Originally Posted by
Dwight55
This is kind of like the old automotive question: does the coil or the spark plug make the spark?? (An old argument when I was a teenager, hopping up 327's, 350's, 302's, etc.)
Yes, . . . I'll never argue that the magicians did not have a hand in the "magic" they produced. I will only reiterate that if God had chosen not to allow it to happen, . . . it would not have happened. He allowed it as it served His purpose, . . . toward the end of the Red Sea slamming back together with the Egyptians in the middle.
So did He make it happen? No, . . . He only allowed it. And if we had a playbook of the things the magicians had done up until that point, . . . my guess is it would have been a steady progression of events to where they actually began to believe that they "had the power". Once the red sea closed on Pharaoh, . . . we never hear of it again, . . . with the minor exception of the witch of Endor.
The other story that shows to me what little power the sorcerer's or witches actually had was the one of Simon in the book of Acts.
Acts 8:9-11 (KJV)
9 But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:
10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.
11 And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
We have a story that seems that he had some "great powers", . . . until this:
Acts 8:18-19 (KJV)
18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,
19 Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.
He was so taken back by a simple change in a person's life, . . . being born again and filled with the Holy Spirit, . . . that he radically considered it to be "bigger magic" than his sorcery, . . . and was willing to pay what may have been a substantial sum to obtain "this power".
I've always figured him for a charlatan, . . . much like our magic shows we see today, . . . nothing more than illusion, . . . until he bounced up against the real power of the Holy Spirit.
But no matter how it did indeed play out in the past, . . . today there is no documented occurrences of magic, . . . only illusion, . . . and again, . . . if there really were any solid ground on which it could stand, . . . it would be on commercials on TV, . . . with the 3 easy monthly installments to get your "magic" performed for you.
May God bless,
Dwight