What Sorcery Is

It’s the word pharmacia. Sound familiar? Pharmacy. It literally meant drugs, but drugs were concoctions that sorcerers used. And so pharmacia means a drug, or a user of drugs. And then there’s pharmacius, which means the one who deals in drugs. Both of those words appear several times in the book of Revelation, as the world comes to its end and people are caught up in sorcery and drugs, and will not repent. So the ancient Greco-Roman worship of Dionysus, which was the dominant cult, was basically dependent on drunkenness. How else could you give yourself over to debauchery consistently all the time, over and over and over and over again, without a screaming conscience? Satan knew that to cause people to behave in that way, they needed to have their thinking altered.

The cult of Dionysus was most recognised for wild dancing, for the kind you would see probably in any modern dance club. Madness, a kind of abandonment, music, sexual perversion, drunkenness and sorcery, or drugs. The ancient Roman writers wrote a lot about this. Euripides is one who wrote of some of the horrifying rituals that I won’t assault your mind with. Dionysus eventually became known as the god of wine, and his Roman name, that’s the Greek name. The Roman name was Bacchus. Have you ever heard of a Bacchanalian feast? That’s a drunken orgy.

Bacchus is the wine god. I remember a story of a minister’s trip years ago being in Baalbek in the Middle East, and visiting the ruins of the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek, where Bacchus was worshipped. And among the many things you saw, there were carvings of grapes and things like that, signalling the use of wine. But there were great pits in the middle of the floor which were used, the guides told us, for the people to vomit and regurgitate as they feasted and expressed themselves in drunken debauchery. There were also, etched into all of those remaining stones, nymphs and satyrs.

It was the height of satanic religion unmasked, and really not a lot unlike Baal worship, or the worship of any other false gods in the Old Testament age as well. So you see, in ancient Greek culture, if you were in the culture and you were socially active and you participated in the culture, you participated in the worship of the culture, because that was essentially the heart and soul of the culture. And you needed to comply with the worship, or the god would be angry with you, and if they were angry with you, they would be angry with the city, and the city would pay the consequences of an angry god.

So they needed you to conform, and so the society was debauched, so drinking wine, using drugs, was not a way simply to escape your problems. It was not about producing a buzz so that you could have a little joy in an otherwise boring life. It had to do with elevating you to kinds of behaviours that were essentially done to please the sordid, corrupt, demonic deities. In fact, this was so prevailing that when people came to Christ in the ancient Greek and Roman world, they had a hard time divesting themselves from it.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 10. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, I’ll give you an illustration of it. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul is writing to the Corinthians about their behaviour at the Lord’s table, the communion. And we can pick it up down in verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 10. And Paul is about to launch into a long section on the Lord’s supper, the rest of chapter 10, and into chapter 11. But he begins by saying this in verse 14, therefore, my beloved, he’s talking to believers, flee from idolatry. Now you would say to yourself, wait a minute, if they are believers, they have already fled from idolatry.

Well, they may have fled from idolatry in a saving sense and put their trust in Christ alone, but they had not yet been able to completely divest themselves of the behaviours of that idolatry. They therefore needed to flee in the sanctified sense. Flee from idolatry. Can you say that to a believer? Sure. Any time that a believer, one who belongs to Christ, is entangled with the corruption of the world, you have to remind them to flee fully in a sanctified sense, what they once fled fully in a salvation sense. So he goes on to say this, and this will show you how this had infected the communion and the spirit.

In chapter 13, Paul says, I speak as to wise men, you judge what I say, now I want you to think this through and be wise. And remember now, last week we talked about walk in wisdom, right? The verse immediately proceeding, don’t get drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit. The prior command was to be wise, walk wisely. So here it is again, flee idolatry, which is an expression of wisdom. And then he says in verse 16, is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? And the answer is, of course, is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Yes.

Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Look at the nation Israel, are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar. What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I’m not saying an idol is anything. Why does he bring idols up? Why does he start by saying flee from idolatry? Why does he then talk about the cup of blessing, the blood of Christ, the bread, the body of Christ, and then go back to idols and sacrifices to idols? Because the people had dragged their behaviours from their idolatrous, pagan perversions into the table of the Lord.

And that becomes very obvious. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of what sorcery is. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].