul's evangelistic endeavor in
Many
of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices.
And a number of those who practiced magic arts brought their books together
and burned them in the sight of all . . . So the word of the Lord grew and
prevailed mightily.
When
the word of Christ captures a person's mind and heart, all involvement with
magical arts goes. It is Jesus versus the occult; you cannot have both. Besides
this illustration in Acts, Galatians 5:20 lists sorcery as one of the works
of the flesh, and Revelation 21:8 lists it along with murder (just like Deuteronomy
18:10) and fornication and idolatry as grounds for condemnation.
Therefore,
it seems to me to be a clear teaching of Scripture that God's people should
not be involved in any practices of the occult—practices which involve dealings
with the world of spirits or supra-normal forces which are not oriented on
Jesus as he is revealed in the Bible.
Belittling God and Exalting
Man
The
second thing I want to show from Scripture is why God is so opposed to our
participation in the occult. I'll describe what I think the basic reason is
and then illustrate it from several texts. God opposes our involvement in
the occult because it belittles God and exalts man. Or to put it another way,
the occult is simply a continuation of the ancient satanic deception in Genesis
3:5: "Go beyond what God has appointed, and you shall become like God."
All forms of the occult present us with a similar temptation: will we act
like humble children of the heavenly Father and submit to God's wisdom in
limiting our knowledge and power, or will we, like Adam and Eve, hanker for
the fruit that can make us "wise" and for the power that belongs
to God? Will we belittle God and exalt ourselves, or will we humble ourselves
and exalt God by being content with his revelation and his use of power on
our behalf?
Let's
begin again with our text in Deuteronomy 18. In verses 15–19 God promises
to raise up a prophet from among the people like Moses. The apostles
saw the final and decisive fulfillment of this prophecy in Jesus Christ (Acts
3:22–23). He was the final great prophet like Moses. The point of this prophecy
in Deuteronomy 18 is that God has appointed a Revealer of his will, and no
other medium of revelation should be sought. In verse 14 Moses says, "These
nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to
diviners." Then in verse 15 he gives God's alternative: "The Lord
your God will raise up for you a prophet . . . Him you shall heed." Then
he adds in verse 19, "Whoever will not give heed to my words which he
shall speak in my name, I myself will require it
of him." God has appointed for himself a Revealer of that which he desires
to be known, and when we turn from or go beyond that Revealer and consult
other mediums, we belittle God and exalt ourselves. We devalue the revelation
of Jesus Christ and take to ourselves the prerogatives of deity. No one who
loves Jesus Christ and orients all of his life around the revelation of Jesus
can turn to the occult for knowledge or power.
Isaiah
shows us in one place how incongruous it is for people who claim to rely on
God to seek wisdom in the occult. He says in 8:19, "When they say to
you, 'Consult the mediums and the wizards who chirp
and mutter,' should not a people consult their God?" It is unthinkable
to the prophet Isaiah that a person who knows God and has his teaching and
testimony (v. 20) in Scripture should consult mediums. But someone may say,
"God has not said enough. God is silent where I need knowledge.'' So
it was with king Saul in 1 Samuel 28. The Lord closed his mouth against
Saul and would not answer him about the approaching Philistines. So instead
of humbling himself for his earlier disobedience and waiting patiently for
the Lord, Saul goes to the witch of Endor and asks
her to do what he knows is unlawful—to call up from the dead the spirit of
Samuel who will tell him what he shall do (v. 15). When the death of Saul
is later recounted in 1 Chronicles 10:13f., this
sin is mentioned:
So
Saul died for his unfaithfulness; he was unfaithful to the Lord in that he
did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking
guidance, and did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the Lord slew
him and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.
Consulting
mediums, tea leaves, fortune cookies, horoscopes, crystal balls, palmists,
or any other oracles beyond God's Word is wrong because it belittles God as
an inadequate revealer of mysteries. It says that God is either unable or
unwilling to tell me all that is good for me to know. Therefore, he lacks
the power or the goodness to help me, and so I will take matters into my own
hands. Therefore, people who really love God and trust his goodness and depend
on his sovereign power shun all practices of the occult.
Earlier
in his life Saul had disobeyed the command of God in another situation. God
had commanded him to destroy the Amalekites and
their spoil. But Saul took the best animals to offer for a sacrifice to God.
Samuel approaches Saul with God's rebuke and says,
Has
the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying
the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken
than the fat of ram. For rebellion is as the sin of divination.
Rebellion
is as the sin of divination. That is no accidental comparison. Divination
means having dealings with supra-normal spirits or forces to get knowledge
and power. And Samuel says that is the same as rebellion against God. Man
in the occult is man in rebellion. Whether he realizes it clearly or not,
he is involved in a seditious effort to throw off the absoluteness of the
yoke of God's sovereignty and position himself at a higher level in the government
of the universe.
The
whole field of the occult is Satan's seed-bed of pride. Every activity offers
man the opportunity to shed his finitude and take on the wisdom and power
that belongs to God. "Eat this fruit and you will become like God."
Simon the magician typifies where the occult is leading. He is described in
Acts 8:9–11,
There
was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed
the nation of
No
matter how innocent the practices of the occult seem at first, they are all
dimensions of the one rebellion that has been underway since the Garden of
Eden: the aim to avoid at all costs childlike submission to the limitations
and provisions of a sovereign God, and to get instead a power which can be
called great. Man in the occult is man in rebellion.
Spiritual Harlotry
Another
way of revealing the evil of involvement in the occult is to say that man
in the occult is man in harlotry. Leviticus 20:6 says, "If a person turns
to mediums and wizards, playing the harlot after them, I will set my face
against that person." Consulting mediums is like committing adultery
against God. Jesus Christ is the husband of the church. He is God's fullest
revelation. All that we need to know and all the power which it is good for
us to have comes through him and his Word. When we go after other secret oracles
and psychic powers, we say in effect that our husband is unsatisfactory and
we must seek for lovers elsewhere. When a Christian peeks at his horoscope,
he is treating Jesus the same way a husband treats a wife when he peeks at
Playboy to provide the titillation he no
longer gets from her. Involvement in the occult is wrong because it is spiritual
adultery, it is rebellion against the sovereignty of God, and it belittles
his revelation while exalting human pride.
Therefore,
in conclusion, what is the positive Christian alternative to the occult? The
answer is one and the same everywhere in the New Testament: This is the victory
that overcomes the world, our faith. Over against all the allurements of the
occult stands Jesus Christ, the embodiment of all God's revelation. Faith
takes its stand on the sufficiency of this revelation and seeks no other secret
knowledge. Faith lays itself open to the power of God through Jesus Christ
alone and seeks no other psychic or spiritual power. Faith cleaves to Jesus,
loves Jesus, adores Jesus, trusts Jesus, extols the all-sufficiency of Jesus,
and shuns, in all her many garments, the temptress of the occult.
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