The Sinfulness of Soothsaying – Acts 16:16-17

We are told that this young woman was making a great deal of money for her consortium of owners.

As we have seen, she was demon possessed.

It appears that not all demons are commissioned by Satan to do the same sorts of things.

Luke tells us specifically that this woman was possessed with a spirit of divination or a “Spirit of Python,” and that she made her living by “soothsaying.”

That is a very interesting word: “soothsaying.” It has an interesting ring to it, don’t you think?

Have you ever thought very much about it?

Most Christians can explain or basically define soothsaying,

But if they are like me, they haven’t thought very much about it

As I was pondering the word yesterday one though led to another, and then to another.

For example, years ago I remember reading of a character who emphasized things by saying, “forsooth.”

He used it in the same way that our Saviour said, “Verily, verily.”

Try as I might, I never could remember who that was or in what book I read it.

What does “forsooth” mean?

Would it surprise you to learn that it means almost exactly what the Saviour meant with “verily, verily?”

“Sooth” comes out of middle English where it meant “truth.”

“Forsooth” meant “in truth” or “indeed,” and thus “verily, verily.”

But how does that relate to “soothsaying?”

To the superstitious people who spoke Middle English, a soothsayer was a truth-teller.

He was someone who told people the truth about their futures.

I think that this is an interesting word, but with a somewhat contradictory background.

Something else that is unusual about the word is that it is found in the Bible – but only twice.

If the word still meant “truth-teller” then the Bible wasn’t telling us the truth in calling this woman a “soothsayer.” She wasn’t really in the truth business, but the deceit business.

The only other time that we read the word in our English Bibles, it’s Joshua’s commentary on BALAAM.

That man professed to be a prophet of God and even a fortune-teller.

He may have wanted to pronounce curses on Israel, but the Spirit of God caused him to tell the truth.

He not only said that Israel would be blessed by God, but he actually pronounced those blessings.

In the case of this damsel, it must have been that by the early 1600s the word “sooth-sayer” must have lost the “truthful” part of its original definition.

Very briefly this evening, let’s think about this woman once again, but this time in the light of her occupation.

Let’s think about the sinfulness of soothsaying – (not “truth-saying,” but “soothsaying”).

We’ll use these three points: much GAIN, much DECEPTION and much GRIEF.

This woman brought her masters MUCH GAIN by soothsaying.

Obviously, people were paying a fee to hear what his priestess of Delphi had to say about their futures.

She might have been a traveling prophetess, who moved from community to community bilking the foolish.

But it appears that her owners were right there with her, and it appears that there were several of them.

It also appears that they had some influence on the local politicians and police.

It just feels to me that she and her managers were local Philippians.

She probably had a booth in the market place with afternoon and evening hours.

People would put down their copper sesterti, their silver denari or quinari,

And then they would have a certain amount of time with the prophetess.

I have no idea if she would read tea leaves, chicken entrails, their palms or bumps on their heads,

But somehow she would appear to determine people’s specific futures, and she’d tell them about it..

But then on the other side, why do people want to pay great sums of money to know about their futures?

When it comes to finding lost items, I completely understand.

Judy and I were talking to an elder lady a month or so ago, who took her hearing-aids out.

And then later when she wanted them again she couldn’t find them.

Eventually she had to go to Costco, spending several hundred dollars for new hearing aids.

If that lady was a believer in such things, she might have paid $50 to a fortune-teller to save herself a couple hundred dollars more in new hearing-aids.

Finding lost things might make perfect sense.

But WHY do people want to know about their futures?

Isn’t the general answer to that – “sin?”

Some people want to know about the future because they are WORRIERS.

Several people whom they know have cancer, and they are fearful that they too will get cancer.

Or they are planning a long journey, and they worry about road conditions or if their car is up to the trip.

Worry is sin.

Some people want to know what’s coming up because they are DISCONTENT with their lives.

They want change, but it would be good if there was a change coming up in their lives?

To be dissatisfied with the Lord’s will is to sin against God.

A lot of people wish that they had crystal balls because they are GREEDY.

They wish they could find out if that stock that they heard about is going to perform as promised.

Of they would like to know at what precise moment they should sell their stock to make the most profit.

Martha Stewart apparently thought that she had enough information about the future of her stock,

But unfortunately she didn’t look quite far enough into the future to see the length of her jail time.

Perhaps here is something with which you can help me:

I was trying to recall a time when one of the saints of God ever asked the Lord for specific personal information about their futures.

The disciples asked the Lord about the time of His return and events around His second coming,

But that wasn’t of a personal nature.

I couldn’t think of a single case where any of the children of God sought the Lord as a fortune-teller.

There was an occasion when King Saul wanted to know about his future,

But he didn’t pray about it, or go to one of the Lord’s prophets or priests.

Saul went to the camp of the Devil – to the Witch of Endor.

I think that it’s safe to say that God is not in the fortune-telling business.

The whole tenor of revelation suggests that the Lord wants us to trust HIS wisdom for the future.

The Lord tells us to seek His face for our daily bread, and not even for the bread of tomorrow.

He wants us to gather our manna today, and then tomorrow to gather just enough for that day.

We’ve no authority to collect tomorrow’s manna today or even to ask what tomorrow’s flavor is going to be.

I used a word just a moment ago which I found in only one of a dozen commentaries on Acts 16.

Isn’t it strange that only MATTHEW HENRY called this damsel a “witch.”

Isn’t that exactly what she was?

But couldn’t it be that because she was so young, so cute, so beautiful, so abused, so used, or whatever, most of those commentaries refused to call a spade a spade?

There is great gain in the soothsaying industry – especially among the dupes and dopes.

But there is also GREAT DECEPTION.

I alluded to this on the weekend, but let me clarify it just a bit.

I said that good men like John Gill, felt that people like this woman were only pretending to tell the future.

He said that they “pretended to such a spirit, by which they told fortunes,

And what should befall people hereafter,

Or where their lost or stolen goods were, and such like things.”

I try not to disagree with Bro. Gill unless I am forced to by the scripture.

But in this particular case, there can be no doubt that this woman was actually possessed by a spirit.

And furthermore, I think that in a limited way, she was able to predict the short-term future and to help people recover lost or stolen property.

Satan and demons are not omniscient, but they are pervasive, observant and organized.

It would be nothing for a demon to tell this woman that a man would be hit by a rock that afternoon,

And then arrange things so that someone hit that man with a rock.

With the fortune-seeking man, and with the thief, both in the employ of Satan,

It would be nothing for a demon to know the whereabouts of that man’s property.

He could then tell the woman and she could tell the client, leave the appearance of omniscience.

I see no difficulty in this demon-possessed woman APPEARING to have the ability to see into the future or to see into dark corners.

She would not have to pretend to know the future, without really have prescience about the future.

And as I said the other day, if she wasn’t reasonably accurate, I’m sure that she’d loose her credibility, and her marketability, very quickly.

It was all about deception.

Satan has rarely ever come to man in his totally-evil attire.

When he approached Eve, there is reason to believe that it was in the most beautiful regalia.

Whatever the serpent was in that day, it was not like the serpents that we know today.

And when he spoke to our first mother, his lie was carefully shrouded in a thin layer of truth.

When Satan tempted our Saviour, it would have been illogical to completely expose his horrible designs,

So in each aspect of that temptation there was the blend of deceit and truth.

Now here in Acts 16 along he comes shouting the truth about the missionaries.

But as we said on Sunday night, that truth may have been expressed in terrifying, awful or sarcastic ways.

When this damsel told a man that he was going to be hit with a rock, it may have been the truth.

When she said his gold ring was in his neighbor’s house under the bed, she may have been telling truth.

But when she said that she was a spokesman for the wonderful god Apollos, it was a lie.

And when she told people to put their trust in Apollos it was like handcuffing those people to the slimy arms of Satan himself.

The more truth there is in a lie, the more dangerous it becomes. This was woman of great deception.

And lastly, we find in this story GREAT GRIEF.

I think that in both my messages last weekend, I touched on the grief of the Apostle Paul.

I should probably point out that there are several Greek words which are translated “grieve” or “grief.”

There is one that means TO GROAN or SIGH.

There are several which talk about grief in the SENSE OF MOURNING over someone who has died.

But this word talks about GRIEVING THROUGH something or LABORING THROUGH.

It wasn’t that Paul mourned over this poor unfortunate woman.

What she was doing worked its way into Paul’s heart and soul,

And worked its way back out to the point he felt that he had to do something.

“But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.”

For the sake of this last point tonight, I am going to misappropriate that word “grief.”

If you’ll please understand, there is a sense in which THE LORD was greatly grieved over this woman and what she was doing.

Turn to Deuteronomy 13:1-5:

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,

And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.

And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.”

Deuteronomy 18:9-12:

“When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.

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.

For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”

I Chronicles 10:13-14 says:

“So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, even against the word of the LORD, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it;

And enquired not of the LORD: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.”

Galatians 5:19-21:

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

The Bible teaches that the Lord hates people like this and sins like these.

We might say that like Paul, the Lord is GRIEVED with them.

Soothsaying is evil; fortune-telling and fortune-desiring is wicked.

Such things display a lack of faith and a lack of love for the Lord.

And “my son if sinners entice thee,” into this kind of sin “consent thou not.”