6.7 Occult Involvement, Idolatry, Counterfeit Guidance, and Renunciation

¹ And God spoke all these words:

² “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

³ You shall have no other gods before Me.

⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.

⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

⁶ but showing loving devotion to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

²⁶ You must not eat anything with blood still in it. You must not practice divination or sorcery.

³¹ You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

²⁵ You must burn up the images of their gods; do not covet the silver and gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for it is detestable to the LORD your God.

²⁶ And you must not bring any detestable thing into your house, or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. You are to utterly detest and abhor it, because it is set apart for destruction.

⁹ When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.

¹⁰ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery,

¹¹ casts spells, consults a medium or spiritist, or inquires of the dead.

¹² For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD. And because of these detestable things, the LORD your God is driving out the nations before you.

¹³ You must be blameless before the LORD your God.

¹⁴ Though these nations, which you will dispossess, listen to conjurers and diviners, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.

²² But Samuel declared: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and attentiveness is better than the fat of rams.

²³ For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance is like the wickedness of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has rejected you as king.”

¹³ So Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,

¹⁴ and he failed to inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.

⁴ Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.

⁵ They have mouths, but cannot speak; they have eyes, but cannot see;

⁶ they have ears, but cannot hear; they have noses, but cannot smell;

⁷ they have hands, but cannot feel; they have feet, but cannot walk; they cannot even clear their throats.

⁸ Those who make them become like them, as do all who trust in them.

¹⁹ When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

²⁰ To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.

⁹ Prior to that time, a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and astounded the people of Samaria. He claimed to be someone great,

¹⁰ and all the people, from the least to the greatest, heeded his words and said, “This man is the divine power called the Great Power.”

¹¹ They paid close attention to him because he had astounded them for a long time with his sorcery.

¹² But when they believed Philip as he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

¹³ Even Simon himself believed and was baptized. He followed Philip closely and was astounded by the great signs and miracles he observed.

¹⁴ When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.

¹⁵ On their arrival, they prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit.

¹⁶ For the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁷ Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money.

¹⁹ “Give me this power as well,” he said, “so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ But Peter replied, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!

²¹ You have no part or share in our ministry, because your heart is not right before God.

²² Repent, therefore, of your wickedness, and pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for the intent of your heart.

²³ For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and captive to iniquity.”

²⁴ Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me, so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

⁶ They traveled through the whole island as far as Paphos, where they found a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus,

⁷ an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, a man of intelligence, summoned Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God.

⁸ But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith.

⁹ Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked directly at Elymas

¹⁰ and said, “O child of the devil and enemy of all righteousness, you are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery! Will you never stop perverting the straight ways of the Lord?

¹¹ Now look, the hand of the Lord is against you, and for a time you will be blind and unable to see the light of the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand.

¹² When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.

¹⁸ Many who had believed now came forward, confessing and disclosing their deeds.

¹⁹ And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books and burned them in front of everyone. When the value of the books was calculated, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.

²⁰ So the word of the Lord powerfully continued to spread and prevail.

¹⁴ Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

¹⁵ I speak to reasonable people; judge for yourselves what I say.

¹⁶ Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?

¹⁷ Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf.

¹⁸ Consider the people of Israel: Are not those who eat the sacrifices fellow partakers in the altar?

¹⁹ Am I suggesting, then, that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?

²⁰ No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons.

²¹ You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons too.

²² Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

¹ Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons,

² influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.

³ They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

⁴ For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected,

⁵ because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

¹ Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

² By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and which is already in the world at this time.

⁴ You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

⁵ They are of the world. That is why they speak from the world’s perspective, and the world listens to them.

⁶ We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.