KEY SCRIPTURE: Acts 16:18 “And this did she many days. 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.”

The scripture said that as they went to pray, a young girl who had the spirit of divination (note: people with the secular worldview would say the girl had psychic powers, yet the bible said she had the spirit of divination). A spirit is an invincible being with intelligence that lives in her and works through her.

The girl followed Paul and his team, declaring that these men are true servants of the Most High and show unto us the way of salvation. (Acts 16:17). The bible said Paul was grieved in his spirit after a time. Wasn’t this girl saying the truth? Yes, she was, yet she was having a contrary spirit that was imposing as the Spirit of truth. In our day-to-day encounters, we come across people or even persons who hold the bible to preach, yet they are liars. They have contrary spirits and not the spirit of the LORD.

How can we know such people? Jesus said in Matthew 7:16a that, “ye shall know them by their fruits….” Apostle Paul was grieved in his spirit. We need to allow the Spirit to lead us to know the credibility of certain individuals we may be dealing with. It takes the Holy Spirit to help us know whether some people are genuine or not.

The bible said she brought her master much gain (money) by soothsaying. It is always dangerous when the Gospel becomes a means for extorting money from people.

  Certain soothsayers have camouflaged themselves as servants of God. Soothsaying always goes with enchantments and the use of objects of divination. They have special perfumes, powders, and oils, and can even request the slaughter of animals as a form of sacrifice. Please, if you find such people parading as men of God, run away from them.

  Some of them teach that these things were done under the old covenant. Yes, they might have been done under the old covenant, but we are no longer under the Old Testament. Our Lord Jesus established a new covenant. In Matthew 26:27-28, the Lord Jesus did the following: “and he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, drink ye all of it for this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for the remission of sins.” Hebrews 8:8 also says “for finding fault with them, he said, behold, the days come, Saith the Lord, when I would make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. ” Please, we are in a new covenant, and our Lord Jesus is the sacrificial token of the covenant, and no blood sacrifice is ever needed under any condition. Any man of God who asks you to sacrifice any animal for any form of pacification is practicing divination (occult origin), and it has nothing to do with the Spirit of Christ. Beware!

  CONFESSION

Our Lord Jesus established a new covenant with His blood. His sacrifice is an eternal one that requires no more blood sacrifice of any form. I am accepted, justified, and eternally redeemed.

FURTHER STUDIES

Hebrews 8:9  “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord”.

 Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not Christ