CHRIST LEADS HIS CHURCH - Hospers PCA



BETTER THAN MAGIC

(Acts 19:11-20)

SUBJECT:

F.C.F:

PROPOSITION:

INTRODUCTION:

A. When most people hear the word “magic” today, they think in terms of entertainment. They may consider stage magic, a mysterious person dressed in black, wearing a cape, creating various illusions that people may consider remarkable, but certainly not miraculous. “Where’s the trick?” we usually ask. Or people think about fantasy literature about wizards and spells, about good magic and black magic, about Harry Potter, and so forth. But, again, most understand that this is all fantasy and fiction, that there is nothing real about it.

B. But there is also a kind of magic about which some people are very serious. Millions of people today religiously consult their horoscopes, or purchase “psychic readings,” or call “psychic hotlines.” One of the most popular programs on radio and cable television is called “Crossing Over,” in which the host purports to contact the dead relatives and friends of guests and callers. There is still great interest in new age crystals, charms, potions, and spells. The purpose of this kind of magic is somehow to gain power over problems, circumstances, other people, or even God. Magic has always been a big deal, because magic is one of the three false religions.

I. THE THREE FALSE RELIGIONS.

There are really only three false religions: mysticism, moralism, and magic. Each of these false religions seeks to fulfill a human need. It diagnoses a specific human problem that either creates the need or inhibits its fulfillment. And each religion attempts to contact, influence, or control God (or the Ultimate) in an attempt to satisfy this need.

A. For mysticism, the perceived need is a lack of fulfillment or happiness. The key desire is PLEASURE. The supposed problem is that God is distant and unreachable, so true religion involves experiencing God directly or immediately. God is in a different dimension, and so we must attain an altered state of consciousness through some special, secret knowledge or esoteric insight in order to experience the divine in sustained ecstasy.

B. For moralism, the perceived need is a lack of moral or intellectual completeness. The key desire is a sense of superiority or PRIDE. The apparent problem is that God is righteous and offended by our failures, inadequacies, or false beliefs. True religion consists of proper behavior or correct beliefs, those which God approves. God must be placated, appeased, or won over by our better behavior or superior beliefs.

C. For magical religion, the perceived need is a lack of personal power to control our environment, ultimately to control God. The key desire is for POWER. The problem is that God is aloof, unwilling, unable, or unpredictable. God (or our circumstances) must be manipulated, controlled, or co-opted by formulas, rituals, incantations, and/or mind-over-matter/positive thinking. Some observations:

1. Organized religions (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, distorted Christianity, etc.) may contain elements of each of the three religions. And organized religions may have factions within them which are really devoted to one of the three religions (mystics, moralists, or magicians). That’s why Christian, Hindu, and Islamic mystics find more in common with each other than with members of their own organized religion. It explains why translated episodes of Veggie Tales (moralism) are so well received in parts of the Arabic-speaking (moralistic Islam) world.

2. Scripture condemns all three of these false religions. Magic, sorcery, divination, and necromancy are all explicitly and universally condemned by God’s Word. Moralism is revealed as a sham (Galatians) and Jesus roundly condemned the self-righteous Pharisees. Mysticism is condemned in the rejection of false prophecy: those who fallaciously claim to have encountered God and to speak for him.

3. Each of the three false religions is a corruption of some aspect of the true biblical faith. Mystics seek experiences similar to those reported in Scripture, though in an unmediated (unapproved) manner. Moralists rightly observe that God is righteous and commands obedience, but make our obedience the means of placating God. Magicians note the presence of biblical rituals (signs and seals), but turn them into means of manipulating God.

4. Biblical Christianity can degenerate into any of these three false religions. Mysticism takes many forms including quietism, Keswick higher-life teaching, and some forms of revivalism and Pentecostalism which stress direct, ecstatic encounters with God. Examples of Christianity reduced to moralistic religion abound, including theological liberalism, moralistic fundamentalism, and the legalism-lite of evangelicalism’s ubiquitous “principles for living.” And Christianity as magical religion is found in the Word of Faith movement’s “name it-claim it” practice of “positive confession,” as well as the various forms of “mind-over-matter” teaching, most notably Norman Vincent Peale’s “power of positive thinking” and Robert H. Schuller’s “possibility thinking.”

II. THE PROBLEM WITH MAGIC.

A. The most serious problem with all of these false religions, mysticism, moralism, or magic, is not simply that they do not work, but that they all misuse God. God becomes the means to a more desirable end. What we really want is pleasure, pride, or power, and we want to somehow use God to get them. Biblically speaking, pleasure, pride, or power have become idols, a violation of the first commandment.

Magic, trying to force God’s hand or to manipulate God through incantations or rituals or to use God to attain power, demeans God, as though there were any power that could bind, control, or overthrow him. Magic is truly blasphemous, degrading God’s name and character. And magic ultimately rejects God. He comes to us on his own terms offering us life and joy in Christ. But when we resort to magic, we turn on him, rejecting his gracious gift and try to manipulate him into giving us what we really want.

We see this in other relationships of life. We speak of people as “charming” or “enchanting” referring to their power to sway and influence others. A child plays one parent against the other to get what he wants: what he doesn’t want is his parents; only the object or privilege they can give him. A man knows the perfect “pick-up” line to manipulate the woman into going home with him for the night. He knows the “magic words” to “cast a spell” on her so that he can use her for what he wants, but he doesn’t really want a relationship with her. Imagine trying to treat God that way, yet it happens all the time.

B. In our text from Acts 19, Paul comes to a city that is noted for its magical practice. So God shows his greater power. “11 And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” When Moses faced the pharaoh’s magicians, God showed his true power. Jesus demonstrated is authority as the Son of God and Messiah through his great miracles, greater than Moses. At one point a woman was healed who merely touched the hem of his garment. In Acts 5, people were healed merely by Peter’s shadow falling on them.

C. Some apparently interpreted this as magic, the greatest magic they had ever seen. Like Simon of Samaria in Acts 8, they sought to appropriate this magic for themselves. “13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus, whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” 16 And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.”

Do you see the problem? They were attempting to use God for magic. Specifically, they tried to invoke the power of God without having any relationship with God. And God will not be mocked.

III. BETTER THAN MAGIC.

A. To this city, utterly devoted to magic, Paul came preaching the Gospel. Instead of our trying to move or manipulate God, God has run to our aid in Jesus Christ. God came himself, personally, in the person of Jesus Christ, because our sins had broken the relationship he created us to enjoy. Jesus came and offered his life, in our place, serving our sentence of eternal death on the cross, becoming in his body the bridge that reconciled us to God. And Paul preached that instead of trying to control God from a distance, God will welcome us into his very family as his dearly-loved and highly-privileged sons and daughters. He will become our great king and will faithfully protect, provide, and preside over us in wisdom and love. No, he will not do what you want. Instead, you will do what he wants, and you will find that that’s what you really wanted all along.

B. And, in Ephesus, people responded wonderfully. “17 And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. 18 Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices.” Most likely this means that they told their magic secrets publicly. According to their superstition, magic secrets only worked once, so if they blurted them out it nullified them. This was a public repudiation and abandoning of their magic practice. “19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.”

When I first read this years ago, I pictured these books of ancient wisdom being tossed into bonfires, a great loss to history. But since them I have learned differently. Many of these magical scrolls still exist in large collections in the museums of London, Paris, and Leyden. Listen to a description of them: “The spells they contain are the merest gibberish, a rigamarole of words and names considered to be unusually potent, arranged sometimes in patterns which were part of the essence of the spell.” (Bruce, 392) No great historical secrets were lost that day. But what happened is that “20 So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.”

MAGIC OR FAITH IN CHRIST?

Bruce Wilkinson wrote a popular little book a few years back which made him a millionaire. In it he declared that the 29-word prayer of Jabez was a prayer that God had to answer. Another name for that is magic.

When the TV faith healer offers to send you a cloth that he has personally prayed over and promises it will bring you blessings—magic.

Or the email chain letter religious prayer that you must pass along to at least ten of your friends—magic.

When you make sure that you do your devotions on the day of the big test—magic?

Or when you are quite sure that you will have a good week because you went to church twice last Sunday—magic?

What are the religious pictures and trinkets (charms?) strewn around your home? In some instances they may be magic. You need to search your own heart on this.

Magic demeans and dishonors God. Ultimately it rejects God. Whenever we treat God mechanically, as one who responds to rituals or formula; or when we think that God owes us because of our pious practice or good behavior, beware, we are slipping into magic. And God hates magic. God utterly rejects and condemns magic.

CONCLUSION

Many of these former practitioners of magic found something far better, a living, dynamic relationship with God through his Son. What God offers us in the gospel is himself: “you will be my people, and I will be your God.” All of God’s good gifts come with him, but God is infinitely greater and more delightful than the sum of all of his gifts. God offers himself, but we must trust him, and come to him, abandoning self and sin, and honor him as the greatest treasure of all. Hebrews 11:6 declares: “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” It is to say with the Psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.” (73:25) That kind of relationship with the living God is well worth abandoning useless magic.

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