January 20, 2002
Dear Ones:
During a recent Club meeting, a young lady who was visiting for the first time eagerly entered into the discussion quoting Nostradamus as if his words were Scripture. In fact, when questioned, she said she thought it was Scripture that she was quoting. This kind of thing is not unusual, though it is sad in a nation whose currency still reads .in God we trust.. The topic of the evening was .The God of the Bible.s Views on Psychics.. No, I didn.t think up the topic. It was requested by one of our boys the previous week. Some of our kids and staff were involved in a discussion during the refreshment time. Miss Cleo, the current pop psychic one sees in TV commercials, was being joked about. Some, though, were more serious about her. People like Miss Cleo, Greta Alexander, Jean Dixon, Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, and John Edwards, host of the TV show, Crossing Over, had peaked the interest of more than a few of our teens. Can people really tell the future? If so, how? Can the living really communicate with the dead? What do psychics do to .know. the things they seem to know? How can we explain the experience of deja vu? What is the nature of the supernatural world? I granted the teens. request for doing a meeting on the subject because answering questions is what we are about. This is true even when some of the answers are, .we just don.t know..as in the case of deja vu. God, so far as I am aware, has revealed nothing in His Word on this topic. We must be careful not to supply answers for God when He has been silent on a subject. As for the questions of speaking with the dead and psychics, God has spoken very clearly on this. The Old Testament is explicit in its condemnation of the black arts of necromancy (the practice of communicating with the dead), sorcery, and divination. Those who practice sorcery and divination attempt to divine the future through means of witchcraft or the seeking of familiar spirits. After our discussion, my general comments ranged the New and Old testaments. explicit teachings that these things were evil and energized by fallen angels bent on man.s destruction. The bulk of my devotion came from Samuel 28. This is the sad chapter in Saul.s life when Samuel is dead, and he has alienated God by his disobedience. Saul gets so desperate that he seeks out the witch of Endor to raise Samuel from the dead to comfort and direct him. The witch is scared beyond belief when God, Himself, raises Samuel during her efforts, leaving her terrified when confronted with the real Samuel and not a deceptive spirit (or fallen angel as we learn from the New Testament). Samuel, then, is allowed to deliver a scathing rebuke to Saul, complete with the forecast of Saul.s impending death.

I wanted my teens to go away that night with an understanding that God has spoken and condemned the practices of necromancy, sorcery, and divination. I further wanted them to see that wherever present-day practitioners of these activities think their powers come from, they do not come from God. Finally, I wanted my students to go away with a greater interest in God.s Word. I believe I succeeded that evening. I know I sure tried.