MIND READING FORBIDDEN

MEMORY VERSE: Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Proverbs 14-15

Clairvoyance is the idea that a human being can obtain information from beyond his physical senses by ‘occultic’ or psychic means. Clairvoyance comes in different forms. There are clairvoyants who claim the ability to diagnose diseases and prescribe cures by means of occultic powers. There is water witching or dowsing. Water dowsing, also known as ‘Water Witching’ or ‘Divining’ is an interesting method in which persons use a variety of tools, such as twigs, hanging medallions, or even cut off coat hangers in order to find water underground. The process is very mysterious. A person walks around the yard carrying an apparatus and when it moves a particular way, the determination is that the water is beneath them. In certain cases, the dowser can predict the depth of the water. There are also parlor games (indoor games) like ‘pendulum’ where an object on a string or chain is hung over a person’s hand and questions are asked. The swinging of the pendulum allegedly indicates the answers. All these types of games should be left alone. These games and practices open the door of the spirit of oppression into one’s life.

Another type of physic belief is mind reading or telepathy. Mind reading is the idea that a human being can detect and read the thought of another person, or can project his own thoughts to another person. The idea that one is able read the mind of people is interesting. Many have even made fortune out of it. Who wouldn’t want to read people’s mind to know whether what they are saying is true or not? Telepathy or mind reading is forbidden by God. First of all, it destroys relationship. Actually, how many friends will you have, when they know you can read their minds? This practice destroys human continuity and fellowship. Satan, our spiritual enemy, would love to have us try to learn to do these things. The so-called extrasensory perception (mind reading, clairvoyance, etc) is the direct action of the powers of darkness - Satan and his angels and demons – bringing the information to the person who is foolish enough to seek it. If you attempt to read someone’s mind, or to foresee the future, or to gain information from a distance by clairvoyance, Satan is overjoyed. 1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Although, Satan cannot read one’s mind, he has access to the information that you are seeking, and he can bring it to your mind, knowing that you will think that you have acquired the power to do it yourself. This way he accomplishes several things: (a) He causes you to become proud and self-centered, and even though you may be ‘doing good’ with your supposed abilities you yourself are becoming more and more self-important; (b) He is setting you, and all who believe you, up for a mighty let down.

NOTE: Most of these practices appear harmless but they are not. They open one to forces of darkness.

twitter@BroOluwatoki

Bro Samuel | Reaching the world

FORTH-TELLING VS FORTUNE TELLING

MEMORY VERSE: There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Deuteronomy 18:10

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 2 Kings 21-25

Two major things happened after the fall of man. Firstly, man became Satan’s servant. Romans 6:16 says, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Everything man owned, including all God had given to him – the world and its riches, was transferred to Satan. Luke 4:6 says, “And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.” Secondly, man died spiritually. Since man could only reach God through his spirit, which is now dead as a result of sin, his fellowship with God was broken. John 4:24 says, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” After this (spiritual) death, man began to operate from his soul and body. (Note: the soul is composed of our will, our intellect, and our emotions.) The soul is wonderful, when it is under the control of God through the Spirit, but when it is out of control it does terrible things. This is why human history is the record of hate, bloodshed, cruelty, and confusion; human beings are dead spiritually – “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) and trying to live soulishly while being out of touch with God and therefore lost (Luke 19:10).

When Satan moved in and took over this world after the fall of man, he created a counterfeit spiritual realm, and any human being who tries to find God, or to come into contact with God, or influence God, by his own psychological efforts, by thinking, willing, or feeling, is likely to come into contact with Satan’s ‘spiritual’ world which is more accurately termed the ‘psychic’ world. One of the psychic beliefs is fortune-telling. Fortune-telling works on the premises that a human being can validly foretell the future by means of visions, crystal balls, playing cards, palm reading, Ouija boards, meditations, drugs, etc. Lurking behind the concept of fortune-telling or precognition is the idea of a fixed ‘fate’, an unchanging future that is already laid out and cannot be changed. This idea in itself is unscriptural. Christians don’t believe in ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ but in a living God who guides all things. God knows the future, not because He foresees it but because He sees it. He is already there, just as He is in the present and in the past. The future is dependent on the free actions of free beings, and of God. The bible says, if you are willing and obedient you will eat the good of the land (Isaiah 1:19). Fortune-telling works on the premises that whether you are willing and obedient or not, if it is in your destiny to eat the good of the land you will eat it. This is a contradiction to the Bible! If Satan is able to deceive people into thinking that they can know the future, he can also make them believe that “what will be, will be”, and adopt a fatalistic attitude towards life. According to Deuteronomy 18:10-13 fortune telling is strongly condemned and forbidden in the Bible.

NOTE: Biblical prophecy is forthtelling not fortune telling. The fortune teller says, “I have the power to peer into the future, and i will tell you what i see!” The biblical prophet, on the other hand says, “I was talking to God, and He told me to tell you so, so, and so...” If a prophet of God foretells the future, he does so because God has chosen to share with him something that He, God, is going to do and there is usually a condition attached to it.

twitter@BroOluwatoki

Bro Samuel | Reaching the world

NECROMANCY FORBIDDEN

MEMORY VERSE: And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. 1 Samuel 28:14

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Psalm 90-92

READ: 1 Samuel 28:12-19

Spiritism is the general name for the practice of attempting to contact the departed or the dead. It involves getting into contact with the ‘spirit world’, and especially with their departed relatives and friends, through the help of ‘spirit guides’ and mediums. This is also known as ‘necromancy’. The so-called ‘spirit world’ people get into contact with is a domain of demons. Human spirits do not remain in this world after death, but are either with God in His kingdom, or are in hell awaiting judgment. Hebrew 9:27 says, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” The person who seeks to get in touch with a dead friend or relative by spiritualism, if he or she contacts a genuine medium, will be put in touch, not with the human spirit of that relative or friend, but with a demonic spirit masquerading as the human person. I want you to know that all the details of dress, physical appearance, etc, are available to the enemy, as are secret thoughts and knowledge. A person will say: “but I know it must have been my aunt, for she spoke of things that only she and I knew about. She even called me by a pet name that only she and I used….” Friend, Satan and his helpers, demons, know about these things.

This is why you SHOULD not accept as true any story of a person who had died appearing spiritually on this earth, whether it be the blessed mother of Jesus, one of the great saints, or some person in your own family whom you love, and who is with the Lord. There are three seeming exceptions to this in scriptures. The first is the return of Samuel’s spirit (1 Samuel 28:12-19).This is, however, a special act of God, and Saul is specifically condemned for instigating it. The other two are the appearances of Elijah and Moses in the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9). Elijah never died, but was taken directly up to heaven (2 Kings 2:11). Although, it was said of Moses that he died ( Deuteronomy 34:5), there was something unusual about it, for we are told that the Lord Himself buried him, and that his sepulcher was unknown ( Deuteronomy 34:6). In Jude 9 we have a mysterious reference to some kind of altercation between Michael and the Devil over the body of Moses. It would seem that Moses’ body was in some way preserved, in order that he and Elijah might appear physically, not spiritually, with Jesus, in the Transfiguration. There is, of course, no prohibition against the appearance of a revived physical person, such as Lazarus, on the earth after his death, nor a resurrected person, such as Jesus after His death and rising again, or those saints that were raised with Him ( Matthew 27:52-53). The injunction is against the manifestations of spirits of the departed. Any kind of direct communication between those living on this earth and the faithful departed is strictly forbidden, and whenever it seems to occur, you may be sure that Satan is up to his tricks. No seeming visitation of a departed person to this earth should be accepted as valid, no matter in what guise it may be presented.

NOTE: We are speaking of real visitations, not dreams, or visions. God may permit one to dream about a departed person in order to bring something to your remembrance. He may give you a vision of that person in Heaven, in order to reassure you of his happiness.

twitter@BroOluwatoki

Bro Samuel | Reaching the world