The Root of Witchcraft

So, there is a direct connection between rebellion and witchcraft. When I say rebellion, I mean rebellion against God. This is brought out very clearly in First Samuel 15 and verse 23.

These are words that were spoken by the prophet Samuel to King Saul, after Saul himself had become a rebel. He had refused to obey the particular charge and commission that had been given him by God through the prophet Samuel. And here, Samuel is telling Saul God’s estimate of his conduct.

And he says, we could read verse 22,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”

And now he goes on with this definition of witchcraft.

“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

Samuel makes two comparisons there. Rebellion is a twin of witchcraft. Stubbornness is a twin of idolatry. I’m not going to comment on idolatry at any length, but let me point out one way in which a stubborn person is an idolater. A stubborn person makes idols of his own opinions.

And that’s a form of idolatry. You see, it’s very interesting to consider our attitude in the church today. We won’t accept, as a most part, drunkards or openly immoral people. But how many stubborn people do we have in church? And in God’s eyes, they’re idolaters.

We wouldn’t have somebody who came into the kind of churches we used to with a wooden idol, fall down and worship it in front of the church. We’d say we don’t tolerate that. But alas, I’m afraid we tolerate a lot of stubborn people. And often we let them get away with it.

But let’s return to the other comparison. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Very, very important. The root of witchcraft is rebellion. And wherever you find rebellion, you can anticipate witchcraft. I learnt this in the ministry of deliverance. For instance, I learnt that if a person needed deliverance from a spirit of witchcraft, almost invariably, they also needed deliverance from rebellion.

And conversely, where you encounter a spirit of rebellion, you better check to see that there isn’t also a spirit of witchcraft. They’re close together. Let me try and explain to you simply how this comes about. You see, rebellion rejects God’s authority, legitimate authority, just like King Saul rejected the authority of God’s word.

But you can’t exist in life for long without authority. So, if you don’t have legitimate authority, it’s going to be replaced by illegitimate authority. And if you have illegitimate authority, it has to be supported by illegitimate power. And the illegitimate power that supports rebellion is the power of witchcraft.

So really, wherever you find illegitimate authority being exercised, you better be prepared to deal with witchcraft. There was a very clear example in the United States in the 1960s. There was the rebellious generation. They turned their backs on almost all accepted forms of authority: parents, church, government, whatever. And they became a generation of rebels.

Now, I have dealt with many of them, and many of them that met the Lord are my friends today. But almost without one exception, all those who went in rebellion went into the occult, went into the satanic supernatural, went into witchcraft. This is the logic of spiritual experience. It is almost impossible to be deeply involved in rebellion without sooner or later coming under the power of witchcraft.

If we go back to the example of King Saul for a moment, if you remember the story, he disobeyed Samuel’s injunction to slaughter all the animals that had been captured, and he kept, as he called it, the best to offer to God. God said,

“I’m not interested in your sacrifice because it comes out of disobedience.”

Now, Saul himself, as king of Israel, had actually put away all the witches from Israel. But just before his death, in desperation, when he couldn’t hear from God, he himself sought to a witch. That’s not an accident. That’s cause and effect. I want to emphasize this. Wherever there is rebellion, sooner or later, there will be witchcraft.

And another point is this, that when you want to deal with witchcraft, the satanic supernatural, the occult in all its forms, if you only deal with the occult, you’ve not dealt with the root, because the root is rebellion.