We have to make a decision of who will lead us. People are looking for direction. Unfortunately, we often look in the wrong place. We’re going to look in a story in the Bible of a particular woman and she was being led or spoken to; she was listening to voices. She wasn’t listening to the voice of God, she was listening to the voice of an evil spirit. We’re going to find as we see this story, that many people paid her money to tell their future. So let’s have a look at the story: it’s found in Acts chapter 16 verse 16.
“Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divi nation met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour.”
So Paul was in the city of Philippi, and Philippi was a very famous city. There was a region in Philippi, the region called Putho. There was what’s called an oracle there. It was the centre of fortune-telling. They worshipped the god Apollo, who’s the god of fine arts: music and public speaking, and drama. In legend, he’d conquered a serpent there, a python. So they worshipped this python and it was the centre of divination or fortune-telling.
People would come from all over the world: people are wanting to conduct new business, people wanting to get into some kind of career; people in government. Wherever people had to make decisions, they would come to have their fortune told, and they would pay money. They would pay money to the person, and we’d call that person a ‘psychic’. So, the whole city was full of psychics, and they had one major psychic there.
There was a spirit of fortune-telling or divination sat over the whole region. It was like this oppressive spirit, this demonic power rested over the region. So, there was a lot of fortune-telling going on, much spiritual activity, and like a heaviness over the whole area. People would pay their money, and the psychic would talk to them, the psychic would speak to them about their future, about their life and their future.
But the Bible says of this woman – that she had a spirit wrapped around her. It was in the shape of a python. You couldn’t see the spirit, but it was in the form of a snake, a big python wrapped around her. It’s head was right up by her ear, and it was a demonic spirit, it would speak into her life. She could hear its voice speaking. She would hear a voice from the spirit world speaking to her, and it would talk and give her information. While she had that spirit, it would give her information she couldn’t know any other way.
Divination is reaching into the spirit world to obtain knowledge and information from evil spirits rather than God. God has created us for relationship with Him. God is a Spirit and He’s made us spiritual beings, and God wants to talk to us. The Bible says He has a plan for your life, He has purposes for your life, and He wants to direct your life.
Notice what Jesus said: “I’m the good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice.” That means God talks with us. He says – “They follow me. They follow my leading or direction.” He says: “I lead them into good places.” But there is another voice. The voice of demonic spirits; and the Bible tells us in this story, that the woman made a lot of money from people who wanted to know about their future.