There
is a lot of confusion these days as to what comes from God and what
does not. I am talking in particular about things like going to
fortune tellers, Tarot card readers, psychics, playing the Ouija
board, or going to mediums, and many other practices that come under
the general term of Occult. A lot of people just consider them
harmless fun; besides what could possibly be wrong with them?
God
expressly warns us in the Scriptures to stay away from such things.
In the book of Deuteronomy it says:
You
must not have in your midst anyone... who practices divination, or
anyone who consults the stars, who is a sorcerer, or one who
practices enchantments or who consults the spirits, no diviner, or
one who asks questions of the dead. For the Lord abhors those who do
these things (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).
In
another book it says, ‘Do not have recourse to the spirits of the
dead or to magicians; they will defile you. I, the Lord, am your God’
(Leviticus 19:31).
I
would like to try and explain why these things are a problem for us,
because the Lord God doesn’t just give us rules for the sake of
rules. If God tells us to stay away from something there is a good
reason, just like you will tell your children to stay away from the
fire or they’ll get burned. The Lord does the same for us, telling
us what to avoid if we want to stay healthy.
So
why are these things, which are now available everywhere, a problem?
The first and most important reason is that they interfere with our
free will. Our free will is an extraordinary gift which the Lord has
given us, because it means that we have the freedom to do anything we
choose, be it good or evil, although real freedom is the freedom to
choose what is good. We can even reject God if we choose. It is an
extraordinary thing that the Lord who has created us respects us
enough even to giving us the freedom to reject him, and sadly some
people do this by the way they live. Going to fortune tellers or any
of these other things that I mentioned is basically an attempt to
gain knowledge of the future. The problem is that if we think we have
any kind of knowledge of the future it is going to influence our
freedom to choose, because we will probably start acting out of fear
or what we think might be going to happen. The Lord does not
want us to be afraid, but to be at peace. That is why the Lord does
not reveal the future to us. We don’t need to know it. If we did,
He would show us, because He wants the very best for us.
The
second reason why these things are a problem for us, is that by
dabbling in them we are going directly against something God has
asked us, which is a way of creating an obstacle between us and God.
We sin when we do this. From a spiritual point of view they can also
have a hold or influence over us. If God does not reveal the future
to us, then where is this information coming from? It is not coming
from the Lord, even if the fortune teller starts off by praying the
Hail Mary or Our Father, which I know some of them do.
I
worked with an exorcist priest friend of mine for a while and saw
first-hand the mess that some people get themselves into by dabbling
in these things that the Lord tells us specifically to keep away
from. They are very real. Satan is cunning and will do anything to
lead us away from God, because he hates us as God’s creation. And
yes I did say Satan, which may surprise you, but if Satan is not real
then Jesus is a liar, because Jesus frequently mentioned him in his
teaching.
We
have to ask ourselves do I believe what Jesus said is true or not?
Either the Bible (the Scriptures) is the word of God or it isn’t.
If it is, we have good cause to listen to it. If it’s not true,
then what are we doing here?
The
Lord wants the very best for us and will continually guide us along
the right path, the path that will help us to reach our full
potential as human beings, but sometimes we get misled and go astray.
That’s not a problem so long as we recognise it and come back
again. I’m sure you want God’s blessing for your lives and for
your families, just as I do but if we mess with what God expressly
tells us to stay away from, we will be blocking God’s help from
us.
If
you have dabbled in any of these things at any stage, confess it,
which is also what the Lord asks us to do. By confessing it you break
any spiritual hold that it can have over you. By repenting of it you
also open the door to God’s grace as well.
In
the readings today the Lord is assuring us that He does and will
answer our prayers. We have to trust that the Lord in this. God only
speaks truth. If God has assured us of his help, then we would be
foolish to look for any spiritual help from any other source. We know
that God wants the very best for us and if we believe that then we
must also listen to what He tells us to do and what He tells us to
avoid.
‘I
have come that you may have life and have it to the full’ (John
10:10)
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