Casting Out Your Inner Wizard

John Piper quotes this passage in Deuteronomy in his book The Pleasures of God:

“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. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.” (Deuteronomy 18:10-11, KJV).

I don’t know about you, but I sort of find wizards to be funny. What I find especially funny is the fact that wizards are actually mentioned in the Bible (albeit in a four hundred year old translation). When I think of wizardry and witchcraft, I think of the Middle Ages, Monty Python, silly card games, or live action role playing. It’s safe to say that I don’t take wizardry very seriously.

But the Word of God does, and so must I. Am I claiming that Merlin existed and that people can conjure up spells today? Not exactly. During the Exodus and the settlement of the Promised Land, however, it seems that such a thing was actually a problem. One must remember that Satan has real and tangible power in this world, and it should not surprise us to see examples of that power in real life. But the real key to interpreting this text is not the tangible powers of darkness. Rather, as Piper notes, divination (and I add wizardry) “discounts the guidance and revelation of God, or regards them as wrong or insufficient” (Piper, Pleasures, Multinomah, 2000. p. 240). The sin of divination, wizardry, witchcraft, charming, enchanting, and necromancy is not so much casting spells as it is pretending to know better than God. And that makes it a very relevant sin to our times and to us.

Whenever you and I try to manipulate God, we become witches and wizards. We try to bribe God to give us salvation or something else we want by doing good works. When we trust reason over and against the Bible, we become charmers and enchantresses, relying on the false dictates of reason to lead us into true life. As silly as it might sound, you and I are often wizards by God’s standard. We rely on our own understanding or on the understanding of untempered reason, we abandon the Word of Truth and cast ourselves upon the elemental spirits of this world. And that is why God is concerned with kicking out all the enchanters and necromancers from Israel: because they will not humble themselves before God and listen to His Word. So we must look to Christ to give us the strength to humble ourselves before Him and be open to God’s guidance for us. We would do well to remember that.