Christian Magic And the Use of Incantations

I assure you, the essay that follows is not one that is born of criticism alone. It is comes out of a personal time of error and confusion. However these thoughts have not developed entirely from the negative. I can sincerely say that what I did as well as what I said and believed, was from a genuine desire to be obedient to God and his word. God who is good beyond our comprehension, faithfully interpreted my otherwise ludicrous words and saw what I desired. This, I hope, is the disposition of all those that read this essay. None the less, magic is still wrong and ignorant, and God would have His Bride cleansed from it.

Such was the rhetoric I heard almost thirty years ago. It sounded good to me. Why not? Seems logical: satan hates God; Jesus is God: satan hates Jesus and also must hate His name. Therefore he can't even tolerate the hearing of it. Simple! Unfortunately things are not so simple. And if you have ever run into a situation where there were real live demons, you would know that they do not scare so easy. I wont go into detail, but I will tell you that there once was a time when I did have a run in with what only could have been demons. I wasn’t too afraid at first; But I became afraid when I realized that what I had been taught about them was not entirely true. So in an attempt to make them flee; I enunciated that ‘Name’..... “In the name of Jesus!” ........Their presence got worse. I tried again; “In the name of JESUS” They were still there..........”JESUS, JESUS, JESUS, JESUS” ; “I command you in the name of JESUS!!!!” ('What, Are they deaf or something?) Listen very careful now;' “J-E-S-U-S, JEEEESUSS!”.......... “Oh Oh, not working”

Mt 8:29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

Mr 1:24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.

Ac 19:15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?

As the above scriptures illustrate, not only are the demons not terrified of that name. Even when they are relaxed and enjoying beating up on someone they enunciate that name of their own free will! (Acts 19.15)

“Do you want something from God? Do you want perfect health? Do you want everyone you love; to be instantly healed when they are sick? Oh, let’s take all of God’s promises and claim them for our own. Let us use the authority that God has provided His people. Ok, Repeat after me: "satan, I bind you in the name of Jesus Christ” Now if that does not work, simply raise your voice a few decibels and try again; “SATAN, I BIND YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST !”

Can you see how foolish that is? I am not a Dispensationalist, I happen to believe that all of God’s gifts are for today;  I just do not believe that God responds to our ‘magic talk’. “He does all things after the counsel of His own will”. He never follows our counsel unless it is absolutely in line with His. I am saying that the people that use this magic talk’ haven’t a clue of what God’s will is, so how can they pray accordingly? They think that it is always God’s will to heal. Some think that it is always God’s will that all Christians be rich! Now, just for a minute, agree with me, that such thinking is nonsense. If it is......How could they know God’s will? And likewise, if I am wrong, How can ‘I’ know God’s will. Because the set of assumptions from which we start are in error. But listen; Here is their problem: The burden of proof falls on them, because they are making these ridiculous announcements. I make no announcements but pray for the sick anyway and see a few healings. They make incredible announcements and see the same ratio of success as I see!

“Lord breakdown the strongholds of the enemy, Loose your Angels to fight satan for us. “Lord, loose my brother from this stronghold that has him captive.”

Can you see, we have not been given carte blanch. Mt 16:19 “ And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

I suppose that we can read this scripture that way; But if you do, go try it without qualification, and see what happens. After a few tries, then the conclusion must be made that there are limits.

The same people that promote ‘magic talk’ say that "we should never say 'if it be thy will'. They say that “there is power in the spoken word, we need to always affirm and proclaim a positive confession.”

Lu 22:42 "Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."

What can be plainer. How much can a person be deceived and forget the clear teaching of scripture? This scripture ought to demonstrate how much this is possible. How can anyone dare to presume that our spotless Lord was in error?

Where was Paul’s positive confession here? Where was his faith? No magic talk from Paul. He simply recognized that Trophimus was ill and that was that. He probably even prayed for Trophimus. But alas, God sometimes doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want Him to.

2 Cor.12.7-9 “ And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Some refuse to believe that God allows sickness in the life of the believer. Read the last scripture very carefully....The Question must be asked; Who sent the messenger? From satan? But wouldn’t satan want Paul to be exalted above measure? Everything that I know of satan say's he would; If he had a choice; he would want Paul to be lifted up in pride. It was God who didn't want Paul to be exalted above measure; therefore GOD and not satan allowed the sickness.

What about Job? Those that say that God does not allow the believer to be sick; Imply that , 'to allow sickness in the life of a believer, would be immoral of God'. This reasoning is shallow, to say the least! satan had no power against Job unless God authorized it. This was also the case with Paul’s thorn in the flesh.

Who has proven that suffering is always an evil thing? Death for that matter! For the believer, who has God always beside them, what can happen in excess that might genuinely hurt us? What can take God by surprise?

We Orthodox believers are always complaining about the cults and their misuse of scripture. But we ourselves are prone to abandon scripture if it does not fit our ideology. We settle for platitudes, cliché’s, Christian verbiage; religious talk that is a poor and meaningless substitute for natural Christian growth; For effective development in lives, churches and communities and nations.

2Co 10:4 “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;”

On the surface, without study; It appears that we need to knock down the strongholds with prayer. So we lay our hands on someone’s head and repeat so many powerful sounding phrases. Then without much thought for the person, or concern for what course he needs to take in his life; We call for the next fish to come up to our alter.

2 Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (6 )And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

Here the Apostle say’s clearly that our problems are not outside of ourselves. Or problems are our 'thoughts, Imaginations; and our disobedience'. Of which, the two former require an often a long period of development for healing: Ro 12:2 "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. " For the sake of illustration ( not a formula ); I have heard said that if we could break in percentages the effects our enemies have on us; It would perhaps go like this: 5% of our opposition comes from satan. 20% comes from the world. 75% comes from our own fallen nature.

Though 'Prayer' is essential for a Christian's development; No amount of prayer can change us, unless we begin to cooperate with God. But prayer must be from the passion of our heart . From a sincere longing for change to take place. No amount of “vain repetitions" will accomplish anything godly.

I believe that words which characterize magic talk, could be genuine prayer. But usually this is not the case. We commonly use clich'es, because we don't know how to talk to God. We only parrot because we don't really know Him or His will . Usually that person who is guilty of such talk, is equally unable to communicate with his fellow Christians. Beside this, there is often in the mind of man, the belief that there is some way to manipulate God. Either through our good works or through formulas and incantations. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. The facts are, God does indeed want the best for His children. But just as we sometimes lay the rod to our children's backside; And see it as a good practice; So likewise, God is willing to allow extreme discomfort in the children He loves; So that eventually we might learn to fellowship with Him.

The question that follows is: How can God allow suffering and even the death of His children. While it would be sinful for us to take such extreme measures in a persons life? ( I.E. "I feel it is best to to allow you to die.") I think the answer is simple; God sees the end of the suffering. He knows when the person needs suffering or when his or her time is enough on this earth. He knows what good will come of suffering; The sufferers reaction; The sufferers eventual eternal benefit. None of which we can presume to know. Therefore, for God to allow evil or suffering in a person's life is no gamble, it's consequences are already forknown.

Now, I've gone on a little too long about the particulars of 'Magic talk' and the false doctrines associated with it. Something that requires more space than is allowed here. This however leads to an important point; There is a correlation between Magic talk and shallow and meaningless Christianity. It seems that the degree of abuse in one matches the other. Often it is the case that those that are involved in this type of communication, use it as a substitute for genuine and consistent spiritual life.

There is much more than could be said about such false incantations: "Plead the Blood"; "May God add His blessing to the reading of His word."; "God Bless you"; "And all of God's people said Amen!", etc could all be counterfeit in the mouth of the insincere and spiritually lazy. What we need to do, is be honest with ourselves about what we have allowed ourselves to become; Since we do not serve a God who tolerates foolish children when they should be adults.

Bye the way; I did eventually "get victory" over those demons. However, Some time elapsed before God got through to me; Before I understood that there is a vast difference between confidence in 'what I think I know' and 'confidence in Who I know'.

Quote: "Since they supposedly both require faith; What if salvation were as hard to acquire and keep as healing and prosperity?

For further reading on this subject check out C.R.I. The CRI Archive

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