Act 16:16 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a
certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her
masters much gain by soothsaying:
Act 16:17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried,
saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the
way of salvation.
Act 16:18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being
grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus
Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
Act 16:19 And when her masters saw that the hope of
their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the
marketplace unto the rulers
*******
People can be
psychics. There was a particular psychic
in the Bible- a young woman who had the spirit of divination. She was a slave- owned by masters who
exploited this spirit of divination within her, making a lot of money from her
ability.
When Paul and those working with him to spread the
good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ were in her area this possessed woman announced loudly that
they were servants of the most high God and they could show them the way of
salvation. She didn't do this once, she
did this many times. A woman known to
many in the area- known for her soothsaying, her divination, known for being
able to tell people things she had no right to know other than an EVIL spirit
was possessing her and allowing her to know things she could never know without
that EVIL spirit. But just like today,
people do NOT want to believe EVIL is involved in psychic ability, they don't
want to believe people can be possessed of evil spirits that can actually give
them knowledge of things they couldn't know without the evil spirit. People
want to believe that at long as a psychic isn't hurting anyone with their
knowledge they're fine. As long as they're giving people glimpses into their
future, or connecting them with supposed living dead and easing their worries,
and people are benefitting from their advice where's the harm. Evil spirits
doing good? No. The evil spirits entrap
by their guise of good, they are wolves in sheep clothing. And people believe in them, trust them.
So, why didn't Paul
want the woman possessed touting their mission?
She was speaking truth, the evil spirit within her was speaking the
truth. Evil and God do NOT go together. Having an evil spirit encouraging people
towards salvation was being done to further the end of the evil spirit. As long
as the evil spirit could proclaim truth it could keep those who came to the
truth believing that the evil was acceptable to God.
Paul had enough, it
grieved him to hear the woman in her possessed state proclaiming them as
teachers of salvation. He cast the evil
spirit from her. Did it leave right away, it doesn't appear so. It left within
an hour. Why not instantaneously? Perhaps to show us that things don't always
happen in an instant. The evil spirit
did leave the possessed girl and her masters knew it and were very upset. They
knew without that evil spirit the girl had NO POWER of her own to be a diviner,
to be a soothsayer. The evil was CAST out. The power that her masters used to
make money, to make their living. The power that gave people false hope, lies
all eventually leading to death- not salvation in Christ Jesus, that power was
EVIL.
The masters of the
girl took hold of Paul and Silas and dragged them off to answer for what they'd
done. Evil was taken out of the girl,
and that evil had brought gain to them.
MANY things to us
seem to be good and gainful, but if they stem from evil or evil ways they are
not worth possessing.
We have to realize
that EVIL in forms of GOOD THINGS exist all around us! We can't blind ourselves
to truth. If we say we don't believe in psychics we'd be fooling ourselves and
allowing ourselves to be deceived. If we say we don't believe in evil in its
many forms, we accept deception. We open ourselves to being lost when we choose
to remain blind to truth.
Paul cast out evil
that you can only imagine many thought was good. There had to be many people
who depended upon that soothsayer's words, many who paid lots of money over
time to hear the evil spirits words. These people weren't happy either. They'd
lost something special to them. Yet that special thing was EVIL.
Salvation through
our Savior Jesus Christ is TRUTH, is Good. And all evil in the guise of good
are lies and do not lead to salvation. We must accept Christ and forsake evil-
even the evils we've come to call good, the evils we've come to love.
Please LORD, please
reveal to us the evils in our lives wherever they are and help us to ask You to
cast them from our lives. Keep us in YOU! Please, Lord, save us even from
ourselves, especially from ourselves!
Please. By YOUR GRACE and MERCY!
Amen!
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