Faith, Not Craft, Moves Mountains
With the CDC now encouraging the practice of witchcraft and "Christian witches" holding conventions, a look at what the Word of God has to say about witchcraft would seem in order...
“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of Hosts.”–Zechariah 4:6
Over the course of the last handful of Substacks, we've been inspired here at Kentucky Fried Christian, by the imposition of current events on our daily lives, to tackle the issues of what the Word of God has to say about homosexuality, abortion and peace.
A few items fired across the bow of the USS Kentucky Fried Christian this past week have let Captain Kaye know it's time to tackle yet another issue pertinent and pressing in our time and society and culture right now: the issue of witchcraft.
For decades, we kept being reminded insistently and emphatically there's no such thing as witchcraft and no such thing as witches. I always found that odd, because as a kid, I remember watching Bewitched in after-school reruns; and The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday night with our family, and just about every story we saw had something to do with witches: Escape to Witch Mountain, One, Two and who knows how many more. The Wicked Witch in Snow White. The witch-like mother and stepsisters in Cinderella. The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (okay, not Disney, but you get the point). We were led to believe that if there was anything like witches and witchcraft, it was all just in the realm of make-believe in fairy tales, movies and on TV.
Then late in the 1980's and into the 1990's, we started getting movies and TV shows like the Craft, or Practical Magic, or the Witches of Eastwick and others, and suddenly, we discovered that not only were witches and witchcraft apparently real–because they were now being portrayed as such–but they were everywhere among us, practicing all along what they've been telling us didn't exist all those decades. Today, witches and witchcraft are ubiquitous in movies and TV and as a result, all around us, too; and Internet searches bring up endless pages on witchcraft from every conceivable perspective and manifestation.
So it was two news items on the Craft-Formerly-Known-As-Non-Existent that got my attention recently. The first was a piece from John Solomon's Just The News, and the headline reads: “CDC promotes teen chat platform to discuss LGBT topics, witchcraft, without parental consent.” Just chew on that for a bit, especially the part about “CDC,” “witchcraft,” and “without parental consent.”
The second was an article in The Christian Post, whose headline screams: “Witches and warlocks: meet the pastors who shared the Gospel for a decade in a hotbed of witchcraft.” I won't get into what the articles were about because that's not what I have time for here right now; but the point is that even among such unlikely actors as the ostensibly public-health-oriented CDC and the Christian-faith-oriented The Christian Post, the unspoken but apparently almost universal interest our culture has–especially among our youth, and especially among young women and girls–with the occult and specifically witchcraft, is so pervasive, that we can't look at a manifestation of popular culture, or even systemic officialdom, without seeing its symbolism, imagery and influence on very public and very prominent display.
With so much of it being present and visually and suggestively promoted by popular celebrities and public officials and even official entities like the CDC, you might get the impression by the way in which it's being presented and aggressively pushed in such visible ways from such prominent platforms, that it's... a religion… with a psuedo-spiritual credo and lifestyle that's being encouraged with almost missionary zeal and universality; but we keep hearing that witches and witchcraft don't exist, so that can't possibly be it.
As believers in the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, our faith in him defines our perspective on and attitude towards the world; and that faith derives from the roots of everything spelled out about everything in the Word of God. So, just like we did with homosexuality, abortion, and the peace movement, let's now take a look at what the Word of God has to say about witchcraft.
As with so many other topics–including ones we've covered here recently–what the Bible tells us God says about witchcraft has to be pieced together from the few short, direct and unquestionable pronouncements about it we have; along with the many other supporting references, allusions, episodes and examples provided by Scripture in illustration of the principles being applied in action.
Let's start by going to the beginning and what the Lord tells the people of Israel about witchcraft as he's bringing them into their promised land of Canaan and shortly thereafter, when he's schooling them in the spiritual principles and operational rules of the Law of the Covenant he establishes with them.
In Exodus 22:18, God says: “Do not allow a sorceress to live.” Nothing ambiguous about that! At a time when humans were still children in earthly evolution terms (wild and ignorant children at that), who still needed all the rights and wrongs of life spelled out for them, and when punishments for spiritual and legal transgressions included public execution (in the Israelites' case, stoning), we can see from this short, unequivocal command just how seriously God takes the presence and influence of witchcraft among his people. We'll look at why in just a moment.
Further on, we also read in Leviticus 19:31: “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” Then, in Leviticus 20:6: “I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.” A few verses later, in verse :27: “A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.”
In Deuteronomy 18:9-12, God explains to them why it matters: “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the Lord your God.”
Why, we might ask, does God have it so in for witchcraft? Let's remember that God as the Creator of the Universe, is also God the power of everything in the universe, and the ultimate will behind all manifestation in the universe. What that means is that God's will is the energy that directs every thought, feeling, word, action, event and evolution that takes place in the world according to his design and purpose for it, everything and everybody in it.
Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Psalm 103:19 tells us: “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” In 1 Chronicles 29:11-12, King David reiterates: “Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.” Lamentations 3:37-38 tells us: “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?”
In Deuteronomy 32:39, Moses tells us in God's own words: “See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” In Colossians 1:16-17, the Apostle Paul reminds us: “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
So, just this handful of verses (plus many, many more that time doesn't permit to be listed), make it clear that God created the world, God created us and God is the power that makes everything in the world happen. As that power, God is above the world and beyond it; and so, his power is, from the world's perspective, supernatural.
Now, it's plain to see the power to direct physical manifestation is of such a magnitude, as God tells us, lives can be affected or snuffed out, events can be influenced, minds can be manipulated and directed. With such power, only somebody with the blameless, sinless and purely holy nature of God himself has any right or ability to wield that power justly and judiciously. Only God–without a selfish ego–can use that kind of power without doing harm to himself, to the world or to anybody else. People–as sinners with a sinful nature and selfish, compelling and irresistible desires of the flesh–who presume upon such power through revelations from Satan about some basic levels of its mystery, can't wield that power justly, because they invariably use its ability to gain unfair advantage for themselves, satisfy desires of their own flesh at the expense of the well-being or even lives of others; and with such power, they begin to get the egos big enough to challenge and defy God's sovereignty over reality itself, some even going so far as to believe themselves to be indomitable gods because they can, through the manipulations of magical parlor tricks, direct the actions of others to their own advantage or to the detriment of others.
In spiritual terms, this is what's known as “lawlessness,” so that every time we read the word “lawlessness” in Scripture (and we read it a lot), that's what it's referring to. That makes witchcraft–the willful and prohibited manipulation of the spiritual energy behind the power of manifestation–a spiritual crime, and its practitioners, spiritual criminals.
In 1 Samuel 15:23, when Samuel is roasting Saul for his disobedience to the Lord, he conveys God's word that “...rebellion is like the sin of divination,” transmitting precisely that idea: that the practice of divination, which is a subset of witchcraft, is a rebellion against God's sovereignty and will, because it presumes to take upon a sinful flesh the ability to direct physical manifestation that only God by all spiritual laws has any right and capacity to do.
Therefore, anybody–man, woman, witch or sorcerer–who takes the attitude that they have the position and the power to make things happen independent of and contrary to God's will and power and sovereignty, and uses that power revealed to them by the defiant darkness of Satan, is committing a grievous sin against God and against their fellow man by usurping the power that belongs only to God, to put it to use for selfish ends that invariably lead to harm being done to others, or even death.
It's for no small reason, then, that the Lord Yeshua proclaims in Revelation 21:8, from his heavenly throne, that “... to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.” And in Revelation 22:15, he tells us their place when the Millennial Kingdom for believers will reign after the Great Tribulation: “Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.”
So, because witchcraft pridefully and arrogantly and defiantly and willfully presumes upon the power that belongs only to God, to usurp God's sovereignty over the process of manifestation of physical reality, its practitioners (whom the Lord lumps together with idolaters, sex maniacs and “all liars”), will be consigned to exile when the Lord rules in the Millennial Kingdom, and final desolation in the eternal separation from God that'll come with the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of the world.
Just in case we thought that as believers in the Lord Yeshua, we as individuals and an assembly are immune to the influences of witchcraft on us and our church... think again! Because the Lord warns us in his letter to the church at Thyatira in Revelation Chapter 2 that these influences will creep into even the church as well, when he says in verse 24: “Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, 'I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.'”
The “her” to which the Lord refers is the spirit of Jezebel, the spirit of witchcraft, that he in the preceding verses assures us will infiltrate the church and influence believers away from the Lord by introducing witchcraft, sexual immorality and other immoral practices into the assembly. As it was already happening then in Thyatira, we remind ourselves the letters to the churches of Asia are also the Lord's way of prophesying for us the history of the development of the church across the future millennia we now know as “History;” and that the church of Thyatira is also a metaphor (along with the Laodicean corruption), for the Body of Christ today, at the end of the Church Age, in which we see a strong presence of witchcraft penetrating deep into the membership, activity, doctrine and officialdom of our church establishments.
That's where the great danger to the believer comes when exposed to the influence of witchcraft–especially covertly, slipped in as part of corrupted church doctrines–because witchcraft invariably relies on sinfulness to be practiced; and its practice, inherently sinful, inherently leads to sinfulness as well.
That's why sinfulness like lustful sexual immorality, greed, sloth, wrath, gluttony, envy and pride are so closely associated as both symptoms of–as well as causes behind–resorting to witchcraft for the satisfaction of our selfish desires of the flesh; because the selfish desires of the flesh are urgent and irresistible, and they want to be satisfied NOW! While praying to God means submission to his will and waiting for his time to grant our wishes and only if they comport with his will for us in the first place.
The person who wants what they want–“Or else!”–doesn't want to wait for God to grant their wish (maybe), and also usually doesn't have the type of personality with the kind of humility, obedience, discipline, responsibility and maturity necessary to be satisfied with that.
In the end, we see that witchcraft, however it's defined and manifested at any given time, is real, and a real threat to the believer and their faith and, if we run afoul of the wrong kind of witch with the wrong kind of attitude and the right kind of knowledge and skill in the wrong kind of spiritual criminality, it could mean our lives, too.
Witchcraft is–from a spiritual perspective–spiritual crime, and its practitioners are spiritual criminals. 2 Timothy 3:1-5, says: “In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!”
2 Corinthians 6:14-16 goes on: “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?”
So how are we as believers to deal with practitioners of witchcraft? The above verses tell us. Beyond that, we take the same approach I've outlined in the previous articles about homosexuality and abortion: we love our neighbors as ourselves and we don't judge them with condemnation for their sins, because we ourselves are sinners. All we can do–as in every other case with anybody else–is stick to our faith, present the truth, back it up with our actions, and hope our example will serve to inspire a turning to the Lord.
And please, don’t be intimidated or terrified by the hype about the indomitability of the witch’s “awesome” powers. They rely on fear and illusion to discourage resistance and cause willful submission to domination, which is why they deploy fear and lies as an environmental factor wherever they practice their illicit spiritual manipulation. There’s nothing a manipulative trickster can do against the protective power of the God of Creation made available to the believer through the faithful invocation of the Holy Name of Yeshua HaMaschiach.
Jezebel thought she had the world at her feet, until she ended up being thrown out a window and devoured by the dogs at the foot of the palace, just like God prophesied through Elijah (2 Kings 9:30-37). Simon Magus thought he could buy his way into the Lord’s power, until a simple rebuke from the Apostle Peter in the name of the Lord shriveled his manhood (Acts 8:9-24). Two-thousand demons were whisked into a herd of pigs and sent over a cliff into a lake to drown by the Lord Jesus at the mere command “Go!” (Matthew 8:28-34, Luke 8:26-37). A divining witch followed the Apostle Paul around Philippi for days, taunting him, until, finally having had enough of her, he commanded the evil spirit in her to be gone in the name of the Lord, and away it went (Acts 16:16-18).
Beyond that, if you as a believer do your best to refrain from being unequally yoked with unbelievers, but still find yourself struggling with what you've discovered or even suspect to be the influence of spiritual witchcraft (and it's disturbing your life and your faith), it's coming from somebody close to you, and I'd strongly recommend checking out a minister called Jonas Clark of the Spirit of Light Ministries, and his highly valuable series of books on how to practically deal from a Scriptural and faith perspective, with the influences of witchcraft. He goes into great detail about its specific definitions and forms; how to recognize it, identify it, and practically deal with its various manifestations.
In the end, witchcraft is just another form of sinful pride that diverts us with attachments to desires of the flesh and their “magical” satisfaction from our faithfulness to the God of Creation and his sovereignty over the world and our lives; from our faithfulness to Our Lord Yeshua The Messiah; from our ability to accept and be actualized by the offer of salvation in eternal life purchased for us by the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, and; from our spiritually-mandated vow to love our neighbor as ourselves and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
***Author’s Note: The Kentucky Fried Christian Substack will be on a well-earned summer hiatus following the publishing of this article, and will return with literary guns blazing again on September 12. In the meantime, please feel free to explore the by-now substantial Kentucky Fried Christian Substack archives; and if you see a really tired guy in a pair of brown-and-white Hawaiian swim trunks passed out on the beach, turn him over so he doesn’t burn.