Magic

[Guest]

{Its scary buisness, moving away from God....}

Amen Rick, Amen!

Love, Joe

Edited October 11, 2006 by FresnoJoe

[Guest]

God's Servants and The Magicians

Obey God!

"And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent."

(Exodus 7:10 )

Demon Dance

"Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments."

(Exodus 7:11 )

God Rules!

"For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods."

(Exodus 7:12 )

Love, Joe

Edited October 10, 2006 by FresnoJoe

[Prodigalson123]

I talked with a preacher once who lives near a privately owned feild where once a year there is a witches convention, he says the music is so loud it thumps in his house, and its a good 3/4 miles away. He was talking about the music, and the question come up, if he believed that magic is a viable possibility. The only answer he would make is that he believes that Satan is capable of much, and that the danger isn't in the magic itself, or the spells or whatever, but the fact that they are not of God. When people get wrapped up in this stuff, they start saying yes to the world, and no to God. Look at ISA 30, after Israel trusts in the shadow of Egypt and pharoah, soon enough, they ask the prophets to lie to them, and ask the seers to see not, to finish up the request that 'the holy one of Israel cease from before them.'

Its scary buisness, moving away from God....

peace

crabs><>

great points

[SoulGrind]

Ah, right, now this explains a little more. Spirits are demons, or demonic forces - this is what was confusing me most, as the word 'spirit' is one I usually interpret to mean 'ghost.'

So - there is no real magic, only demons convincing people that there is, and doing harm through their attempts to wield it. Yes?

If this is the case, then I wonder again at the venom many Christians hold for fantasy stories. Clearly, such stories are set in hypothetical worlds where magic in the traditional, non-demon-inspired sense, exists. Christian parents could easily tell their children the difference between their opinion of demon-power-magic and what they were reading about or seeing, just the same as every parent can tell a child the difference between a horse, which does exist, and a unicorn, which looks very similar to a horse but which is a separate, fantastic creature.

Eve - you make a GREAT point. I recently volunteered to assist in some local missions work for my church. Our church, along with about 30 other churches form the local area put on a festival/carnival in a local park. It was called "City Kids". Our goal, aside from preaching the gospel was to provide underprivlaged children with school supplies. We gave away books, binders, pencils, paper, back packs, food, etc. And of course, we gave away the gospel message.

Each church was broken down into tents/booths - there were some playing music, some doing puppet shows, our booth was geared towards open-air preaching with one exception... ME.

I set up a small parlor stage between our two booths and I performed "magic".

BEFORE SOMEONE BITES MY HEAD OFF...

I am talking about card tricks, coin tricks, etc. EVERYTHING had a gospel message. Example: I took a blue deck of cards and visibly turned it into a red deck of cards - I used this to describe Jesus turning water into wine.

HOWEVER...

Before I EVER performed in this capacity, I spent SEVERAL HOURS with the elders and deacons going over my material, my wording and phrasing. In the beginning, they were "cautious" - as they should be. However, after realizing I was doing a parlour tricks and not "Magick" (witchcraft, voo-doo, etc.) and I maintained a 100% Christ-centered show for kids telling the story of Jesus from birth, to death, to resurection, and the miracles he performed in between, it was then and only then that my church agreed to allow me to perform.

SO HOW DOES THIS TIE IN WITH YOUR POST?

Simple - as you stated - we need to teach our children (and all non-believers) the distinction between "Fantasy" and the occult. It's one thing to read the tale of "King Arthur and Merlin the Magician". It's quite another to read "Ouija Board's for Dummies". However, it's only through CAREFUL instruction of the Word of God that non-believers or new believers can learn to recognize the difference between the David Copperfield's of the world and those who perform demonic rituals, not to entertain, but to exercise Satanic power.

Edited October 12, 2006 by SoulGrind

[SoulGrind]

To answer the original post there is no magic. No one has ever documented any supernatural occurances truthfully. The only testamony you can find is here say (not heresy) without any credible witnesses. There is a lot of wishful thinking as this kind of thing is , exciting. It breaks the boredom of life itself. As to the bible offering reliable testamony of such things the bible is not a textbook. It's only credible if you believe it, not because it has been shown to be error free. Some things in the bible are true and some things are not.

Well, that's a mighty BIG statement without citing a single proof.

Please, for the record, show us something from the Bible that, as you say "is not true", and, without personal bias, or opinion, based upon factual, credible evidence, direct us towards the truth you speak of. Also, please keep in mind, your evidence should not only support your claim that the segment of the Bible you speak of is false, it MUST also remain within the context of that particular section of the Bible (who wrote that section, who/why the section was written about/for, when it was written, proper attribution to the original language it was written in, and where it was written). Only after maintaining the context of the portion of the Bible you claim to be false and provide conclusive, empirical evidence against the context of that portion of the Bible will you have managed to prove it false. Until then, I am highly skeptical that you have the means by which to achieve this. Keep in mind, the Bible has been around in for a few thousand years and no one has produced such level of "proof" against the Holy scriptures. It's an arrogant thing to make such a claim without citing any form of legitimate evidence to the contrary.

Best of luck to you!

Edited October 12, 2006 by SoulGrind

[Guest GWG]

Here's a few reasons for the Old Testament to "contradict" itself. First off, the Modern Hebrew Language is one of the hardest languages to understand because one word can have seven different meanings. Now, go through Israelite History & count how many different times they were conquered. They were conquered at least 5 different times. The conquerors: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon (or Chaldea) Greece, & Rome. Now, back during Ancient times the nation which conquered another had to break their prisoners by removing from them their lifestyle, language religion & anything else that rebels could use to rally the people. So each time Israel was conquered it lost a piece of it's language because, as in the case with the egyptians, they were held prisoners so long that they soon had to adopt the conquerors language & thus they spoke a different language from what their ancestors had. Second, the reason we have copies of the Old Testament is because of men called Scribes & what the scribes did was copy the manuscripts of each of the books in the OT by hand from morning till night. Now, not only was it hard to do that all day but the books of the OT were written at different time periods & thus, as I said earlier, what means one thing in the Egyptian variant of Hebrew means another in the Babylonian variant. And Finally, the Old Testament we read isn't even the same as the Hebrew variants. Here's the link to the website that describes this in more detail: http://ecclesia.org/truth/ot_manuscripts.html

This would explain the contradictions now wouldn't it?

Go With God,

GWG

Edited October 18, 2006 by GWG

[secondeve]

Here's a few reasons for the Old Testament to "contradict" itself. First off, the Modern Hebrew Language is one of the hardest languages to understand because one word can have seven different meanings. Now, go through Israelite History & count how many different times they were conquered. They were conquered at least 5 different times. The conquerors: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon (or Chaldea) Greece, & Rome. Now, back during Ancient times the nation which conquered another had to break their prisoners by removing from them their lifestyle, language religion & anything else that rebels could use to rally the people. So each time Israel was conquered it lost a piece of it's language because, as in the case with the egyptians, they were held prisoners so long that they soon had to adopt the conquerors language & thus they spoke a different language from what their ancestors had. Second, the reason we have copies of the Old Testament is because of men called Scribes & what the scribes did was copy the manuscripts of each of the books in the OT by hand from morning till night. Now, not only was it hard to do that all day but the books of the OT were written at different time periods & thus, as I said earlier, what means one thing in the Egyptian variant of Hebrew means another in the Babylonian variant. And Finally, the Old Testament we read isn't even the same as the Hebrew variants. Here's the link to the website that describes this in more detail: http://ecclesia.org/truth/ot_manuscripts.html

This would explain the contradictions now wouldn't it?

Go With God,

GWG

If the Bible is the holy and inerrant word of God, which transcends the faults of men, then I have the following questions about your defence:

1. How could the language or meaning have been corrupted by human scribes? If it had been altered by human scribes, doesn't that mean that the Bible has been influenced by man, and so is therefore potentially errant?

2. Why are the time periods in which the books were written relevent, if God is the ultimate author? Surely the perfection of his word would transcend earthly errors or confusions?

[Guest Theology_Professor]

Magic exists.

Many people who think the OT is in contradiction do understand what they are reading. Different time frames can be in view when passages are quoted. "tempt" in one verse is not the same as "tempt" in another. Most Christians have no idea of Jewish wording ... it is not always the face value as people think. It causes them to misunderstand both the OT and NT. Passages that appear to be parallel are not necessarily.

[Chelsea7]

It's as real as satan, and is a manafest of his power, My advice, Stay away, stay far far away/.

[Guest GWG]